Windows 10 [2014 - 2017]

[sir doris]

Just a quick question regarding Win 10. I have an upgraded system from 8.1 Pro, which was upgraded from 8. 8 was a fresh install from an upgrade from 7.

Now I need to do a fresh install as I need to add a new SSD, take out a smaller SSD and clear lot's of stuff out. Can I just install Win10 from a USB stick and activate it with my existing Windows 8 Pro (Upgrade) key, or do I have to somehow grow a windows 10 key?

 

[Arwin]

Even your original Windows 7 key should work afaik?

 

[Kaotik]

Just a quick question regarding Win 10. I have an upgraded system from 8.1 Pro, which was upgraded from 8. 8 was a fresh install from an upgrade from 7.

Now I need to do a fresh install as I need to add a new SSD, take out a smaller SSD and clear lot's of stuff out. Can I just install Win10 from a USB stick and activate it with my existing Windows 8 Pro (Upgrade) key, or do I have to somehow grow a windows 10 key?

As long as you're installing Win10 1151 (the November update), it will accept Win7, 8, 8.1 and 10 keys

 

[Davros]

Or you could clone your current drive onto the new drive and then upgrade
I used this when upgrading to a ssd
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

[sir doris]

Many thanks for the info.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just bought a Surface Pro 4. So far, can't say I'm impressed. Win 10 aesthetic extremely bland and rather ugly. Also Windows Update kept hanging and updates haven't been installing, requiring restarts and general poking to get the thing to proceed. This is MS OS running on MS hardware fresh from the factory, and it still doesn't work flawlessly. The days of Windows being as smooth and convenient as Android or consoles aren't with us yet. Although to be fair I am running Kaspersky as well which may interfere with smooth operation. And a friend tried to play Pixeljunk Shooter on a PS4 today which switched the machine off, then hung at loading, and then, after a power off, refused to let a second player join. I guess as MS get better, everyone else gets worse, until we stabilise in a common middle ground where nothing really works properly...

 

[iroboto]

Just bought a Surface Pro 4. So far, can't say I'm impressed. Win 10 aesthetic extremely bland and rather ugly. Also Windows Update kept hanging and updates haven't been installing, requiring restarts and general poking to get the thing to proceed. This is MS OS running on MS hardware fresh from the factory, and it still doesn't work flawlessly. The days of Windows being as smooth and convenient as Android or consoles aren't with us yet. Although to be fair I am running Kaspersky as well which may interfere with smooth operation. And a friend tried to play Pixeljunk Shooter on a PS4 today which switched the machine off, then hung at loading, and then, after a power off, refused to let a second player join. I guess as MS get better, everyone else gets worse, until we stabilise in a common middle ground where nothing really works properly...

Yikes that sucks Shifty. Was the purchase for development? Or just casual replacement of older hardware?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Replacement for an original Note 10.1 for use in Lots Of Things. It's a painful experience. Want to run Art Rage, a full feature drawing app rather than the Android 'lite' equivalents. Installed fine. Went to open the .eml copy of the registration code and there's no application able to open it. So I set up Outlook, not wanting to use this machine in any way as a replacement for my desktop and not wanting email on it. This then changes my password to access the tablet (a short four letter code) to my 12 code, alphanumeric mixed symbol, hard to crack email protecting code. Now it takes frickin' ten minutes to type in a code, changing to symbols and back again, to enter the tablet! Why the heck would I want the same code protecting my email protecting my tablet which is with me at all times and only needs stop a thief from gaining access?

And after all that, Art Rage runs at half res! Which I've just read on the forum is a hard limit of the software. That's actually majorly crap as it was the drawing app I was relying on working.
So it's no better than Sketchbook on the Note. Not really the wonderful high-tech experience I was hoping for. Also general usability on the Note was way better. Samsung have a number of awesome features like snapshoting any screen and being able to draw over it. For a premium device that's following 3 years behind Samsung, the SP is pretty lacking in user experience.

 

[hoom]

Found randomly on imgur, I lolled
http://imgur.com/tNz1z9r

 

[Rurouni]

The problem with orangpelupa is his cat. It interferes with his PS4, laptop, PC and basically all of his gadgets/electronic devices.

 

[Grall]

Found randomly on imgur, I lolled

"It puts the lotion on its skin."

A poster over at Kotaku described how Win10 auto-"upgraded" his PC, then proceeded to wreck the shit out of it so it wouldn't work anymore...

Microsoft. Don't you just love them? I don't get how they have the audacity to fuck with peoples' computers like this.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Replacement for an original Note 10.1 for use in Lots Of Things. It's a painful experience. Want to run Art Rage, a full feature drawing app rather than the Android 'lite' equivalents. Installed fine. Went to open the .eml copy of the registration code and there's no application able to open it. So I set up Outlook, not wanting to use this machine in any way as a replacement for my desktop and not wanting email on it. This then changes my password to access the tablet (a short four letter code) to my 12 code, alphanumeric mixed symbol, hard to crack email protecting code. Now it takes frickin' ten minutes to type in a code, changing to symbols and back again, to enter the tablet! Why the heck would I want the same code protecting my email protecting my tablet which is with me at all times and only needs stop a thief from gaining access?

And after all that, Art Rage runs at half res! Which I've just read on the forum is a hard limit of the software. That's actually majorly crap as it was the drawing app I was relying on working.
So it's no better than Sketchbook on the Note. Not really the wonderful high-tech experience I was hoping for. Also general usability on the Note was way better. Samsung have a number of awesome features like snapshoting any screen and being able to draw over it. For a premium device that's following 3 years behind Samsung, the SP is pretty lacking in user experience.

Not a lot of time, but here's a quick look at some good free art apps useable with the SP4 by a professional illustrator/artist.

Maybe, you can find a decent replacement for your work flow. AFAIK Art Rage isn't one of the better ones on PC. That resolution limit on the software boggles my mind. I hate when a developer doesn't properly support their software in Windows. Those aren't necessarily the ones most of the artists are using on Windows but they are free, and they are pretty good.

If you need interoperability with Android there's some he looks at that has that as well.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Oooo, angry feelings! I go looking for an alternative and am pleased to see Autodesk Sketchbook on the Store. I have this on Android and the pro version was less than a fiver (under £5). Run it and the pro version on Windows is $30 every year! A frickin' subscription for what's throw-away money on Android and iOS. With a price difference like that, Windows is really going to struggle. I don't know if that sort of gouging is commonplace?

Thankfully I had the idea to try compatibilty this morning and there's a Scaling for High DPI option. When disabled, the UI is tiny and the canvas is huge! So it's a goer. Meaning the official support saying the blurry UI was a limit on a Surface Pro 4 was mistaken.

@Silent_Buddha. Thanks for the link. I went looking and didn't find much myself. Mischief looks quite cool. However, ArtRage is excellent and I can only guess you're confusing it with some other app. It's a full-priced drawing app with natural media, so paint blending, watercolour and oil. It also has custom brushes (paint tubes?) so you can grab a few images and arrange them with settings to be able to draw, say, a spray of leaves. It's the custom brushes feature I was really looking forwards to when working with children.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Anyone know how to get apps to play nice with the ultra high DPI? My video editing software also upscales awkwardly. If I choose native rendering, it's frickin' tiny. I'm guessing that these programs are using 2D UIs rather than Windows UI system, which means they can't scale. Which in turn is another issue for Surface Pro - all this lovely software, but it doesn't match nicely with the hardware. I suppose that's also an issue on iOS and Android, with ultra high res screens not playing nice with every app.

 

[Gubbi]

I suppose that's also an issue on iOS and Android, with ultra high res screens not playing nice with every app.

Less of an issue with Android, since they more or less abstracted the resolution of the display out the equation from the get go. On Android you usually size/position elements in resolution independent points, which may wary with screen size, but not with resolution, generally.

iOS' solution is a kludge, but a workable kludge thanks to the limited amount of form factors.

Cheers

 

[orangpelupa]

Not a lot of time, but here's a quick look at some good free art apps useable with the SP4 by a professional illustrator/artist.

Maybe, you can find a decent replacement for your work flow. AFAIK Art Rage isn't one of the better ones on PC. That resolution limit on the software boggles my mind. I hate when a developer doesn't properly support their software in Windows. Those aren't necessarily the ones most of the artists are using on Windows but they are free, and they are pretty good.

If you need interoperability with Android there's some he looks at that has that as well.

Regards,
SB

That review is too "general"

There's a bunch of exclusive features for that each app that he did not mention


Sketchbook : easy copy paste and 3d perspective generation (you can copy a facade of a building to another facade at another angle. It knows it's 3d.)

Mischief : it's completely VECTOR so it have infinite resolution and super small file size.

The windows app he mentioned first also have exclusive feature that I forgot.

Has been not using my Vaio tap 11 for months since it's fan dead (and the replacement fan is DOA). Now I kinda miss drawing again...

Hmm, time to charge my Nintendo 3ds

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Less of an issue with Android, since they more or less abstracted the resolution of the display out the equation from the get go. On Android you usually size/position elements in resolution independent points, which may wary with screen size, but not with resolution, generally.

That's if you use the system APIs for drawing. Anything that draws sprites (eg Unity games) has to handle different resolutions themselves. Typically they just upscale the graphics, and nowadays may privde a high res download. The problem with some Windows apps seems to be when they deviated from the Windows Look (a good thing, because it suits the app better), now their graphics are a mess. ArtRage has beautiful, fixed sized icons. Drawn per pixel, they are very small! But stull usable. Magix Video Pro uses a load of custom widgets at fixed pixel sizes (like 16x16 pixels) and it's unusable at native res. While in scaled mode, it's about 720p res and not even screen estate to be useful. Their companion sound app is a ghastly mix of native font rendering and custom widgets, meaning tiny icons interspered with large text.

That's a 'fault' of the developer, I recognise, but it means the Windows Tablet experience is a naff one until the apps properly support it. However, one is concerned if they'll bother. Super high res is typically for massive displays and huge amounts of screen estate. It's only super high res, tiny screens that are a problem, and if there aren't enough in the wild, will they get the support needed?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's a 'fault' of the developer, I recognise, but it means the Windows Tablet experience is a naff one until the apps properly support it. However, one is concerned if they'll bother. Super high res is typically for massive displays and huge amounts of screen estate. It's only super high res, tiny screens that are a problem, and if there aren't enough in the wild, will they get the support needed?

Quick post. There's hope for that. Adobe has been updating their apps to support Hi-DPI Surface (and by extension any Hi-DPI) touch display. The same guy that did that quick 5 drawing app thing also goes into that in some detail in one of his other videos. It's come a LONG way from where it was a year ago. Hopefully the folks doing Art Rage will do something similar at some point.

As to the price difference between Mobile and Windows versions of some of those apps. Unfortunately just a side effect of Mobile = consumer and Windows = professional in the minds of the app developers. So they figure they can get more money out of Windows users. At least there's usually more features in the Windows versions. Whether that means it's worth the extra cost or not? I imagine it is for most professionals. But for consumers it's certainly a harder sell.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm happy to pay more for proper apps. Just don't try selling me a £5 mobile app for £30 a year! It's like cheapo mobile games getting £5+ releases on consoles. The price differential is too much and so flippin' obvious. How much was Angry Birds on PlayStation? If MS want Windows to be a mobile OS, used on phones, it needs to offer a mobile experience.

In that regard, having now used Windows 10, I think MS are a long way from getting there and I'm completely rethinking my MS future. In tablet mode, the keyboard doesn't appear when needed and you can't manually bring it up - the icon is just missing. So trying to enter a scaling value >100% in ArtRage, I had to swap out of tablet mode to have the option to manually bring up the keyboard. The whole device feels like it needs a keyboard. It's a laptop really, maybe with a simplified interface for general browsing but unable to be a tablet PC in applications at the moment. It's lacking all the niceties of Android like pull down/up brightness setting.

Annoyingly the only large stylus-empowered Android tablet was the Samsung Note Pro and that had a truly crap RGBW screen that made it an atrocity (bought one, sent it back!). I kept wating for them to release a large Android tablet with OLED screen but they've gone Windows 10. I can see the appeal in an iPad Pro now. That's probably the only true professional-grade tablet out there when you factor in software. Although maybe Windows 10 apps in the truly high end ($000's of dollars/hefty subscriptions) like After Effects and Vegas scale accordingly for those with the budget?

 

[zed]

Anyone know how to get apps to play nice with the ultra high DPI?

On my high DPI monitor and win10, heres what I do every morning.
turn on PC, boot up, log out, log in. Viola! give it a try