time to replace components in wife's computer for dreaded Win10 to Win11

pseymour said:

I'm a clean installer, mostly because I have multiple machines I use for different test scenarios.

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Could you replace that with VMs?

pseymour said:

I used to automate my own app installs, but I gutted all of that and moved all those scripts over to winget.

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I no longer have the time and patience to do a clean install, and then install lots and lots of applications one at a time, then configure them to my preferences to match between desktop and laptop.

However, I have tried UniGetUI, which is a great program overall, but unfortunately some of my most important and complex to install programs aren't supported by Winget. To wit:

Adobe Bridge
Adobe Lightroom Classic (desktop-based)
Adobe Lightroom (uses Adobe cloud)
Adobe Creative Cloud (Adobe's master installer tool)
Adobe Photoshop

BitDefender Total Security
Macrium Reflect Free


Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft 1Note
Microsoft Nikon NEF codec
Microsoft Windows Subsystem for Linux

Nitro PDF Pro (highly recommended replacement for Adobe Acrobat Pro, no subscription)
Retrospect Backup
SamSung Magician
Silverfast scanner software
UnigetUI

So I am planning to try out the free versions of commerical program installers like PatchMyPC, Action1, Avira and GitHub programs like Update Hub, to supplement UniGetUI. Don't get me wrong. UniGetUI is a great way to use winget and chocolatey installers.

pseymour said:

I can install Windows in 5-6 minutes, and my apps take 12-15; most of that is Visual Studio. Put my two standard tweak scripts in place, and I'm off and running.

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Ok, I'm impressed with your install times. Extremely impressed. Do you use an unattended file for Windows?
Do you have any programs not supported by winget?

Are you comfortable posting your standard scripts?

x509 said:

Could you replace that with VMs?

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Most of the time, but there still exists software that does not like being in a VM. Just had to deal with one this week at work.

Edit: Sorry @x509, I somehow missed the bottom part of your post. I do use a very minimal unattend to set language, locale, and time zone; skip the OOBE stuff; and create local accounts. I use diskpart scripts to do partitioning, because I have different partitioning schemes I use sometimes; I want the flexibility to be able to pick from a set of partitioning schemes, so I don't put it in the unattend.

As for things not supported by winget, just a couple developer tools that I don't use that often. I just install them the first time I need them. Or maybe I should put them in winget and be a contributor instead of a taker. :)

My config scripts aren't commented, so they won't make a lot of sense. I'll see if I can get them commented and post them in this thread. There's nothing private or proprietary in them.

Windows 8.1 should be Windows 9, but Microsoft tried to hide the fact it is a DIFFERENT version of Windows and tried to convince us it is merely an upgrade. If it really was an upgrade (such as from Windows 11 23H2 to 24H2) we wouldn't have to buy a new license for it. That's the reason why the next version is Windows 10 and not 9. I remember downloading a Beta version of Windows 10 to have an preview of what it would be like and I was frightened by the horrible system icons! I decided that I would never install Windows 10 and stick to Windows 8.1 as long as I can. They looked like they were drawn by kindergarten children or worse! That ugly! Visit link below to see for yourself. Thankfully after too many complaints from other beta testers they improved them for the standard release. However they remain flat and frequently dual-color while those of Windows 7 and 8.1 were much nicer. This is the reason why I use tools such as Customizer God and Resource Hacker to replace the default system icons with those of Windows 7 or 8.1 Windows 11 has nicer icons but still they do not compare to Windows 7 beautiful 3D colorful icons. Thanks to all those utilities to customize our system we can have the look and feel of Windows 7 and 8.1 or even XP in Windows 10/11.


PS: Playing with numbers: Windows 1, Windows 2, Windows 286 (2.x), Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, Windows 95 (version 4), Windows 98 (version 4.x), Windows ME (version 4.x), Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), Windows XP (NT 5.2), Windows Vista (NT 6.0), Windows 7 (NT 6.1 or 6+1=7), Windows 8 (NT 6.2 or 6+2=8), Windows 8.1 (NT 6.3 or 6+3=9 or 8+1=9), Windows 10 (NT 6.4 or 6+4=10, later versions change to Windows 10.0.19xxx to be similar to Windows 10 Phone), Windows 11 (Windows 10.0.2xxxx and higher. Yes, 11 is 10 with a new skin and new features all 10 drivers work in 11 and all "11" drivers work in 10). Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.3775 is version 10.0.26100.3775

spapakons said:

Windows 8.1 should be Windows 9, but Microsoft tried to hide the fact it is a DIFFERENT version of Windows and tried to convince us it is merely an upgrade. If it really was an upgrade (such as from Windows 11 23H2 to 24H2) we wouldn't have to buy a new license for it.

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Uhhh, Windows 8.1 was a free upgrade from version 8. If you bought a new license, that's on you.

spapakons said:

That's the reason why the next version is Windows 10 and not 9.

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No it isn't.

Free upgrade? I don't remember that. I might be wrong though. I remember Windows 10 was a free upgrade from either Windows 7 or 8/8.1 Also Windows 11 is a free upgrade from Windows 10. Guess what? You can also upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 21H2 directly. I haven't tried to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 23H2 or 24H2, so I don't know if this is possible. In worst case I would go 8.1 to 10 22H2 and then to 11 24H2.

OldNavy said:

x509,
Microsoft don't go backwards, can't see V12 being as good as you say.

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I share the same sentiments. What with all this AI stuff they keep pushing the future for V12 is looking mighty dark to me. What would be really, really great is if they just came out with a bare bones skeleton OS that allowed the user to select modules from the Windows Store to build and personalize their OS the way they want it to look and run. Now that would be an improvement. That way people who are happy with the basics could stick to the basics. Those who wanted more could purchase the Windows apps they needed for those things that applied to their personal tastes and needs. But.. I've mentioned this before. I suppose one can dream.

spapakons said:

Free upgrade? I don't remember that. I might be wrong though. I remember Windows 10 was a free upgrade from either Windows 7 or 8/8.1 Also Windows 11 is a free upgrade from Windows 10. Guess what? You can also upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 21H2 directly. I haven't tried to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 23H2 or 24H2, so I don't know if this is possible. In worst case I would go 8.1 to 10 22H2 and then to 11 24H2.

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Windows 8 got such a poor reception that MS offered a free "update" to Win8.1. I tried it, but I I wasn't a lot more impressed so I stayed with Win7 until Win10 came out.

spapakons said:

Windows 8.1 should be Windows 9, but Microsoft tried to hide the fact it is a DIFFERENT version of Windows and tried to convince us it is merely an upgrade. If it really was an upgrade (such as from Windows 11 23H2 to 24H2) we wouldn't have to buy a new license for it.

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↑ This. I agree 100% that Windows 8.1 should have been called Windows 9 and I don't buy the Microsnot excuse for it causing confusion with the very old legacy versions of Windows. That's balderdash. No, it is precisely what spapakons has stated here: They didn't want people to know that Windows 8 was such a complete and utter disaster that they had to replace it with an entirely different operating system. If you do the research you'll discover precisely how different Windows 8.1 is from Windows 8. It's incredible! So this is the real reason why we never saw Windows 9. They were already working on it and they had to hustle to fix the disaster they generated.

That said it was possible to use your Windows 8 key to acquire Windows 8.1. They had to do that because hundreds of thousands of people who purchased the horrible nightmare called Windows 8 would have pulled out their torches and pitchforks. I remember the entire fiasco. In fact, I recall how as a Windows Insider I tried to "upgrade" my wife's Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 and it crashed her system and rejected her license key. I had to call Microsoft to fix it by phone and I still remember typing in all those characters on the telephone keypad to make it work. Tech support also had me use a brand new 1TB hard drive (fortunately I had one on hand). So, yeah, it was possible to use the Windows 8 key for Windows 8.1 but sometimes the key was rejected and then you had to call up Microsoft to validate your key. Since I purchased Windows 8 directly from the Windows Store there was no question concerning its authenticity. It was on Microsoft to fix it.

The Mrs was very happy to have a brand new 1TB hard drive. This was back when a 1TB hard drive was nothing to sneeze at. I was a bit put off because I was trying to get parts for my next build and saving up. Anyway it's all history now. All I can say is good riddance to that.

pseymour said:

Most of the time, but there still exists software that does not like being in a VM. Just had to deal with one this week at work.

Edit: Sorry @x509, I somehow missed the bottom part of your post. I do use a very minimal unattend to set language, locale, and time zone; skip the OOBE stuff; and create local accounts.

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I think I should do the same.

pseymour said:

I use diskpart scripts to do partitioning, because I have different partitioning schemes I use sometimes;

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Yeah. Each of my 4 systems, including my wife's, needs a different partition arrangement

pseymour said:

I want the flexibility to be able to pick from a set of partitioning schemes, so I don't put it in the unattend.

As for things not supported by winget, just a couple developer tools that I don't use that often. I just install them the first time I need them. Or maybe I should put them in winget and be a contributor instead of a taker. :)

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:)

pseymour said:

My config scripts aren't commented, so they won't make a lot of sense. I'll see if I can get them commented and post them in this thread. There's nothing private or proprietary in them.

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spapakons said:

. Yes, 11 is 10 with a new skin and new features all 10 drivers work in 11 and all "11" drivers work in 10). Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.3775 is version 10.0.26100.3775

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Personally I think that Microsoft made a migration a lot harder than it should have been because trying to maintain a Win 10 Explorer interface and the home screen appearance needed so many third party tools. In fact, I would go further and state that Microsoft shold have included some features new to Win 11 as Win 10 2H23. E.g. the new notepad, or the part of explorer that shows common options on a separate bar. E.g. Recycle Bin and Empty.

Why was it necessary to move the START button?

x509 said:

Why was it necessary to move the START button?

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They have actually explained this one. It's because of the huge monitors people sometimes use. When the Start button is on the left, it's no longer in your field of view on these huge displays. I'm not saying they're correct or incorrect, but that was the reason given.

WSJ's site seems to have trouble at the moment, but you can find this interview in the Wayback Machine.

pseymour said:

Uhhh, Windows 8.1 was a free upgrade from version 8. If you bought a new license, that's on you.



No it isn't.

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I believe that's all correct.

I bought upgrades to 8 from 7 directly from Microsoft. I don't recall the price, but I believe it was much less than a non-upgrade 8 license.

The 8 to 8.1 upgrade was free.

At Windows 10's release, I believe that the justification offered for the name was to avoid confusion with Windows 9X.

bobkn said:

At Windows 10's release, I believe that the justification offered for the name was to avoid confusion with Windows 9X

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I’m not sure they officially said, but that’s the prevailing theory. Some devs check the version number incorrectly, so if you have an old app that worked on 95 and 98, they may check for “Windows 9” as a substring of the name. A real Windows 9 would cause a little chaos. And if your app is that old, it’s probably too old for someone to care about fixing it.

A Windows 9x application would see version NT 6.3 (Windows 8.1 version) and would not load. Windows 9x were legacy version 4.x, not NT 4.0 or higher. Unless it wouldn't check the version at all and just try to run.

NT stands for New Technology which was 32-bit only and different from Windows 9x that was hybrid 16-bit/32-bit for backwards compatibility. In Windows NT they didn't care about backwards compatibility, they just built a new OS for businesses. That's why the need for NTVM to run old 16-bit and DOS applications and of course it wasn't 100% compatible as Windows 9x. So if you had a business computer you would use Windows NT 4.0 but for a home computer you needed Windows 95/98 to maximise compatibility with most hardware and games. Early adopters of Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) were surprised to realise they couldn't play their games and couldn't find drivers for their old devices. Windows 2000 initially had no DirectX required by most Windows games. It was available later. This should teach them to first TRY and then adopt any new Windows version.

spapakons said:

A Windows 9x application would see version NT 6.3 (Windows 8.1 version) and would not load. Windows 9x were legacy version 4.x, not NT 4.0 or higher. Unless it wouldn't check the version at all and just try to run.

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That assumes the dev is checking the version number correctly. A decent number of them check the product name, e.g. "Windows 95," and not the actual version number. Actually, speaking of Windows 95, version checking was done so poorly by outside devs that Microsoft made the GetVersion() function in Win32 return "3.95" instead of "4.0".

spapakons said:

Windows 10 9926: Here are the new icons

With each release of Windows 10, we have posted up the new icons that came with the release and for those who are curious, we have extracted the icons for the latest version of the OS.

www.neowin.net

PS: Playing with numbers: Windows 1, Windows 2, Windows 286 (2.x), Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, Windows 95 (version 4), Windows 98 (version 4.x), Windows ME (version 4.x), Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), Windows XP (NT 5.2), Windows Vista (NT 6.0), Windows 7 (NT 6.1 or 6+1=7), Windows 8 (NT 6.2 or 6+2=8), Windows 8.1 (NT 6.3 or 6+3=9 or 8+1=9), Windows 10 (NT 6.4 or 6+4=10, later versions change to Windows 10.0.19xxx to be similar to Windows 10 Phone), Windows 11 (Windows 10.0.2xxxx and higher. Yes, 11 is 10 with a new skin and new features all 10 drivers work in 11 and all "11" drivers work in 10). Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.3775 is version 10.0.26100.3775

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Everything stated here is factual. Spapakons has done their homework. I find it incredible that people would actually believe Microsoft would care about messing up computer operating systems that ancient. They don't even care about screwing over people who don't have TPM2 and that's like what - 90% of the functioning PCs in the world?? A real Windows 9 could <emphasis on "could"> 'cause a little chaos' but most of that would be in the mind of the user. I'm not even a coder and even I know that the insertion of one single character could make that boogie man go away.

I don't buy the patent line that MS avoided Windows 9 as a title for their next OS because it could conflict with something so archaic. Logic and reason dictate that the evidence points to something other. One need not be a rocket scientist to figure out that any Corporation with vision is already working on their next release of their "product X" before they release their brand new product for public consumption. One can best believe that MS was working on Windows 12 before Windows 11 was released. Hey, they might even call it something else! It matters not.

Our fellow colleague here has done the math. He is correct. The numbers don't lie. Anyone who remembers the havoc Win 8 generated should know that the boys back at HQ had to scramble. And isn't this around the time MS fired their beta testers? Despite Windows 8.1 being so much more a superior operating system compared to its predecessor it always felt to me like a half finished project. They certainly had to throw some of the tools out of the trunk to make it run lighter, but at least it ran and wasn't throwing BSODs like there was no tomorrow. Even after it was released it still needed a lot of care and attention; but all in all it wasn't a half bad OS despite having to be built 'on the fly' as it were.

Enter Windows 10. This is logical. Windows 10 should follow Windows 9 and it did. My impression of Win 10 was that once they finally got 8.1 running stable they had to re-assess the market. People weren't exactly going to run out and buy a new OS when they finally had an operating system that was the most reliable thing they'd seen since Windows 7. Remember when MS operating systems cost somewhere in the ballpark of $200 and up? I sure do. Somehow the new OS had to pay for itself and the economic climate at that time wasn't particularly great. (Not that it's great today.) So the answer to this was advertising. Win 10 was loaded with adware, bloatware, scare ware, and dare I say it? SPYWARE. I coined it the KEY LOGGER edition and indubitably I wasn't the first to do so. Once a user eliminated Cortana and her cohorts Windows 10 could be enjoyed and over time it became a favourite among gamers. It still is today. I can't pry my girls off Windows 10 because they all love gaming on it. The main drawback to Windows 10 was that so much surgery had to be done before it was really worth using. I'm pretty sure MS made a note of this because this is what is reflected in Win 11.

Our new version of bloatware will be AI. There won't be any escaping the telemetry and calling home that so many of us enjoyed in the past. No, it will be part and parcel of the new release. IMO this is what Win11 and 24H2 has been gearing for. This is also where your old Luddite dinosaur checks out. I have enough computers to keep me busy for the remainder of my life. I don't even have to worry about dual booting or multi-booting anymore. I'll just hit the switch on my KVM when I want to play with Linux. I don't much care for the direction Microsoft has taken with these operating systems as of late but I can see that it is inevitable. My personal proprietary rights to my hardware are diminishing with Windows and I have better things to do with my time. This is why I opted out of Windows Insider. This is why I have chosen to keep older systems up and running. In all fairness I have to say it has been fun.

Well that was an entertaining manifesto, but there are some problems with it.

No disrespect to spapakons, and I wasn't going to mention it, but there are some problems with that version number "math." The progression of OSes there mixes consumer lines with business lines. ME was that last of that old consumer or home version of Windows line, the typically single-user, permissions wide-open variant of Windows. The NT line that became 2000-XP-Vista-etc. is a different animal. They had some features in common, but each team had to port features over to their OS from the other. Dave Plummer actually talks about this here and there on his YouTubes.

Additionally, version numbers are not added together like that. Each component of the version number (major, minor, build, revision) is separate from the others. Saying version 6.3 is version 9 because 6+3=9 is no different from folks who see "33" everywhere and think it's a signal from some three-letter agency. Additionally, Windows 10 was never called 6.4, at least not in a released version. Might have been called that internally before release; I dunno.

Scannerman said:

I find it incredible that people would actually believe Microsoft would care about messing up computer operating systems that ancient.

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It's not the OS they care about breaking; it's the apps on top. You do realize Windows is loaded with shims just to make specific applications work, because the product is poorly written and so old that no one's working on it anymore?

Scannerman said:

They don't even care about screwing over people who don't have TPM2 and that's like what - 90% of the functioning PCs in the world??

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Source for that number? TPM 2 has been a thing for quite some time. Microsoft started requiring OEMS to include it on machines in the Windows 10 days.

Scannerman said:

A real Windows 9 could <emphasis on "could"> 'cause a little chaos' but most of that would be in the mind of the user. I'm not even a coder and even I know that the insertion of one single character could make that boogie man go away.

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A failed version check and the app not starting are not in the mind of the user. It's obvious you're not a coder, because it's not a matter of just opening some file and inserting a single character.

Scannerman said:

My impression of Win 10 was that once they finally got 8.1 running stable they had to re-assess the market. People weren't exactly going to run out and buy a new OS when they finally had an operating system that was the most reliable thing they'd seen since Windows 7. Remember when MS operating systems cost somewhere in the ballpark of $200 and up? I sure do.

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Again, what was purchased? If you had a valid license, 10 was a free upgrade.

I won't go on with your last post, because this is getting tedious. But your assertion earlier is also incorrect ("Windows 8 was such a complete and utter disaster that they had to replace it with an entirely different operating system.") 8.1 was not an entirely different operating system. There hasn't been a new OS in the NT line since, well, the first version. Each version of Windows builds on the last. Otherwise, you'd have all kinds of incompatibilties.

spapakons said:

Guess what? You can also upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 21H2 directly. I haven't tried to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 23H2 or 24H2, so I don't know if this is possible.

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Probably, I wouldn't know. I skipped 8 completely. But even if you can it won't be activated, not even if you go from W8 to W10 first. MS turned off the free activation at the end of 2023.

Windows 8.1 was an improved version of Windows 8.0 with some new features, much like Windows 11 is an improved version of Windows 10 with new skin and new features. Whether we like these new features, is another story.

gunrunnerjohn said:

I ran Win10 for years, after I removed all the crap, I was quite happy with it. OTOH, it did seem to want to be reinstalled every couple years. After several years, Win10 would start to get really slow, and finally many times it would just never come back from sleep. At that point, I'd have to smack the reset button and reboot, something that was pretty annoying at times. I'm hoping Win11 is more stable, but so far I'm not sure it will be.

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I'm a confirmed 'serial upgrader', I'll only ever do a clean install if I've just bought a used PC.

My System One is running an OS that started life as OEM Windows 7 on another PC, got the upgrade to 10 in 2015, then every W10 upgrade since then. In 2021 I migrated the OS and all its installed apps to a W11 compatible PC, got the W11 upgrade, and it's now on 24H2. It's as fast and stable today as it ever was, but then I don't 'remove the crap' or use any 3rd-party tools to bend the OS into looking like something it's not.