Gear Talk > Processing & Publication

Old PC, New OS. (Is there a Windows 10 person in the house?)

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Steven Paulsen:
I have been running two Dell lattitude Notebooks, An E6530 & E6430, w/i7qm processors, Windows 7. I use (one at a time) Lightroom v6.14, the last standalone, non cloud version. All is well except Win 7 fully loses MS support the end of this year. The dedicated video is getting old & I'm looking into a newer Precision line of Dell portables. (I don't like being chained to a full featured graphics tower, though I realize the speed bump may be fun.) I use 2 1080p IPS monitors on my docked E6530.


For reasons I don't understand, MS recently allowed me to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro on both notebooks, granting me a digital license from my previous Win 7 Pro. I'm getting toward OK as far as advertising bot, features. (Who & where is Big Brother?)

Is there a way I can get rid of the icons on my start menu and just use a program list for file locations like in Windows 7? 'Downloads" has an icon, "Picture" folder now has an icon. I don't understand the icons. The tiles I can figure out, though I wish I could make separate colors for the background on each.


I an using SSD for OS, programs and new to be processed photos. I have a separate spinner drive in the DVD bay for photo over flow & semi recent stuff of my Lightroom catalog. I use external SATA & USB3 external drives for backup and photo history going back to the 90's.

Yes, I'm getting older. Computing in't as exciting as 30 years ago. Can anyone lend an old dog a hand helping me get Windows 10 back into some sort of "Comfort Zone?'
Thank You in advance,
Steve

Frank Fremerey:
I can only recommend to store an image of your C partition externally and test an imaging software can restore it.

Then upgrade away happily. Win10pro is a great OS. After you have seen how nicely 1809 works you will probaly never want to go back.

Birna Rørslett:
Win10 is the ultimate punishment for being dependent on Microsoft products. However, even mighty Microsoft cannot entirely prevent you from changing the way the computer behaves and interacts with the user.

There are a lot of tweaking options on the 'net to get rid of the most offending stuff, but do plan and test your restore strategy before doing anything rash.

Steven Paulsen:
I made clones of both computer's C drives running Win 7 before upgrading. Adobe Lightroom is the reason I'm not messing with Linux.


The tracking, keystroke history is scary. I understand MS/Apple want to integrate everything (phone, pc, tablet) into one glorious glob in the cloud. (Yes, I'm aware everything you do ends up on someone's or anyone's data server.) A lot of people like the idea of everything "Is always there."

I am what some refer to as a "Tin Foil Hat Guy." I've been online since 1993. Fast foreword to today.......Except for this stuff on your wonderful forum & paying bills, I am spending the least amount of time per day on a computer/phone/tablet, ever in my online history. No Facebook, no tweet stuff. I prefer to be left alone.

Am I stuck with the icons on the start menu?

Birna Rørslett:
You could have something like this, and no tiles.

My usual applications are on the taskbar., though. The extras are icons on the desktop, but not too many of those to clutter up the view. I hardly use the start menu.

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