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

[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.

[Steven Paulsen]

Thanks Birna.
It looks like you are running the same mess that I'm talking about. <chuckle.> Both PC's are basically mirroring each other with a central, photo backup, spanning several, (Not always running,) disk drives. If I had a dollar for every time I installed an OS & programs, I'd be somewhat wealthy.

The other part I cannot figure out...... Why did MS throw me 2 windows pro upgrades for no charge? (The crap I'm doing isn't all that important.) I refused the free upgrade years ago when they were pushing it.

Old dog/New Tricks.Thank You.

[Birna Rørslett]

Steven

try this

http://www.classicshell.net/


and you can pretend your machine is Windows 7 (or any other version). It's freeware but works well enough to deserve a small donation ....

[Frank Fremerey]

noted the hell in classic shell?

Win 10 is my never reinstall OS. Before major upgrades I always clone the drive in the old working state, so in the few seconds it needs to boot the OS from an SSD I am back online if something fails. Just switch SSDs. I did a long run on Insider Preview fast ring and ran a few dozen new windows installations (builds) but only two of these caused any trouble.

[Steven Paulsen]

noted the hell in classic shell?

Win 10 is my never reinstall OS. Before major upgrades I always clone the drive in the old working state, so in the few seconds it needs to boot the OS from an SSD I am back online if something fails. Just switch SSDs. I did a long run on Insider Preview fast ring and ran a few dozen new windows installations (builds) but only two of these caused any trouble.

Frank;
What OS do you install 1st if you have to, "Nuke & plow," (Start from scratch?) I have an thumb drive that will clone a drive or partition, which is what I did before upgrading to Win 10. What surprised me was, I used a MS tool & it downloaded & installed Win 10, right over the existing Windows 7 OS on my PC. (And almost everything worked.) A few glitches, & a few drivers. I ran Win 10 for over a week before upgrading the other.

My method of using 2 notebooks is the reason that I have something 95% identical, in case one takes a dump. I checked, and I am running Win Pro 64, Version 1809. I ran "Classic Shell" on Win 8.1, which was worse, so far from this new Win 10. I didn't know it works with Win 10. Thanks for the tip.

I discovered the settings in "Gaming Options" to use my graphics card, (High Performance) for LR, PS, etc
Tank You, Thank You. Classic Shell is the opposite of Win 10 hElL.

[Frank Fremerey]

Steven: Keep the images for a while and hesitate as long as possible if the upgrade to 1903 ... next mayor upgrade ...  is offered. The first incarnations can be tricky:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/windows-10-update-act-fast-to-delay-this-big-upgrade/

you can initiate a clean install of 1809 using an ISO Image provided by Microsoft here:

https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/software-download/windows10ISO

I guess this is available for any desired language

[Steven Paulsen]

Well, I discovered right away I could set the PC not to update anything, or preset a time and date to DL/Install, updates. I have a very slow internet network, for a couple reasons. Big downloads are overnighter's.
Thanks for the tip. I installed Classic shell, now I'm happy & back to beta mode. (I also changed a couple permissions & it hasn't crashed or refused to boot.)

On the 2 Notebooks I'm using, by default the drive configuration is set to RAID, having a shadow OS on the 2nd drive. (Intel Rapid Storage Technology)....will SSD's run in RAID instead of AHCI mode?

[armando_m]

What I do instead of trying to learn the icons is: click on the search field , type a few letter of the name of the program, the program shows up in the results , click on it

[Birna Rørslett]

Repeat that 100 times and your head aches.

A minimally cluttered start menu and desktop are quicker and easier on one's mind.

[JohnBrew]

delete