Windows 10 and now Windows 11

I read that Windows 7 will no longer be supported after January 2020. I have W10 on my tablet, but do all my work on two W7 laptops, each connected to a big monitor. Even if my laptops could handle upgrades, the touch screen features of W10 would not work. How would W10 users who wish to use big screens manage? Are there types of monitors that are touch screen capable?

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Yes there are touch screen monitors. Ranging in size from 15" to around 70" ones. Sweet price to size spot is probably around 23" to 27" sizes at the moment. Prices keep dropping but in the very large sizes 4K and 8K capable displays start to make sense for viewing purposes but are still very expensive.

23" can be bought for around $400 or so & 27" around $700. Sales can be found at times to get some a little cheaper.

An example but not a recommendation of brand, price, or seller of a 23.8" one:

https://www.ht.com.au/part/BK539-Dell-P2418HT-LED-monitor-24-23.8-viewable-touchscreen-1920-x-1080-IPS-250-cdm-10001-6-ms-HDMI-VGA-DisplayPort-black-with-3-years-Advanced-Exchange-Service/detail.hts

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Windows 10 does not require that you use a touch-screen interface. I have been using it at home, and my desktop PC is entirely lacking in touch-screens - I rely upon mouse and keyboard, as do most Windows 10 users.

I suspect you may find Windows 10 less scary than was originally portrayed; it got rid of a lot of the ‘portable-friendly’ interface that Windows 8 was hated for, and while you can still make a bloated start menu you don’t have to. A lot of the interface is similar to that of Windows 7.

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Yep keyboard and mouse but if you really like touch stuff them perhaps a graphic pad or a touch pad equipped keyboard such as the Logitech K400 wireless one. Again, not a recommendation just as examples:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CM5NZRC/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079GVFSWZ/

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Yes it did. On the whole I like W10, it is stable, the interface is fine and it doesn’t take too much effort to disable the things it wants to do for you that you don’t want. The unavoidable auto-update that got so many worked up has not done the wrong thing to me so far. It’s a resource hog but hardware is cheap and once you whip it into shape it just subsides into the background and enables you to get things done, which is after all what an OS is supposed to do.

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It can be a resource hog, but you can solve a lot of it by combing through the settings and disabling a lot of features (you need to jump through some hoops to disable Cortana on Home Edition). Doing this and deleting unneeded default apps makes it pretty efficient overall, and it offers do not disturb and ‘gaming’ modes that 7 doesn’t.

As for auto update, there are now options to delay them up to a month if you’re worried about bugs.

If anyone ever wants to know how to disable/fix a feature they can always ask here, someone will know

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Do not disable security updates - they often fix hacks that are already ‘in the wild’, and even if they don’t hackers reverse engineer the patches to see exactly where the hole is on any unpatched machines.

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Sometimes people or businesses have a need to make sure their existing systems aren’t broken by an update. It’s not bad that people have that option. Yes there are risks but many IT people I know prefer to wait a week to make sure patches are actually stable (and for that matter, don’t contain worse security flaws which happens sometimes)

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Speaking of which:

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If one finds a particular update conflicts with existing software or hardware
which will be unlikely unless the software/hardware is a specialist application/old which wasn’t tested as part of the update push out process
 one can uninstall an update. An temporary uninstall can be used to see if the particular update caused the new issue.

To uninstall an update, go to Windows Updates (it can be found by using the search function with Windows 10), then Click on View Update History. At the top of the page there will be a Uninstall Updates link which will go to the Uninstall Updates Window. Updates since the last major build update (or full install) will appear in the window, along with the date of the update. Any of these updates can be uninstalled.

It is also advisable not to uninstall an update unless you know it creates a conflict and you are an advanced user and know what you are doing. As @postulative outlined above, Updates fix known security issues and bugs within WIndows 10 and uninstalling may change the vulnerability status of the device running Windows 10.

Before uninstalling an update, it is worth contacting the software/hardware vendor/company for the program/hardware where the conflict exists to see if they have released a patch/updated driver to their own software/hardware to overcome any known update conflict issues.

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A feature here may refer rather than to a patch/update, to something like Cortana, Films & TV, Groove Music or the Xbox features of Win 10, or the sending of usage data to Microsoft, or MS Phone Companion or any other app or function that a user may not want active eg Remote Access.

The removal of patches may not always be possible through Windows Update if it is causing Reboots or BSOD (Blue Screens of Death) before a user can get into Windows. In these cases there are possible ways to recover from the problem including keeping good and regular backups (and recover the system from that), saving an image before updating (so recovery tools can use that image), using Recovery tools from a Start up USB or DVD disk to access previous System Images or a Restore Point (if these are enabled and available) or Refresh/reinstall Win10 on the Computer.

Sometimes an update can lead to a corrupted file that causes issues but you can still get into Win10, in these cases using an Administrative Command Prompt or Powershell Window to use SFC /scannnow to fix the file/s or if needed running dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth before running the SFC /scannow command can fix those problems.

If you find that doesn’t fix the issue running what is termed an in-place upgrade/update can also recover from the problem/s. If this can be run successfully most if not all (usually all) your programs and data will be retained. The best way to do this is create a recovery DVD/USB (needs about 8 GB stick if creating a combined 32 and 64 bit recovery image or 4 GB if just 32 or 64 bit images) by using the Win10 download tool currently found at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209 then running the setup file on that USB/DVD inside Windows.

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You’re making Windows 10 sound terrifying! It generally behaves itself, and as I stated earlier you should always apply security patches.

Feature patches are different, and are rolled out separately. You can postpone these for quite a while, but generally a week is fine as by then Microsoft will well and truly know about any problems and if necessary stop the rollout.

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No it isn’t a horrible product, but on big updates such as May’s of this year people have had problems. So best to be prepared for issues than to jump and pray. Too many times I have had to help people who didn’t take basic precautions about security, back ups and similar. I would rather give advice now than fix later, not that it is likely anyone on here will need that help. It does “generally” behave itself and generally it recovers itself quite well but sometimes, just rarely sometimes it doesn’t.

I don’t say don’t patch but there have been odd security patches that failed to work properly or some driver updates that caused issues. I am not alone in my belief that for most it is ok but there are still some who suffer:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4493509/windows-10-update-kb4493509

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Honestly after saying all of this Windows 10 is my favourite iteration I’ve had and the one I’ve had the least problems with too. I’ve been using Windows since 98 edition (yes, just a baby I know)

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Windows 10 has gradually added many control & features that weren’t available on Windows 7 & before. All the older PC’s under my care were upgraded, even those that started on XP. Next to no problems. On low spec machines, Win10 runs better than Win 7.

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A bit mindless, but a 15 minutes snapshot of everything you missed :wink:

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15 minutes and three decades of memories! I think I owned almost every version they showed except for 3.11 (Windows for Workgroups) and the NTs. Windows 10 is probably the only one that doesn’t seem to slow to a crawl over time until you decide to wipe and reinstall everything.

Even within a VM, that guy is a lot braver than me letting some of the older versions connect to the Internet.

Edit: I didn’t own Windows 1.0 or 2.0. 3.0 was when Windows hit the big leagues.

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You have to say that the progress of Windows is a tribute to the power of capture through market concentration.

Did somebody mention the tendency of Windows to rot (slow down to a crawl I think was the phrase) and become unstable unless cleaned off and reinstalled regularly until recent versions?

Just look at how many versions, that were little more than fancy shells for DOS, were tolerated before a flat memory model and proper multitasking came along. IBM’s OS2 (which had a common code base with Windows before the Divorce) and AmigaDOS had these things beforehand in commercial release but where are they now?

It’s a strange, strange world we live in Master Jack.

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The fate of OS2 was a tribute to the extraordinary incompetence and short sighted management of IBM, ably supported by even more over-employed marketing people, especially since it was so far advanced to Windows in its time.

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I loved OS/2 Warp which was the last version I had on an old DX machine. Alas, there just wasnt enough support for it. I switched to a Mac PLus for uni work and for games, it was Amiga. I don’t think I could go back to using Windows full time
 instead, I will likely go Linux.

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