I upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 today. I thought I would share something about the upgrade experience with those of you who haven't started an upgrade yet. First off, if you nave a newer PC, chances are that either everything will work. Or at the very least a fix is probably coming soon. So iI would not be concerned about buying a new PC running Windows 8.1 and then upgrading to Windows 10. My PC isn't so new, so I was a little worried about what would happen.
My first bit of advice. Relax if something isn't working quite right. When my upgrade first finished, I couldn't get the touchpad and keyboard to respond. From what I can tell, even though the upgrade part seemed to be complete, Windows 10 was still going out and installing updated things. It was lunch time, so I fixed a sandwich and then came back to the PC. The touchpad started working and not too much later the keyboard started working. Obviously something was still going on in the background. I expect that tomorrow things will even be better.
I told you I had an older PC. Here are my specs:
Make & Model: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 (It's a 2 in 1 where the screen swivels so that you can go to tablet mode or any angle in between a laptop and a tablet. I love it.)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3517U CPU @1.90 GHz - 2.40 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
Display Adapter: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000
My PC came with Windows 8 and I went through an online upgrade to Windows 8.1 that was fairly smooth. I recall that I had to search out a few drivers, but eventually everything worked.
I didn't time the upgrade to Windows 10. I was working on another PC as the progress of the upgrade displayed and several restarts occurred on my Yoga. Except for the scary bit where my keyboard didn't work at first, the upgrade seemed rather routine. At this point I haven't given Windows 10 a good test run.
Applications Run:
iTunes Version 12.2.1.16, 64-bit. Runs as expected. I had access to all my music, playlists, apps, etc. I could sync with my iPhone 4s. (Yes I have an old phone.) I can connect with iTunes store. Not a full test, but everything appears to work.
Chrome Browser version Version 44.0.2403.130 m: Works at least as well as before upgrading to Windows 10. I'm using that browser to access this community forum and make this post.
Cortana & Edge browser: Both of these items are sluggish on my PC. The Edge browser's performance was too painful for me to use it. There seemed to be an issue connecting to some sites as the connection would time out.
The Windows start menu seems to have a slight hesitation. Scrolling through applications is slow. The tiled applications have changed in appearance considerable. I used to use the tiled apps screen to get to some of my most used applications. Now I find typing an application name is easier, but Windows responds slowly to my searches. I think things slowed down when I enabled Cortana.
As long as the programs I want to use will run, I'll probably stick with Windows 10. I figure that using the latest Windows version means the best OS support from Microsoft. I would only go back to Windows 8.1 if I run into an application I need that just won't work. By the way, you have an option to roll back to your previous version of Windows for 30 days after the upgrade. So my advice is if your thinking about an upgrade, go ahead and give it a try. It will cost you some time, but being on the latest version of Windows is probably a good thing. I should mention that Microsoft said everything was compatible on my PC before the upgrade. If I had warnings about anything not being compatible, then I probably would have stuck with Windows 8.1.
Enough rambling. I hope you found my experience helpful. I plan to add to this thread as far as what works and what doesn't on my PC.
Happy upgrading!
Mark
Disclaimer: I'm an Intel employee, but everything in this post is my personal opinion.
.