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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: LizzieW on Sunday 17 October 21 11:20 BST (UK)
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When I turned on my laptop this morning, Windows 11 had been installed. It is dreadful, all my icons had disappeared and when I put them back on my task bar and then clicked on, for instance, my Thunderbird email icon, I was asked to register, same with my Roboform password and my Legacy family tree. I tried opening Mozilla Firefox, same thing, please register and download. I was nearly in tears, everything had disappeared. I tried to find out how I could revert back to Windows 10 but it didn't seem possible. So I just shut down and restarted the laptop and by some miracle, everything is back to normal.
I looked up Windows 11 which is being rolled out on all compatible PCs (from last June apparently) and it seems they want it to be more like a Mac, easier for gamers, etc. but it's not easier for people who aren't gamers and have never used a Mac PC. As far as I was concerned, it was totally unintuitive, not surprisingly, everything was Windows based, so Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Store, etc. were on the taskbar, but everything I use like Word, Skype, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, even Windows media player had totally gone.
It seems after 2025, Microsoft will not support Windows 10 but, hopefully, by then they will have made Windows 11 more intuitive to use.
Anyone else had any problems, or was it only me?
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Was it automatically installed, Lizzie, or did you agree to it?
I'm not sure that I want it at the moment so need to know if I can stop it.
Add ~
Under Windows11 in updates page, I just get:
Great news—your PC meets the minimum system requirements for Windows 11. Specific timing for when it will be offered can vary as we get it ready for you.
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Just found this:
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/block-windows-11
Add - I see that one of the reviews says that you can rollback to Win10 in the first 10 days of the upgrade.
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It was automatically installed, I got the impression from their website that that's what they're going to do. It was a bit odd that when I went to settings to try to revert back to Windows 10, the only option I got was to reboot. Whatever, it worked thank goodness. There was an update but that was a few days ago and I didn't notice any difference. I've now blocked windows 11 as per your link, just have to restart the laptop.
I can't really begin to explain what is wrong with Windows 11, but it seemed that everything that was on Windows 10 was wiped out, although most of the icons were shown under start, although not Irfanview, not VueScan64 which I use for scanning and printing, not Zoom which I am still using for various lectures that are being given by different groups plus a few programs I use. Of course, Cortana, Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Store were front centre. If anyone is interested they can always go to Microsoft and search out Windows 11 to see what they think of it, there is even a box where you can put your feelings - I did. ::)
Thank you for your help Gadget.
Lizzie
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Hopefully you are in time for me. I took an update a few days ago. I was under the impression it was going to be "offered" rather than rammed down our throats!
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My PC gives the impression it will be offered rather than automatic. They should give you have a chance to backup your data first just in case.
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My PC gives the impression it will be offered rather than automatic. They should give you have a chance to backup your data first just in case.
If we are lucky! Remember they are the Omniscient Master race!
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As one comment said on line, Microsoft is now acting as sales place rather than an operating system. It's pushing Amazon apps, and lots of ads arrived on the opening page for furniture etc. I haven't even been looking at furniture ads, so who knows why they were pushing furniture ads. There's also Widget panel, which shows you tiles for news, weather, stock quotes, sports scores, and more, which fills your screen. If I want to look at any of those things I can just go to Mozilla Firefox, or BBC or similar, I don't need Microsoft to push their ideas at me.
Fortunately my data is backed up through a Cloud company and also an external hard drive and now it's reverted to Windows 10 everything seems to be back to normal.
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Did everything come back exactly as it was, Lizzie?
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Yes, exactly as it was when I turned the machine off last night. When I turned it on this morning I got messages from Microsoft about waiting whilst they did something, then eventually Windows 11 appeared. It was so totally different to Windows 10 that I was horrified, especially when the icons for various programs I use which I keep on the taskbar had disappeared and when I found them under the Start button, it seemed I had to re-register with them all. I know some people had problems moving to Windows 10 but it isn't that different to Windows 8 and it was easy to sort things out. I was just surprised that rebooting took me back to Windows 10.
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You are not alone in having an intense dislike of Windows 11 and Microsoft's push for advertising income.
I had two laptops enrolled in the Windows 10 "Insider" scheme. Both are from around 2009, so are not speedy by today's standards.
One of them had the first Win11 preview pushed on to it without my intervention. That is worrying, because it was set up to get its updates from my local server, with me hitting "check online" to get the fresh Win10 releases. I did NOT ask it to look for the new stuff that week, and MS pushed it at me anyway. After a couple of monthly updates, Microsoft started telling me that the hardware did not support Win11, and to prove it, the taskbar became inoperative, with continuous disk activity as it attempted, unsuccessfully, to reinstall all its component parts. I gave up and did a clean install of retail Win10. This was annoying, because that laptop used to be my daily driver and so contained lots of "unusual" software, making it good for testing with.
The other laptop refused to install the preview, but happily spent hours downloading it first. No indication of why the install failed, and it would then refuse to look for any other things from my local server, preferring instead to do another download.
For interest, I have installed the released version on this machine (using a spare drive), and it runs at a speed similar to Win10. MS claim that old hardware will suffer a huge performance hit, but I have not seen such - in fact it seems a bit snappier, but that's probably because it has not accumulated lots of rubbish yet.
In its Win10 Insider guise, that laptop refused to leave the Insider scheme, claiming that a clean install was the only way out. I am hoping that Win10 21H2, due in the next couple of weeks, will allow me to "upgrade" in situ to a stable system. Otherwise I will bite the bullet and reinstall Win10.
I find Win11's Start Menu to be the main bugbear. It doesn't hold everything I want to access quickly. It gives a large part of its screen area to advertising. The icons it shows have poor functionality.
On Win10, I can, from the Start Menu icons, access the last dozen Word documents, the last dozen Excel sheets, the last dozen FH trees etc. On Win11, the start menu might occasionally show me as many as SIX recent documents of all types. If I had a huge screen, that might be increased to eight. The rest of its window is given over to "Recommendations". :'(
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Interesting , Andrew.
So would you recommend that those of us who don't want it just yet to block it, using this routine:
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=854285.msg7224058#msg7224058
Gadget
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Andrew, glad it wasn't only me that got Windows 11 without asking and didn't like it. At least when I restarted my laptop (from settings when I tried to restore to the day before - not the usual restart), and following the link Gadget gave I have now altered the registry so that Windows 11 can't download again unless I want it.
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The update tried with me last week but promptly told me I had components that were not supported… my pc is only 3 years old :o Thinking it might be a graphics board or another upgradeable component, I ran the win 11 compatibility check app. No it’s the main CPU that’s out of date.
I shall stay with win 10 until this pc dies a death.
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Turned on my laptop this morning to find a new icon on the taskbar "Upgrade to Windows 11 is ready for your PC." Right-clicking gives me three choices: Open Windows Update. Learn more. Hide for now.
Now, looking at my Windows Update Settings, it tells me that the Win11 update is ready to install. There is also the option "Stay on Windows 10 for now" so I have clicked that. The new icon on the Taskbar has gone. ;D
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Turned on my laptop this morning to find a new icon on the taskbar "Upgrade to Windows 11 is ready for your PC." Right-clicking gives me three choices: Open Windows Update. Learn more. Hide for now.
Now, looking at my Windows Update Settings, it tells me that the Win11 update is ready to install. There is also the option "Stay on Windows 10 for now" so I have clicked that. The new icon on the Taskbar has gone. ;D
So how did Lizzie not get this page/tasksbar icon before Win 11 was installed on her machine ???
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Maybe Lizzie has her pc turned onto auto update and tillypeg has selected to be advised before installing any updates
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So how did Lizzie not get this page/tasksbar icon before Win 11 was installed on her machine
No, I didn't get this at all. It just upgraded to Windows 11.
Maybe Lizzie has her pc turned onto auto update
- Yes I have and I can't find any way to change it. All it does is postpone the updates. My OH also has auto updates turned on yet he had the "Upgrade to Windows 11 etc" which he ignored and his tablet is a few months younger than my laptop.
According to my laptop I have subscribed to the Windows Insider scheme, which gives you notice of updates before other people, yet when I tried to unsubscribe, I got a message saying I wasn't subscribed ::)
For the foreseeable future, I will ignore Windows 11 and following the link from Gadget, I have altered Registry so that I won't get Windows 11 unless I choose to.
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I usually get a little orange blob on one of the icons on the taskbar reminding me of an update.
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Yes I have and I can't find any way to change it. All it does is postpone the updates.
I can't find a way to change the auto updates either. ??? You can postpone the updates for up to 35 days apparently.
Settings is now showing this message, not sure it is "Great news"...
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I usually get a little orange blob on one of the icons on the taskbar reminding me of an update.
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I get that orange blob but it's a reminder to restart the PC so the update takes place.
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I usually get a little orange blob on one of the icons on the taskbar reminding me of an update.
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I get that orange blob but it's a reminder to restart the PC so the update takes place.
Yes, I know but I always check in updates for what the update is.
I assume that it would show the same screen as Tillypeg showed in her 10.21 post and can then decline.
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I suppose the danger is not seeing the orange blob icon, then logging off and shutting down the PC, meaning that the update installs and when you next switch the PC back on, it's all done and dusted. Presumably you can then uninstall the update - if you can find how to do that with Win11...
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https://www.thewindowsclub.com/block-windows-11
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-roll-back-windows-10-if-windows-11-preview-acting
PS - I copied you post as well, tillypeg :D
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Well, those links have provided me with plenty of easy reading, Gadget! I'm hoping that my choice of "Stay on Windows 10 for now" will suffice.
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All those who tried to install or who have installed Win11 you now have a new program called Windows PC Health Check now installed.
Uninstall it (add/remove programs). Then go to your Program folder and uninstall all the new Programs Windows left you. Just right click the Icon and uninstall. Then turn off automatic system updates. But do remember to check for updates manually once a month and only pick the ones you want/need.
Those who got the msg saying your PC doesn't qualify for this upgrade it is because your motherboard doesn't have the TPM chip or it hasn't been activated which is the chip that Windows uses for its new and improved security platform. The majority of boards don't have this so your PC isn't finished. Many of Intel's new boards as in 2021, don't have it either.
I have Win11 on a notebook, I uninstalled all the new programs and I turned auto updates off and to be honest its ok it doesn't bite it just looks different. I'm in my 70's, I like change so I adapt.
Don
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I suppose the danger is not seeing the orange blob icon, then logging off and shutting down the PC, meaning that the update installs and when you next switch the PC back on, it's all done and dusted.
The problem is when I see the orange blob, the update has already been installed and when I next switch off the PC and then turn it on again in the morning, the update has been finished. The other thing is that sometimes when I go to turn the PC off, I get a message saying Windows will update and turn off when finished. ::)
All those who tried to install or who have installed Win11 you now have a new program called Windows PC Health Check now installed.
I wondered where that had come from.
But do remember to check for updates manually once a month and only pick the ones you want/need.
How will we know which ones we want/need?
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I just tried to uninstall Windows Health PC Health Check and got the following message:
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2503.
I ignored it and the uninstall continued then I got a similar message with error code 2502.
So I thought I'd try to repair Windows Health and then see if I could uninstall. I got a message:
The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or other removable disk that is not available.
That makes no sense to me as I don't have any CD-ROMs or removable disks with this laptop.
No idea what the problem is, but Windows 11 isn't installed now.
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If you are working OK Lizzie, sounds as though you are well rid of it!
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If you are working OK Lizzie, sounds as though you are well rid of it!
. I agree.
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I had a little dot on the update icon when I switched on my Win10 laptop today. It informed me that my computer was ready to install Win11. I went to my update settings and clicked on.
Stay on Windows 10 for now.
I'm still on Win10.
How long will this instruction last?
Gadget
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Installed Windows 11 on my day to day pc. Only problem I have had so far, was with saving data in Excel.
My laptop will not accept Windows 11, so it will stay with 10.
Regards
Malky
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Surely Microsoft wouldn't mess up it's own products, would it ::) :-X
What version of Excel do you have? We have the Office 365 collection (or whatever it's called now).
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It's Office 2007. It has sorted it's self out. It's working now.
Regards
Malky
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I've not had any problems with Publisher 2007 & Office 2010 on Windows 11 - so far, that is.
The annoying things for me are that the right-click menu now has all the options I normally use under 'more options' so requires extra clicks & time, and switching on the wifi from the taskbar needs several more clicks.
Michael.
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The annoying things for me are that the right-click menu now has all the options I normally use under 'more options' so requires extra clicks & time, and switching on the wifi from the taskbar needs several more clicks.
So basically, it's not fit for purpose. Hopefully, by the time they stop updates for Windows 10, they'll have Windows 11 sorted.
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I want to stay with Windows 10 Home Edition as long as possible. I don't have the Restoro repair tool but I do have Wise Disk Cleaner. Does anyone know if I can use this to block Windows 11 being installed? I am assuming it works in the same way as Restoro. So where would I go to on Wise Disk Cleaner to block Windows 11 being installed?
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When you have the little orange blob for an update, check in Settings ->updates and, if it asks if you want to update to Win11, just click on
Stay on Windows10 for now - see my post of 3 November #30
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Installed Windows 11 on my day to day pc. Only problem I have had so far, was with saving data in Excel.
My laptop will not accept Windows 11, so it will stay with 10.
Regards
Malky
The only problem I had, was with one of my mail programs. I could receive but not send. Didn't like Windows 11, and uninstalled it, back on Windows 10 and mail program back to normal.
Cheers
KHP
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Thanks for that, Gadget. Great help!
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I am still hanging on to Windows 7 on our main comp, my husband has Windows 10 on his laptop which I don't like much but I think I am a creature of habit and don't like the changes but I am sure I will have to soon.
Louisa Maud
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I am still hanging on to Windows 7 on our main comp, my husband has Windows 10 on his laptop which I don't like much but I think I am a creature of habit and don't like the changes but I am sure I will have to soon.
Louisa Maud
You can still update from Win7 to Win10 for free. If you search for "Windows 10 ISO" you should find Microsoft's relevant page.
The Media Creation Tool will let you create either a USB stick or a DVD with the installation on, and you run the Setup from there.
I would hang on a bit though, as there will be a fresh version of Win10 this month. If you download that, it would mean only one update rather than two, and the chance of reverting to Win7 for a week if you don't like the result.
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I am trying to support my family tree programme which is not supposed to be compatible with Windows 10
LM
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What family tree program do you have, LM
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GSP
Goes back to 1994
LM
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I've just found a thread showing how to convert a GSP file to a Gedcom which you could then transfer to a more recent Tree program and thus not have to stick with Win7:
https://www.fhug.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4864
In the example, they are discussing uploading to Family Historian, but the Gedcom produced should work with many of the later FT programs.
It might be worth creating a Gedcom of it every so often just in case your Win7 gives up.
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Thank you gadget, I really don't want to have to buy a new programme to confuse me evermore, to be quite honest I should have upgraded it years ago when I might ha be been able to cope with it
LM
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I have found very few programs which work in Win7 but fail under Win10. The problems seem to be in device drivers, because Win10 has extra demands for the likes of low power modes. Chip makers don't like updating drivers for old hardware; they would rather sell new chips.
You will be running a 32-bit version of Win7, which would be updated to the equivalent 32-bin Win10.
Your old 16-bit software won't run under any 64-bit Windows (including the 64-bit XP). Microsoft allowed only a single "step down", because things get too complicated internally, especially dealing with software security. "Won't work in Windows 10" probably means "Won't work in Windows 10 64-bit" because modern machines almost certainly arrive with the 64-bit version installed.
Win11 does not have the option of a 32-bit version; it will run 32-bit software, but never 16-bit.
That said, I do have one machine where Win7 is the newest possible version, because its processor does not have certain instructions needed by newer versions.
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With older programs I have had success with virtual computers via VM Ware
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With great respect to a 7 star Marquessate, I suggest being very careful about using VMWare. You need to be a computer wiz to use it properly and if you are a wiz then you would know about it already.
I believe that Win7 is the best Microsoft OS since OS/2 and that Win10 is an abomination designed for idiots and to slow down any useful work. YMMV.
Being dragged kicking and screaming into the Win10 world due to program updates that only work there, I installed VMWare Player v15 with Win7 as the Host OS.
If you have enough RAM then this works well but… Transferring files between the Win7 side and the Win10 side was a royal pain. Sharing folders on a network is not a trivial action. But the worst part of it all was trying to find a USB port that actually worked at USB3 levels.
You are sharing hardware resources with USB and other peripherals and the two sides of VM are not consistent in naming the ports. In using software for Zoom meetings I could never find a USB3 port from Win10 and it caused me to be non-visual when trying to run Zoom from a real camera.
And I do know what I am doing. I ran a Win7/Hackintosh system under VMWare for a while just to see if Macs were better!. They are not!
I ended up doing a complete fresh install of Win10 and all my software and am hoping that Win11 is better.
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The Windows 10 November update (21H2) has now arrived on Microsoft's servers.
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The Windows 10 November update (21H2) has now arrived on Microsoft's servers.
Please let us know if it's an improvement, Andrew :) :)
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Ian999 I have had no problems myself, but take your points on board,
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I've installed 21H2 on a few machines now (oldest from 2008) and had no problems. Not surprising because it is pretty much the same as a fully patched 21H1.
It didn't even remove Internet Explorer, which has been announcing for some time that it "will be going away".