I've chickened out and am heading to Win10

[Output]

Also Windows Firewall, although is alright, has the annoyance of keep turning on MS programs' access even when I disable them. I have been considering getting an external firewall program, but not got round to it yet.

I prefer not relying on what's built in to Windows, and have been using COMODO Firewall (Free) for many years. Now I'm using it on Win10, so I can be sure that the rules that I set continue to apply the way they always have in the past.

(EDIT: Although I did have to specifically disable the Windows Defender Firewall, as it detecting another Firewall in use and it previously being switched off in Win7 apparently wasn't enough for it to actually disable it properly on Win10.)

I recently read that Malwarebytes has acquired Binisoft, the maker of an interface that many apparently use for Windows Firewall, so that may be an alternative option for anyone who isn't a fan of the COMODO Firewall.

[Jonj1611]

Ironically Windows Defender scored highest in antivirus tests recently. I don't use it myself but its improved over what it used to be.

https://techreport.com/news/3464515/...score-av-test/

[Output]

Ironically Windows Defender scored highest in antivirus tests recently. I don't use it myself but its improved over what it used to be.

https://techreport.com/news/3464515/...score-av-test/

While interesting, I still think it's wiser for people to not have all of their eggs in the same basket. As long as whatever is used instead is highly capable of course.

[Jonj1611]

I like to live on the wild side, I am using Kaspersky

[DanceswithUnix]

I really do suspect that it's a matter of it not liking my current motherboard, vice-versa, or both.

There shouldn't be any fundamental Windows 10 problem with 970 boards.

I've run a few FX motherboards on Windows 10 now. The only issue I have seen is my wife's Asrock 970 board doesn't always like coming out of sleep, I think depending on what is plugged into USB ports. That's a BIOS issue, but the board is old enough that it won't be getting any fixes. It seems to have improved in recent Windows versions though.

My daughter is still using my old 8350 setup, though that is on an Asus board.

I really expect that your problem is down to some Windows 7 driver cruft left behind. There are AMD chipset drivers that might help, thought they are the same for Windows 7 as 10 so you might already have them installed.

[Jonj1611]

Is there no chance of a clean install?

[Output]

It is of course possible that it is indeed due to Win7 driver cruft rather than the motherboard itself. I'd rather avoid removing any that I might find at the moment though, just in case Win10 hasn't alreayd got the ones for the current motherboard built-in for some strange reason.

Is there no chance of a clean install?

I'd still prefer to avoid that route if at all possible as it means having to reinstall and reconfigure settings and applications etc., but if the issues persist after the move of systems, then I am open to doing it anyway.

Although in that case, I'd likely try thr 'Reset' function first to see if that did the trick before attempting a full clean install.

[Scryder]

I prefer not relying on what's built in to Windows, and have been using COMODO Firewall (Free) for many years. Now I'm using it on Win10, so I can be sure that the rules that I set continue to apply the way they always have in the past.

(EDIT: Although I did have to specifically disable the Windows Defender Firewall, as it detecting another Firewall in use and it previously being switched off in Win7 apparently wasn't enough for it to actually disable it properly on Win10.)

I recently read that Malwarebytes has acquired Binisoft, the maker of an interface that many apparently use for Windows Firewall, so that may be an alternative option for anyone who isn't a fan of the COMODO Firewall.

I think when looking at firewalls, COMODO was one of the ones I looked at. I never bothered at the time, as didn't have time to configure it. But I do want to when I do get a chance.

Incidentally, I used to have a Dell Laptop 8 years ago, and had Mcafee Suite. I really liked the firewall, which had the ability to customise it to ONLY let what I wanted through... I had Vista and then Win 8.1 at the time. I assume COMODO does let you choose exactly what you want to send through the firewall?

[Output]

I assume COMODO does let you choose exactly what you want to send through the firewall?

Yes. Although you'd want it set to a certain mode - Safe Mode if I recall correctly - first if you want it to specifically ask every time rather than have it decide by itself - in Training Mode I believe, though I think there is an element of that in the Custom Ruleset mode too - if an application is okay to let through based on what it already knows and its whitelist of publishers.

You'd also need to set the alert level to your preferred one, so that you can decide whether it asks at a finely tuned level as per port and whether it is TCP or UDP for example.

Although you can make some pre-defined Rulesets too (other than ones already built-in such as 'Web Browser', 'Email Client', 'Blocked Application' etc.) as well as being able to set 'Network Zones' (so that certain ports can be set as only open to your LAN and not the internet as a whole for example) to help speed up the process, for any configuration you want to apply to more than one application.

[Giraffe]

I've been using Win 10 since I got this PC over 3 years ago now. And never had any problems using it. All my games (at least newer ones) still work, so do all the programs I use. It still has a lot of power user features, which are just hidden a bit more. As I said in another thread, I've never used O&O Shutup, but when I got the PC, for privacy I googled it and the one that came up was Spybot Anti-Beacon. But they started charging for some of the blocking features... so I think I might have a look at O&O when I get some time.

Also Windows Firewall, although is alright, has the annoyance of keep turning on MS programs' access even when I disable them. I have been considering getting an external firewall program, but not got round to it yet.

I also went into settings and turned on/off a lot of the anti-privacy features. This is one thing they sometimes turn on again after a major update. So that's something I occasionally go back and check is still off/on (depending on what it's doing).

https://www.binisoft.org/wfc
for Malwarebytes Windows Firewall Control; Binisoft is owned by Malwarebytes.
https://www.binisoft.org/pdf/guides/...User-Guide.pdf

Old article:
https://www.howtogeek.com/356642/how...9s-annoyances/

[Output]

I've solved the issue of having trouble actually booting into Windows fully.

It seems that it was indeed caused by something I had installed on Windows 7, namely the ASMedia USB 3.0 driver.

The thing is though, I had already tried uninstalling that before and the uninstall attempt didn't respond as if I'd tried anything. It seems I should have tried doing it in Safe Mode for it to actually do it.

Naturally I feel a little dumb for not attempting it sooner, but in my defence I thought if it acted like I hadn't even clicked to uninstall it in normal mode (despite attempts on other applications working), it would act the same in Safe Mode.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well done for finding that.

In these days of plug and play I would have expected Windows to just deal with that, either getting you a working driver or just disabling the port until you manually sorted it. Sometimes I despair of my fellow programmers.

[Output]

I can only assume the previous successful boots were the built-in driver getting loaded first and thus it then ignoring the ASMedia driver or something.

I also managed to successfully install the latest (at that time) AMD GPU driver (Adrenalin 20.1.4) a few days ago, so it seems that whatever problem that prevented the earlier version's (20.1.1) install were rectified.

Although the closest thing I can find in the release notes in between is the fixed issue of

Factory Reset install may keep previously configured Radeon Software game profiles. This can cause mismatch between global graphics settings and per profile settings.

so whether that had any effect or my system just didn't like the earlier version for whatever reason, I don't know.

[Output]

Having now switched to the new build, I can confirm that I did not have to reinstall Windows 10.

EDIT: Although now it's saying that it couldn't activate it because it was activated on another device. It shouldn't be having any problem re-activating on the new hardware since it is definitely a Retail key as I purchased a digital license from Scan.

Looks like I'll have to do re-activation by phone, which is shown as an option in the Activation section. Alternatively, according to another site launching the phone option would be achieved by running slui.exe 4.

EDIT 2: Successfully re-activated by phone.

[ik9000]

quick questions:
1) anyone know whether a spare win7 pro retail key will activate win10 pro?
2) would it do so as a retail version or just OEM version?
3) would it work downloading the full iso image from MS or would it still be necessary to install 7 then upgrade to 10. The former would seem preferable unless there's a good reason why not?

[DanceswithUnix]

I would expect a fresh install of Windows 10 to accept a Windows 7 key. MS still seem quite generous in what they accept.

The only time I've had a key refused was a generic 7 Home OEM key not being usable on a Dell workstation. Switching to a spare 8 Pro retail key worked fine. I do find on motherboard swaps I sometimes have to re-apply the key though, so don't lose them