Windows 10 further problems

almillar

I have also been told that 3GB of RAM is not enough to handle Windows 10

Well that's rubbish, so you can forget about that. With a difficult to find problem like this, try 'restore'ing Windows 10 - there's a non destructive version that leaves all your files intact - do this first.
If that doesn't work, copy your stuff off your computer, do the destructive version - a factory reset, then copy your stuff back over. I chased a problem for a long time on a desktop computer, to find a dodgy RAM stick in the end.

andygb

almillar wrote: »

Well that's rubbish, so you can forget about that. With a difficult to find problem like this, try 'restore'ing Windows 10 - there's a non destructive version that leaves all your files intact - do this first.
If that doesn't work, copy your stuff off your computer, do the destructive version - a factory reset, then copy your stuff back over. I chased a problem for a long time on a desktop computer, to find a dodgy RAM stick in the end.

How do you do a "non destructive" restore then, because two so called "experts" (Currys different branches) have said that I will have to back up everything and do a "clean" restore.
There are so many people online (various computer forums) who have been forced into a Windows 10 upgrade (like myself), and are having exactly the same problems or worse. There are some programmes which I cannot open at all, such as "Pictures" where my photos are (thankfully a lot are backed up on an external hard drive), so I cannot back up any more, and it took ages the other day to back up document files to a memory stick.

esuhl

andygb wrote: »

How do you do a "non destructive" restore then, because two so called "experts" (Currys different branches) have said that I will have to back up everything and do a "clean" restore.

Personally, I'd back up everything and do a clean installation.

andygb wrote: »

There are some programmes which I cannot open at all, such as "Pictures" where my photos are (thankfully a lot are backed up on an external hard drive), so I cannot back up any more...

You don't need to open files to back them up. Just copy them or image the partition.

andygb wrote: »

... and it took ages the other day to back up document files to a memory stick.

What took so long? The actual process of copying so many files? At least you can leave the computer to it while you wait.

Probably not a great idea to back up files to flash memory sticks, though. They don't have any error correction and are more likely to fail than other storage media.

andygb

esuhl wrote: »

Personally, I'd back up everything and do a clean installation.



You don't need to open files to back them up. Just copy them or image the partition.



What took so long? The actual process of copying so many files? At least you can leave the computer to it while you wait.

Probably not a great idea to back up files to flash memory sticks, though. They don't have any error correction and are more likely to fail than other storage media.

I think that I would really rather try to go back to Windows 7.1, at least it worked after I had disabled some of the startup programmes.
If the upgrade was able to instal and run Windows 10 over Windows 7.1 and still keep all my files, then surely I should be able to revert back somehow or do a system restore to take me back to the point where everything was working fine?
I know the exact date it all went wrong - 14th June, when all the updates installed, up until then Windows 10 had been working quickly for over a month.

esuhl

andygb wrote: »

I think that I would really rather try to go back to Windows 7.1, at least it worked after I had disabled some of the startup programmes.
If the upgrade was able to instal and run Windows 10 over Windows 7.1 and still keep all my files, then surely I should be able to revert back somehow or do a system restore to take me back to the point where everything was working fine?
I know the exact date it all went wrong - 14th June, when all the updates installed, up until then Windows 10 had been working quickly for over a month.

Ahhh... If you do an in-place upgrade, you have 30-days to roll back to the previous OS. It looks like you're a couple of days over that now.

"Surely you should be able to revert back...?". Yes; one would think so. But Microsoft like to stop you doing perfectly legitimate things like that after an arbitrary time. Just like the "enforced" upgrade to Win10, they don't want you to be able to go back to Win7/8 too easily.

So... I guess the only option you have (other than spending ages trying to get the current installation working properly) would be to backup and clean install either Win7 or Win10.

eporium

How do you do a "non destructive" restore then

To do this go to: Settings | Update&Security | Recovery | Reset this PC

This is fairly straight forward process, at least it fixed the problem I had, but do make sure that you have all your data backed-up.

almillar

How do you do a "non destructive" restore then, because two so called "experts" (Currys different branches) have said that I will have to back up everything and do a "clean" restore.

Thanks for answering this, eporium.
You should, of course, already have a backup of anything that's important to you. I think the issue here is that your Windows 7 installation may not have been as super as you thought it was (disabled startup items?) so you didn't help there. For all the hassle, try the reset above, and if not, a clean install is the way to go. And take this opportunity to sort out your backup ritual, and don't use memory sticks.