Windows 10 Upgrade (Part 1)

 

It's Time To Perform That Upgrade (Finally)

Anyone who's visited my Facebook Profile knows that I do computer maintenance as a occupation and maintain a lab in the process. Maintaining a lab for organization demand keeping the lab workstations up-to-date. It's important to keep the machines up to date with the latest software. However, certain upgrades can provide challenges if done early. This is true especially with OS (Operating System) upgrades.

Since lab computers need to maintain compatibility with certain software packages and certain account/network configurations, a OS upgrade can be disruptive in a negative way if one doesn't prepare ahead of time.

Microsoft is dropping extended support for Windows 7 on January 2020. This means that Seven will not get any major updates after this point, leaving the OS up to nasty security exploits. With that said, a Windows 10 upgrade can be done comfortably now because the vast majority of issues that plagued the OS have been ironed out and resolved.

This is the first part of a multi-part series describing the Windows 10 Upgrade, and the pros and cons of those upgrades. To sum it up though in a nutshell: I've been very satisfied with 10 so far. There have been a few issues that needed to be addressed, but they were minor in scope, and easily resolvable. They are concerns I have that will be addressed as well. But they aren't that high of a priority (yet). Not lets get into the meat the of article.

Repeat After Me: NEVER EARLY ADOPT!

Many of those reading this article are probably scratching there heads wondering why the planned upgrades, which will proceed over the next couple of months, are occurring now? The most obvious reason is that Windows 7 is still actively supported by Microsoft, and the OS works very well within the lab. Because of this, there hasn't been a pressing issue to upgrade. This is advantage as with Windows 10 being at its most mature and stable now, this minimizes potential issues with the planned upgrades.

Also, far more has to be taken into consideration, as these lab computers are clients operating within a server environment. A lot more has to be taken into consideration than a home user has to worry about. Each lab computer is configured into a domain running on a Windows Server 2008 R2 (with extended support also be dropped on January 2020. One battle at a time!).

The domain and group policies are configured in a particular manner, as the software. The group policies and accounts that the Windows 7 clients interact with are configured in a particular way. Application compatibility on the client computers have to be taken into consideration as well. If they are issues, then how do they get resolved?

When introduced, Windows 10 was plagued with compatibility, performance, and security issues. Not only that, Microsoft employed deceptive tactics to grow the user base artificially. Not exactly trustworthy or displaying noble intentions now is it? Sneaking in Windows 10 as a typical upgrade is very underhanded for those that didn't plan on upgrading the whole OS. Especially for a OS, which in my opinion, when released, wasn't ready for prime-time. Many users weren't ready for the upgrade. Not all computers were ready either. Many reported driver issues as well. For me to embrace Windows 10, the OS has to be at its most mature before a upgrade takes place. With years gone by, the vast majority of these issues have been resolved, and I can feel comfortable with performing the lab upgrade now. We just need that test "guinea pig".

Guinea Pig

There was this remote computer at the far edge of the lab which is hardly used. As a result, this computer would make a really good test candidate to see how the upgrade would perform. I downloaded the ISO image from the Microsoft website. Since these computers are Dell Workstation running OEM copies of Windows 7, which are "upgrade-approved" for Windows 10, this install would be very straightforward. After burning the ISO to a DVD, I started the upgrade from within Seven. The upgrade will ask to download drivers from the internet, which is recommended. This will add time to the install, but might solve any potential hardware issues along the way. Since this is a upgrade, I told the installer to upgrade the personal data and apps as well. The computer will restart a few times during the installation, perform more upgrades and installing internet updates in the process if connected. After about 1-1/2 hours, Windows 10 was running on the computer.

Post-Install

The first thing I noticed was that there was a lot of hard-disk activity as indicated by the LED light on the case. The drive just kept spinning. I wasn't surprised by this since this was a new OS. There is time needed to build the user profiles and configure them and to migrate and upgrade applications as well. Even after a few restarts, there was still unsatisfactory performance. After the first post-install defrag though, Windows 10 ran much better. On par with with the workstations running Windows 7 actually. Very pleased and a issue that was actually very resolvable in retrospect.

Windows 10 constantly complains about the Dell Backup Utility from Seven. I tried to uninstall it afterwards, but got nowhere. This message only appears though when one logs into the Administrative account (which in theory should only be me). People logging into student accounts won't see this message. I will uninstall the Dell Backup Utility from Seven before performing more future installations. Even after install though, this doesn't affect how 10 operates though, so the message complaint is trivial. And it only happens in the Administrator account, which again, is only accessed by me, so this problem is moot though.

There were problems with Office 2013. I opened Word after install. It would open, but then quickly disappear. Apparently, this is a very common issue. It's resolved when you click modify under Office 2013 on "Programs And Features". However, the Windows Installer couldn't find the executable, even though it's still there.  The copy of Office 2013 were pre-installed on the computers when they were purchased from Dell many years ago, so there is no installation media for them. However, that executable to fix the install is still there. After some folder navigation in Windows Explorer, I found that executable, ran it, and waited a few minutes. Even though there was no activity after a few minutes, when I ran Word again, it opened successfully, as did all the other Office applications. So that problem got resolved quickly.

One thing that impressed me was how quickly Windows 10 conformed to the domain and group policy settings enforced by the server. It automatically detected the domain, and connected to it. I was able to log into one of my dummy student accounts to test the profile post-install. It loaded without issue, and very quickly too. That account was also a roaming profile. In server-speak, a roaming profile is a account where the account settings are the same, regardless of which computer one logs onto.  I had a few issues with the Administrator account after install. It took forever to load. After a few restarts and that disk defrag though, the performance issues were solved.

Many of the student programs used constantly were designed for Windows 3.1/95. Programs that many of the students like and are comfortable with. These programs can't also run natively under 64-bit Windows either. Software that utilizes 16-bit code. As a result, we have a virtual machine running Windows XP to maintain compatibility with that software.

VMware Player 12 refused to work after the install, and it needed to be reinstalled. I just decided though to upgrade to VMware Player 14 over 12. After the upgrade (and changing a few settings in the BIOS concerning virtualization), our XP virtual machine was operating without issue again.

Final Thoughts And Concerns

A few more student programs were tested, with pleasing results. There have been a few minor issues here and there, but on the whole, I've been satisfied with the upgrade that's taken place. Not only that, I now have a much better idea of how to proceed with the next computer and those afterwards.

As posted above, there have been a few issues during the upgrade. However, this is expected, as any upgrade is going to have issues though. However, the Windows 10 upgrade, compared to other upgrades that I've done in the past, have actually been relatively hassle-free. The issues that have occurred were quickly resolved. 

There needs to be more testing though, especially with how Windows 10 interacts with the group policies on the server. One thing noted is that many settings were migrated over successfully from Seven, like the Power and Control Panel settings being disabled from the student accounts. The GP (Group Policy) setting where students can only log off, and not shutdown the computer, was preserved. The Desktop and wallpaper settings were preserved from the profiles as well.

However, many settings were ignored, as with the Start Menu of the student accounts being populated with all the default programs that shipped with 10, which includes games and Microsoft Edge. I've configured the Group Policies to disable Internet Explorer, but I've can't find a Edge equivalent. More test with roaming profiles need to be done as well. More research and configuration of the students and default accounts is needed to see how the student profiles in 10 will operate. That is where Part 2 of the article will cover.

Despite this though, I'm pleased with Windows 10 so far, and there is a migration path in place to have all the computers upgraded by Summer following more tune-ups. More research needs to be done, but the basics are covered, and there covered well. It's time for the upgrades to continue!