Win 10 upgrade problem

[JonathanT]

Hello

Long time user/forum member here. I had a perfectly working system and then:

I just 'upgraded' from Win7 to Win10 - I know, I know, should have left well alone!

SAWStudio 32Bit works fine.
SAWStudio 64Bit crashes the computer. I've tried reinstalling to no avail.

I've tried Win7 compatibility mode - doesn't help.

Any ideas?

Or - how easy is it to roll back to Win7!

Many Thanks

Jonathan

[JonathanT]

I rolled back to Win7 - everything works again!

Lesson learnt

Jonathan

[mr_es335]

Jonathan,

Firstly, I agree that WIN10 is "quirky"...but there is more to installing an OS that just installing an OS...especially for professional usage.

There are quite of folks here on the forum employing WIN10 and are having no apparent issues whatsoever.

May I ask the following:
1) What was your purpose in moving to WIN10?
2) What "type/version/build" of WIN10 was this - Home, Pro, LTSC?
* For example I am using WINTO LTSC, Version 1809, build 17763.1
3) What hardware you are using - the more info the better?
4) Was this installation a "clean install" or an "upgrade"...looks to be the latter?
* Upgrades are prone to may errors and issues.

I would love to actually talk with you sometime...but distance may seriously prohibit this.

Lastly, I am presently installing WIN10 and have spent over 40 hours doing so and am getting to the point where all is working as it should.

Hope this helps?

[JonathanT]

Hi Dell

You are right of course, I hoped for a quick upgrade and I should have known better.

My only reason was to stay at least reasonably current as operating systems move on, but Win 7 continues to work even as Microsoft support has ended. I was using Win 10 Pro from an unused CD I had. I'll check the version number.

I suspect the issue was more to do with my soundcard setup. I use very old, but very good SonicCore Pulsar soundcards (three which link together) and the associated Scope environment which still sounds fantastic with very high quality synths and effects.

When SAWStudio 64 induced the crash the blue screen showed Scope PCI as the issue/exception. Funny how SAWStudio 32 worked fine.

I've no doubt everything is solvable and I will try again with a clean install as you suggest, probably in a separate partition.

Thank you for your good advice. I'll report back in due course.

Best Regards

Jonathan

[mr_es335]

Jonathan,

A couple of points...

P1: in all honesty, go and purchase a small SSD
* You ARE using SSD's...CORRECT?
* WD, Lexar, stay away from SanDisk and Samsung
* Swap out the main boot drive for the SSD and install WIN10 on that...leaves your existing install completely "unaffected".

P2: Never, ever be at all concerned about "Microsoft's lack of support for previous OS's..."
* In all honesty, such cessation is a blessing in disguise.
* So-called end-of-support for WIN10 is ending May '24

P3: There is considerable difference [hopefully obviously] between drivers for WIN7 and WIN10...just ask the folks at RME what they had to do!
* And I am sure that others had to do the very same?

P4: Did check out this posting [Click_Me]?

[JonathanT]

Hi Dell

I use an SSD for the C drive and SATA for the other drives to get enough storage. If you think using SSD drives for all of them would improve performance significantly, I'll look again at the price for large SSDs. The operating systems and programs are all on the C drive but the audio and video files are all on the other drives.

Yes, I will use a separate fresh drive when I try again. It does mean I have to open the case everytime I want to work on Win10 which is time consuming in my studio with where it is positioned, it is a large heavy Quiet PC case and I have to disconnect everything at the back to move it. In the past I've always used a partition manager to avoid this but that would have been with two separate OS in different partitions on the same drive. Maybe this isn't a practical proposition anymore.

I'm no expert but I have done a lot of this over the years, starting with getting The Editor software to run on Win95 in the late 90s. Then early versions of SAW, plus video editing software, on Win2000 and then WinXP in the early 2000s. We had to tweak them to the max to get them to work at all and I got used to implementing all of Bob's, and others, tweak lists.

Discontinued Microsoft support - you are right and it never used to worry me. I still use Win XP on my accounts computer because it is stable with my accounts package. I thought that the upgrading process might be more painless these days, I don't know what made me think that! Maybe I am getting soft. I aacept that the reality is you have to tweak any system to get it to work well with sophisticated audio software.

Everything is working well after the rollback to Win7 ha ha!

Best Regards

Jonathan

[mr_es335]

Jonathan,

"TCO" versus "ROI" my friend!
* That is, "Total Cost of Ownership" versus "Return on Investment"
* Very simply, the cost of a "temp SSD" - for testing purposes is far less than the costs-and-downtime of "potentially" having to fix a broken production system.
* This is why I have a dedicated "test system" for such usage ***8211; of which does NOT need to be "fancy" at all.

As noted, the use of the SSD is temporary - just until you get things worked-out.
* Thus the use of the terms "Development" and "Deployment".
* The development process must go "smoothly" before deployment is ever implemented - though being human, there is always something that is missed.

I do not yet trust SSD's for data. If SSD's ARE employed, then "Backup", "Backup" and "Backup" again.

As noted, the use of the "temp SSD" is for testing purposes only.

WIN10 manages dual boots much more efficiently that ever before. Never used it however...so someone else will need to "chime-in" here.

I wish that it were true regarding upgrading! My older brother is a "surface mount technologist" - and was one of the "pioneers" of the Ultrasound machine! He has told me time-and-time again, that even though two of the same "boards" during initial testing are considered as being "identical" ***8211; that such will always produce different end-results. And with the varying makes-and-models of PC-based hardware these days - this only exacerbates the problem and therefore, problems are to be expected.

Your comment, "...and it never used to worry me..." ....it still should not! The whole idea of upgrading is - for the most part, "bovine fecal matter"...though some here on this forum do think antithetically on this matter.

As always, I do hope that you find such information helpful?

[JonathanT]

Very helpful thanks Dell!

I'll report back when I have another go, definitely on a separate SSD drive.

Best Regards

Jonathan

[mr_es335]

Jonathan,

One other very important point...WIN7 was never designed for use with SSD's!

Why?

SSD's did not "really" exist when WIN 7 was deployed. If they DID, SSD's were prohibitively expensive.

SSD's are "trimmed" - NOT defragged. Therefore, you must disable de-fragging of SSD's under WIN7.
* Lots of info on the 'Net for this.

Some - actually very few, SSD manufacturers provide utility software for trimming under Windows 7.

Om the other-hand, WIN10 has trimming built-in - not sure if all versions did however. I know that 1809 does.

Hope this helps?

[JonathanT]

It does - Gulp.

It's a Crucial MX100. I've never had any problems with the drive itself so maybe I've been lucky.