Windows 10

Well, Microsoft really screwed the pooch when it comes to patching Windows 10 boxes under WSUS. Rolled out a few Win 10 boxes last week and it seems that they don't abide by the policy settings "don't reboot while user is logged on" as well as the specified reboot day/time (Saturday at 2am for us). Win 10 boxes just download any approved patches ASAP and reboot whenever they feel like, including while a user is logged on and working.. Numerous others complaining of the same problem online. How this made it through QA I have no idea..

I have two computers running windows 10 one obeys the policy the other does not... I'm assuming there is some interaction with something else. Either way it's flat ridiculous that Microsoft felt it was acceptable to close running applications.

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:

Well, Microsoft really screwed the pooch when it comes to patching Windows 10 boxes under WSUS. Rolled out a few Win 10 boxes last week and it seems that they don't abide by the policy settings "don't reboot while user is logged on" as well as the specified reboot day/time (Saturday at 2am for us). Win 10 boxes just download any approved patches ASAP and reboot whenever they feel like, including while a user is logged on and working.. Numerous others complaining of the same problem online. How this made it through QA I have no idea..

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Server 2012 has a huge problem with this. I log into it and it says REBOOTING K THNKS BYE!


I have to scramble to shutdown.exe -a the mother fuckers. I can't have domain controllers and DHCP scopes and Radius servers go down.

Since we're talking shit rebooting when it's not supposed to, I got a problem. I RDP home from work (w8.1 to w8.1) and maybe once a week (one in 10-15 RDP sessions) I login, I see the desktop and maybe get to click around for 1-5 seconds, then shit freezes and times out and the home computer does a graceful reboot. There's nothing in the event log.

radditsu_sl said:

Server 2012 has a huge problem with this. I log into it and it says REBOOTING K THNKS BYE!


I have to scramble to shutdown.exe -a the mother fuckers. I can't have domain controllers and DHCP scopes and Radius servers go down.

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Weird, you shouldn't have this problem with server 2012. if you've got group policies set to specify a reboot time, as well as no rebooting while logged in and no auto-reboot for missed updates, it should only reboot at the time you specify. We've got 60+ 2012 servers and they all behave fine. For critical servers I set them to only download and we manually install/reboot, for non critical I set specific install/reboot on Saturday evenings.

In Windows 10 despite setting a specific reboot time, the interface on the client in the Windows Update section will be greyed out (as if it's applying your GPO setting) but it won't use the time you specify, instead choosing some arbitrary time where it thinks your computer will be idle. Fucking stupid.

!!Windows 10 WSUS GPO Reboot Behavior!!

Question for you guys;

I'm building a new PC and have a Windows 10 (Upgrade) lic installed on my current PC. How much of a pain in the ass is it to transfer the license from the old PC to the new? Is it just a call to MS to resolve or something more complicated?

matsb84_sl said:

Question for you guys;

I'm building a new PC and have a Windows 10 (Upgrade) lic installed on my current PC. How much of a pain in the ass is it to transfer the license from the old PC to the new? Is it just a call to MS to resolve or something more complicated?

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The license is likely tied to the PC. If you had a retail (not system builder, or OEM) license for an earlier version of Windows you could probably install that and update it, or try one of the clean install methods. If that license was the one used on the previous PC you'd probably need to wipe it too to comply w/ their license.

My HTPC has a super old 32GB SSD. I want to upgrade to a newer SSD, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

I had read that you can now enter a Win 7/8 product code during the Windows 10 install, so I just threw the new SSD in and started a Windows 10 install. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Windows 10 likes OEM keys (my key looks like XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXXX-XXXXX).

I put the 32GB one back in after then reading that during a Windows 10 install, you can use an external for the overflow. Well, that didn't work either. It just told me I needed 6GB extra and to try again when it was free.

So now I'm wondering if anyone has a solution to this. It's pretty annoying and I'm not really sure where to go from here.

Elurin_sl said:

My HTPC has a super old 32GB SSD. I want to upgrade to a newer SSD, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

I had read that you can now enter a Win 7/8 product code during the Windows 10 install, so I just threw the new SSD in and started a Windows 10 install. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Windows 10 likes OEM keys (my key looks like XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXXX-XXXXX).

I put the 32GB one back in after then reading that during a Windows 10 install, you can use an external for the overflow. Well, that didn't work either. It just told me I needed 6GB extra and to try again when it was free.

So now I'm wondering if anyone has a solution to this. It's pretty annoying and I'm not really sure where to go from here.

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It sounds like you are trying to do do two things at the same time - move your OS drive to a bigger SSD and do a Win10 upgrade. You need to do them one at a time.

Use the new SSD's OS transfer software to move your current (7/8) OS install onto the new SSD. Once you are booting onto your new SSD, make sure Windows activates (it probably do this automatically). Then do the Win10 upgrade since you now have enough free space, after which Windows should auto-activate. If it does, you could then do a fresh Win10 install if you have/make the install media. Don't enter a key during the fresh install (look for "do this later" in small print on the lower left of the key windows during install). Make sure your new install can get online (drivers/wi-fi p/w), then let it sit for a while and it should auto-activate again.

Elurin_sl said:

My HTPC has a super old 32GB SSD. I want to upgrade to a newer SSD, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it.

I had read that you can now enter a Win 7/8 product code during the Windows 10 install, so I just threw the new SSD in and started a Windows 10 install. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Windows 10 likes OEM keys (my key looks like XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXXX-XXXXX).

I put the 32GB one back in after then reading that during a Windows 10 install, you can use an external for the overflow. Well, that didn't work either. It just told me I needed 6GB extra and to try again when it was free.

So now I'm wondering if anyone has a solution to this. It's pretty annoying and I'm not really sure where to go from here.

Click to expand...

Is this an OEM key from Dell, HP, etc.? If so, you could tryWindows 10 Tip: Successfully Clean Install Windows 10 - Thurrott.com

Otherwise, another possibility would be to create a USB drive to install from rather than have it use the disk for setup files.

Jovec's post reminded me that I had originally intended to just clone the HTPC hard drive and then upgrade on the new one. So I tried that and for some bizarre reason I absolutely cannot get my computer to boot to Windows 10 (my main PC) over the Windows 7 drive (HTPC). My main SSD is the priority boot in the BIOS, and even doing an F11 to choose boot device with it, it still defaults to the Windows 7 SSD. In fact, when I have the 2nd SSD (the one I'm trying to clone to) plugged in, it for some reason wants to default to THAT one (which has no bootable partition). I figured maybe there was something weird going on with the SATA cables, but switching them into all different configurations didn't work.

Anyway, to answer questions: With Jovec's suggestion, I cannot do that on the HTPC because it is a mini PC with only 1 ATA to plug anything in to (which is why I went with trying to use my main PC).
To answer Luthair, I have no clue. I got it from my brother-in-law. All I know is that it's an OEM key (Zotac mini PC). I would imagine it's something he had lying around, since he works in IT. I tried doing the USB install and that's when I got the error about needing an extra 6GB.

Edit: Ok, well I was able to get the drive cloned using an external enclosure, but I'm still stuck because the OS is on a 32GB partition and the Windows 10 update wants 8GB now. It pretty much ignores the remainder of the disk (I did reformat it and allocate it, however).

Edit2: I was going to try thisClean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forumsbut now I can't get the god damn USB to boot. I used the Windows Media Creation tool and it just refuses to boot. The BIOS sees it, but nada. Legacy USB on/off doesn't do shit. I'm ready to throw this fucking thing into the street.

Elurin_sl said:

Edit: Ok, well I was able to get the drive cloned using an external enclosure, but I'm still stuck because the OS is on a 32GB partition and the Windows 10 update wants 8GB now. It pretty much ignores the remainder of the disk (I did reformat it and allocate it, however).

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Should be easy enough to resize the new 32GB partition now that it's on the new SSD. I think Windows Disk Manager can even do it.

Jovec_sl said:

Should be easy enough to resize the new 32GB partition now that it's on the new SSD. I think Windows Disk Manager can even do it.

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Make sure you make sure your SSD partition is properly aligned.


How to: Properly re-align your SSD/HDD partitions

Jovec_sl said:

Should be easy enough to resize the new 32GB partition now that it's on the new SSD. I think Windows Disk Manager can even do it.

Click to expand...

I didn't even realize that was a thing. That was enough to do it. Thanks!

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:

Well, Microsoft really screwed the pooch when it comes to patching Windows 10 boxes under WSUS. Rolled out a few Win 10 boxes last week and it seems that they don't abide by the policy settings "don't reboot while user is logged on" as well as the specified reboot day/time (Saturday at 2am for us). Win 10 boxes just download any approved patches ASAP and reboot whenever they feel like, including while a user is logged on and working.. Numerous others complaining of the same problem online. How this made it through QA I have no idea..

Click to expand...

Because they want you to use SCCM and Software Center to manage all Win10 updates.

We have not rolled out 10 enterprise wide yet, as there are a good number of things I need to do to get our SCCM enviro ready- however all our servers, domain controllers, HV parents etc. all use SCCM to manage their updates (per raddits' post issues) and it works flawlessly.

Now getting Windows 10 IPU (in place upgrade) ready to roll out across out multi site enterprise is going to be fun

If I am building a new computer and I have Windows 7 32 bit, can I just copy down the license and use that when I do a fresh install on the new hard drive? And then can I upgrade to 64 bit Windows 10 afterwards? Trying to avoid having to buy a new copy of Windows but I haven't done this in 5 years.

or will my license work on an install of 64 bit Windows 7 if I have a disk and just skip whatever step is involved from 32 bit Windows 7 -> 64 bit Windows 10?

If you have a retail key just install windows 10 and input your win7 key. It should work since the 10.1 update, no upgrades needed.

What's the cheapest you can get a Windows 7 key for?

I just wanted to share a miracle with everyone. So my Lenovo tablet with Win 8.1 I hadn't used very much but I installed a tech preview of Win 10 on it. It was not optimized and the touch controls weren't operable, so I basically forgot about it for several months.

I went to boot it on Saturday figuring I might as well update it at least and BAM 'Part of your operating system has expired' error. I wasn't actually surprised because I figured the previews would expire, but this left me with a dilemma as the machine has no keyboard functionality until it boots the OS or a regular USB port. I ran restore and apparently installing Win 10 destroyed the factory recovery partition. Why? Who knows.

I ended up fixing it by setting the system date in BIOS to 6/1/15 to enable it to boot. In Windows I set the system date back to current so that I could authenticate SSL certs and went to the Windows insider website. It linked me to the generic 'install windows 10' installer. I DLed it, ran it and got stuck where it said it needed a CD key. I thought I was screwed because apparently the tech preview key didn't include the original Win 8.1 key info. I about gave up, but I found a reddit where someone had listed an insider preview key for the installer (or something, anyway). I restarted the installer again and figuring it would finish the DL and stop at the CD key part, I left it alone and went out on an errand. I came back and the machine had mysteriously passed that point and was ready to install Win 10. I think it was a miracle, this is the first time any major windows problem has actually fixed itself.

Win 10 is working extremely well with the tablet now. I can use the touchpad on the keyboard and type, but I can also just touch the screen and scroll or select things without having to change to tablet mode. It's pretty nice.