A few good reasons to upgrade from Win7 to Win10

A few good reasons to upgrade from Win7 to Win10

That “Get Windows 10” icon sitting in Win7’s notification area will get you a free upgrade, but you haven’t decided whether it’s worth taking the plunge.

For most Win8 users, upgrading is a virtual no-brainer; for Win7 users, however, the case is not so compelling. Here are a few enhancements that might tip the balance toward Win10.

We all know that Windows 7 is an excellent and firmly established operating system that has a familiar and fully functional Start menu. And for classic, non-touchscreen systems, Win10’s new Start menu offers no real advantages over Win7’s.

However, Windows 10 is far more than a revamped Start menu; it has numerous features that either don’t exist in Win7 or have been significantly improved. Not all of these enhancements were introduced with Win10; some are familiar to Win8 users. But Win7 users can now get the latest Windows features for free — and never have to cope with Win8’s “neither fish nor fowl” interface.

That said, I’m not promoting the Win10 upgrade for all Windows 7 systems. In fact, I’m writing this article on a PC that’s still running Win7. My initial attempt to run Win10 on my production computer turned into a disaster of incompatibilities and BSoDs, as detailed in the Aug. 27 Top Story, “Thirty-day Win10 experiment lasts only a week.”

There are also Win10’s controversial — some say notorious — privacy issues to consider. For more on that topic, see the Sept. 10 LangaList Plus column (paid content).

To be fair, my Win10-upgrade nightmare ended just nine days after the OS was first released. Of course there were going to be problems — many of which have since been fixed.

Sometime in the relatively near future, I plan to purchase a new PC for work. When that happens, I’ll be happy to have Windows 10 — for a variety of reasons. Here are five of them.

Task View: Get a quick glance at running apps

Managing and sorting through a bunch of open windows can get annoying. Win10’s Task View gives you a clean, easy-to-see view of all of your open windows — including warnings and dialog boxes. The displayed boxes are smaller than the actual windows but bigger than icons or thumbnails (see Figure 1), so you can really see what’s in them.

Figure 1. Task View gives a quick view of what's open on the Win10 desktop.

To enter Task View, click or tap the Task View icon (which looks like a box with big ears) to the right of the Search bar. Or, if your fingers are on the keyboard, press Window key + Tab. (If the icon in missing, right-click the taskbar and select “Show Task View button.”)

To work with a particular open window, simply click it in Task View. All of your windows will return to their previous size and position — with the selected window will be up front.

Task View is also the gateway to one of Win10’s coolest new features: Virtual Desktops.

Virtual Desktops: The better way to multitask

When you think about it, every Windows desktop is virtual — the only real desktop is the wooden one that holds up your monitor, keyboard, and other molecule-based stuff. But with Win10, a virtual desktop can bring order to a cluttered screen.

Although virtual desktops have been around for years, Win10 is the first Windows version to have them seamlessly integrated into the OS.

Most busy PC users have two, three, or a dozen applications running on the desktop at any particular time. Often, they’re a mess of overlapping windows. Virtual Desktops give apps or groups of apps their own desktop. For instance, run Word and OneNote on one desktop, and place your browser and email client on another. A third desktop can contain that game you like to play when the boss is away.

To create a second desktop (the first was created when you booted Win10), open Task View and then click the + sign/New desktop icon in the lower-right corner of the screen (see Figure 2). While in Task View, you’ll see — just above the taskbar — thumbnails of all running desktops.

Figure 2. Windows 10 makes it easy to open and close virtual desktops.

Clicking a thumbnail opens the desktop, but you can switch faster by pressing Ctrl + Win + left arrow or Ctrl + Win + right arrow.

When you launch a new program, Windows opens it in your current desktop.

You can move open windows from one desktop to another. Go to the desktop it’s currently in, enter Task View, and drag the window to the desired desktop’s thumbnail just above the taskbar.

To close a desktop, go to Task View and click the X just above its thumbnail image.

Cortana: Smart local and online searches

I came down pretty hard on Win10’s digital-assistant/search tool in my Sept. 24 Top Story, “Win10 tweaks to improve computing work and play.” I recommended changing its settings to make it behave more like Win7’s search tool.

And when I start using Windows 10 on my new work PC, I’ll do exactly what I recommended in that article.

But I acknowledge that many Win10 users will find Cortana-based searches more of a benefit than an annoyance. So this section is for those who like universal and intelligent searches.

When you click Win10’s “Ask me anything” search field, some possibly useful information will immediately pop up. For example, you’ll get the current weather, maybe a reminder of something on your calendar, some news, and so on (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Before you even ask it a question, Cortana provides some potentially useful information.

Type in a search string, and you’ll get both local and Web-based search results. It’s like using the Win7 search tool and a browser at the same time.

And Cortana-based searches should become more useful over time, as the system learns your preferences and interests from previous searches. For instance, after searching “Buster Keaton” and “Charlie Chaplin,” a search for “Harold” popped up another great silent-film comedian, Harold Lloyd.

Assuming you have a compatible microphone (not a given), Cortana will respond to both vocal and typed questions.

File Explorer: Better file and folder management

Almost every good operating system has basic file management — a way to find, organize, open, copy, move, and delete files. (We’re still waiting, iOS.) Win7’s Windows Explorer is great, but Win10’s File Explorer is even better. (It’s almost identical to Win8’s.)

Even the name is an improvement. File Explorer is a more intuitive name than the old Windows Explorer.

Catching up with the way Microsoft Office has looked since 2007, File Explorer replaces the classic menus with tabbed ribbons (Figure 4) — a huge advantage on touchscreens. Even with a mouse, the ribbon is faster to use and makes more sense, once you’ve become familiar with it.

Figure 4. File Explorer uses the MS Ribbon to make file and folder management faster and easier.

If you don’t see the ribbon, click one of File Explorer’s tabs and the full interface will pop up. Clicking the down-pointing chevron in the upper-right corner of a File Explorer window will keep the ribbon open.

Opening a File Explorer window doesn’t take you to your libraries; by default it highlights a new virtual location called Quick Access. Here you’ll find the folders that you’ve pinned to File Manager on the taskbar, as well as folders you’ve been visiting a lot lately (but haven’t pinned). File Explorer displays the same list of folders at the top of right-hand navigation pane. But scroll down that pane and you’ll find a list of recently-used files.

File Explorer’s Quick Access Toolbar is completely different from Quick Access. Found on the top left-most corner of a File Explorer window, the Quick Access Toolbar lets you run common actions without messing with tabs and ribbons. You could set it up, for example, to quickly copy the selected file’s full path.

To add a tool to the Toolbar, find it on a ribbon, right-click it, and select Add to Quick Access Toolbar, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Add frequently used File Explorer tools to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Another nice touch: If you select Move to or Copy to, either on the ribbon or the Quick Access Toolbar (if you put them there), you get a pull-down menu rather than a separate dialog box. It’s significantly faster and simpler. If you really need the dialog box, click Choose location at the bottom of the drop-down list.

File Explorer has one serious flaw, but it’s easy to fix. Initially, you probably won’t find the Libraries section — one of Win7’s best innovations — in the navigation pane. To fix that, select the View tab, click Navigation pane, and then put a check mark next to Show libraries.

Task Manager: More information; easier to read

You rarely go to Task Manager when things are going well. But going there in Win10 (and Win8) is significantly better than visiting Windows 7’s version.

The latest Task Manager incarnation is bigger, wider, and gives significantly more informative — at least it does so after clicking the More details option in the lower-left corner of the basic Task Manager window.

Fortunately, that change sticks; Task Manager will come up in its large, useful version (Figure 6) from then on — or at least until you click Fewer details. (Although I don’t know why you would.)

Figure 6. Win10's Task Manager has a significantly friendlier interface.

Here are three of Win10’s Task Manager enhancements:

• Process tab: This combines the information shown in Win7’s Applications and Processes tabs. It also separates the applications (called Apps, in the new parlance) and background processes. This simple bit of organization makes troubleshooting with Task Manager much easier.
• Performance tab: Small graphs on this window’s left side gives a quick view of overall system activity. Clicking a particular graph displays more detailed information.
  

  Figure 7. Task Manager's Performance tab provides both an overview and details on system activity.

• Startup: This replaces the Startup tab in MSConfig. If fact, if you go to Startup in MSConfig, you’ll see only a link back to Task Manager.
  

  Figure 8. The Startup tab in Task Manager replaces the tool previously found in MSConfig.

For more on the new Task Manager, see the June 12, 2014, Best Practices article, “A visual tour of Win8’s new Task Manager.” The information also applies to Windows 10.

The bottom line: Even on systems without a touchscreen, there are good reasons to upgrade to Win10 — especially since it’s free. I confess that after writing this article, I was tempted to click that little “Get Windows 10” icon in my Win7 notification area.

But then I remind myself: Impulsively upgrading your operating system is never a good idea, especially when the OS is still new and has a few kinks — such as support for old hardware — that need to be straightened out.

Windows Update error can block Win10 upgrade

Problems with Windows Update components might not just interfere with routine updates, they can also prevent Win10 upgrades. But there’s a relatively easy fix.

Plus: Killing “undeletable” files and folders in all Windows versions, and Microsoft finally reveals Win10 activation details — including the new “digital entitlement.”

Win10 upgrade fails with cryptic error message

Reader Robert Wheeler can’t complete the Windows 10 upgrade process.

• “I’ve not been able to upgrade to Win10. The process stops at 15 percent completion and displays Error 80070004-2000D. Can you help?”

Robert, that’s a Windows Update error. The default method of upgrading to Win10 relies on the standard Windows Update mechanisms.

Under the covers, Windows Update is actually a collection of several different operating-system functions. A problem with any of those functions, or in any of the file repositories and databases (catalogs) used by Windows Update, can prevent a successful upgrade. It might even prevent routine Windows updates!

The solution isn’t hard but is a bit fussy.

You start by executing several admin-level commands to stop all Windows Update activity. That includes the update server itself, the Cryptographic Service that verifies the integrity of update files, the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) that manages the downloads, and the Microsoft Installer (MSI) that sets up and installs the updates — and the upgrades.

Next, you rename the old — probably damaged — Win Update-related catalogs and file repositories to get them out of the way. Last, you restart the update-related services, which will automatically create new catalogs and repositories. These steps usually let Windows Update resume normal operation.

You can perform the whole process with this series of commands, entered one at a time in an admin-level command window:

net stop wuauserv

net stop cryptsvc

net stop bits

net stop msiserver

ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old

ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 Catroot2.old

net start wuauserv

net start cryptsvc

net start bits

net start msiserver

exit

When you’re finished with these, reboot; Windows Update should be running normally again.

You can then try the default method of upgrading to Win10, again.

Or, to completely avoid any Windows Update issues, use this alternate Win10-upgrade method. Download and run the free Windows Media Creation Tool (site). Select the “Upgrade this PC now” option when it’s offered and then follow the on-screen prompts.

At the end of the process, you’ll have Win10 up and running — and a properly functioning Windows Update, as well.

Deleting ‘undeletable’ files and folders

Sooner or later, virtually every Windows user encounters some file or folder that simply refuses to be deleted.

Bob Stocker needed help for just that problem.

• “I have a pesky file that I can’t get rid of taking up space. What’s the fix for files that won’t delete in a normal fashion?”

There are two common reasons for being unable to kill off a file or folder: it’s locked or there’s a permissions problem.

A file or folder might be locked because it’s in use by a hidden/background process or program. Or another user on the local network or a shared PC it might be using it.

If it’s a permissions issue, the account you’re signed in to might not be recognized as the “owner” or administrator of the target file or folder.

You can choose from various elegant methods to delicately shut down background processes or tap-dance around blocks in order to take ownership. But if you simply want get rid of a file or folder, I find that it’s far faster and easier to simply use any of several old-fashioned, brute-force methods to nuke the offending item. Here are several tried-and-true methods:

• Safe mode: Rebooting into safe mode suppresses most background tasks, leaving you in sole control of the PC. Most files and folders can then be easily removed. For information on safe mode in Win8/10, see the Sept. 17 Field Notes column; for Vista and Win7, see the related Microsoft help page.
• A Windows rescue/recovery disk: Booting your PC from a Windows rescue/recovery disc or drive and then dropping to a command prompt will usually give you unfettered access to all user files — and even most system files.
• Using specialized software: A search of the Web will turn up many file-unlocking tools. The two free apps I’ve used for years are Emco’s venerable MoveOnBoot (site) and Unlock-IT (site).

  MoveOnBoot is both powerful and simple; you select the problematic file and tell the tool to delete, rename, or move it. You then reboot. Unlock-IT requires a bit more knowledge, but it allows greater flexibility in closing file and library handles or terminating locking processes. Those two tools — or any similar app offered on the Web — make handling problematic files easy.

• A Linux “live” CD: Booting your PC with a free Linux distro will usually give you full access to most files on a Windows hard drive. (For an intro to setting up and running Linux, see the April 9 Top Story, “Linux for Windows users: Installing Ubuntu.”)

With one or more of the preceding tools, you should find that no file is immortal.

Microsoft publishes Win10-activation details

Until a few days ago, most of what we knew about Win10 activation we learned empirically — by trying different things to see what worked and what didn’t.

But Microsoft finally published official information on how Win10 activations work, and how they differ from those of previous Windows versions. Specifically, some Win10 upgrades now get activated via something called digital entitlement rather than by classic product keys.

For more information, see the Microsoft page, “Activation in Windows 10,” and Richard Hay’s fine analysis, posted on SuperSite for Windows (a Windows Secrets sister site).

How to learn video editing: starting with tools

Lounge member cosmlou made a wedding video and wants to extract five minutes of audio and video from one DVD and burn it to another.

He doesn’t know how to do that, so he asked, in the Graphics/Multimedia forum, what he needs to do and use to accomplish the task.

Fellow Lounge members point him to tools and give him instructions for use. It’s a generous thread — you might want to get some free advice from it, too.

The following links are this week’s most interesting Lounge threads, including several new questions for which you might have answers:

Office Applications
General Productivity	Loss of selection highlight when Office application loses focus
Word Processing	Adjusting the Word 2016 Quick Access bar
Spreadsheets	Show or hide rows in each sheet except Master sheets
Databases	Access/XP on Win10?
Presentation Apps	Need help with Gradient Fill option in PowerPoint
Visual Basic for Apps	Type mismatch error with code to send Excel sheet via Outlook
Microsoft Outlook	Junk-file problem in Outlook 2007
Non-Outlook E-mail	Outlook.com and Android?
Other MS Apps	Visio 2007 with Office 365
Windows
General Windows	Totally free PDF editor?
Windows 10	Make taskbar go away
Windows 8	Microsoft Flight Simulator won’t start
Windows 7	SATA drives not showing in BIOS
Windows Vista	Windows-update problem
Windows Servers	New to servers; have some very basic questions
Internet/Connectivity
Internet Explorer and Edge	MS IE support ending Jan. 12, 2016 for several IE versions
Third-Party Browsers	Chrome trouble
Networking	How can one SSID use two channels?
Software Development
Windows Programming	VS Studio Express 2015 sign-in errors
Other Technologies
Security & Scams	When an update isn’t an update
Maintenance	Backup to network location when available/attached
Hardware	SSD life
Graphics/Multimedia	Need help extracting portion of DVD and recording it to another DVD
Other Applications	Access denied in CCleaner?

starred posts: particularly useful

If you’re not already a Lounge member, use the quick registration form to sign up for free. The ability to post comments and take advantage of other Lounge features is available only to registered members.

If you’re already registered, you can jump right into today’s discussions in the Lounge.

Don't lose your head over enticing offers

Horrible Histories broadcasts TV shows and occasional public service announcements on CBBC and BBC in Britain. Fortunately for us, they also post some of their videos on YouTube. Which is why you get to see how the 16th-century English noblewoman Lady Jane Grey reacted to a spam offer — for the throne of England — on her anachronistic computer. If you didn’t know already what Mary Tudor, rightful heir, thought about fake offers in the ether — and why you, too, should be suspicious — you’ll learn it here. Click below or go to the original YouTube video.

Duplicating user profiles in Windows 7

Microsoft and security experts have long recommended having two accounts on our PCs: a standard account we use daily and an admin account we use only when needed.

Windows doesn’t make it easy to clone the settings for multiple accounts, but a trick can make it relatively easy on Win7 systems.

Third-party utility helps with advanced settings

We spend a significant amount of time customizing our Windows experience. We make Windows our own by changing its color themes, backgrounds, font sizes, toolbar configuration, and much more.

But when we set up another account, we essentially have to start over. That might be one of the reasons many Windows users don’t take the time to set up separate admin and standard-user accounts.

For advanced Windows users, a trick can make cloning accounts relatively quick. I first used it a year or so ago while setting up a newly upgraded Win7 system. It’s an advanced technique because it requires a third-party utility to enable the process — and given the infinite variety of Windows setups, it doesn’t always work.

I’ve successfully used this trick in the past on Win7 systems, but, more recently, I wanted to see whether it might work on Windows 10. Short answer: No. So cloning profiles in Win10 is a topic for another day.

Many advanced maintenance/troubleshooting techniques depend on built-in but somewhat hidden Windows admin tools. In this case, we’re using the User Profiles applet to copy the stored settings for one profile and paste them into another.

However, on most systems, the Copy To button is grayed out. So we use a small third-party app to enable the button. More on that in a minute. First, a few words on Windows profiles.

If a PC has one account, it has admin-level privileges by default. That means any malware that takes over that account has full control of the system. As we’ve noted numerous times, malware that takes control of a standard account is usually less damaging. An account’s privileges are part of its profile.

Windows has various types of profiles, of interest mostly to system administrators. For example, when a user first signs in to a new account, Windows creates a local profile that’s stored on the system. (That’s when Windows creates your default user/documents folders.)

But on systems attached to corporate networks, you can also have roaming profiles, which are stored on a server. In theory, a roaming profile lets you sign in to any PC on the network and the server will download your profile settings. Because that can take some time, roaming profiles are used primarily by IT people to restore a user’s profile on a new or replaced machine.

Selecting whether an account is local or roaming is the primary function of the User Profiles applet in Windows. But the applet also includes the aforementioned ability to copy a profile from one account to another — once you enable it.

Again, this technique doesn’t always work on Win7 systems. On one machine, I ran into a problem of locked user-account folders, which made the process fail despite various attempts to unlock the destination user folder. But it did work on two other — somewhat simpler — machines. And when it did work, it made cloning user settings remarkably fast.

A final note before we go into the specific process: As with any significant change to your PC, make a full backup first. Don’t send us an email saying you tried this, crashed your system, and you don’t have a backup image.

Cloning a user profile — step by step

As part of the process, you’ll need to download a utility that enabled the User Profiles applet’s Copy To button. There are several apps that can do that; a Raymond.CC blog post lists six.

A year or so ago, I tried Windows Enabler (download site), which, when running, lives in the notification area on the taskbar and is easily switched on and off. But it failed to work this time, so I tried the equally simple Enabler (site). Both apps downloaded as .zip files that I decompressed onto my desktop. (Both programs are portable; they don’t need to be installed.)

With one of those apps at hand, you can start the process of cloning a profile.

• Create a new user account: You need three accounts for this technique to work. Create a new user account with the same privileges as the account with the profile to be cloned. Sign in to the new account and then sign out when Windows has finished setting it up.
• Sign in to a third account: You don’t want to try cloning the profile you’re currently signed into. My Win7 systems have multiple admin-level user accounts, but I recommend using the hidden Windows Admin account detailed in the May 14 Top Story, “Activate Windows’ hidden, master admin account.” (For this profile-cloning technique, you should be signed out of all accounts — except one admin-level account.)
• Download Enabler (site): Put its decompressed .exe file on the desktop where it can be easily accessed.
• Open User Profiles: Open the Control Panel and click System; then, on the left side of the System window, click Advanced system settings. Find the User Profiles section and click Settings.

  In the User Profiles dialog box, you’ll see a list of all user profiles on the machine. The “Default Profile” is a generic version that’s used to create a starting profile in new accounts. (It can be modified, but that’s typically of interest to IT administrators.)

  If you click any of the other profiles, you’ll find that the Default Profile is the only one with an enabled Copy To button — on all other profiles, the button is grayed out, as shown in Figure 1. Here’s how we change that.

  

  Figure 1. In the User Profiles dialog box, the Copy To option is disabled for all profiles but "Default Profile."

• Select and enable the profile to be cloned: Back on the desktop, right-click Enabler (EF) and click Run as administrator. The running app will open on the desktop. Next, click the profile you want to clone and then click the Enable button on the EF Enabler app; then click OK in the small “Done” dialog box that pops up. At this point, the selected profile’s Copy To button should now be fully enabled (see Figure 2).
  

  Figure 2. A third-party utility, EF Enabler, lets you enable the normally grayed-out Copy To button.

• Enter the destination profile: A Copy To dialog box will open. Click the Browse button and navigate to C:\Users. Now select the new user account whose profile you want to update. Click OK.
  

  Figure 3. Setting the destination account in the Copy To dialog box

  Next, you’ll see a warning that the user already exists and the contents of the user folder will be deleted and replaced. For that reason, you want to copy a profile only to an essentially empty user account. Click Yes.

• Check the new account: When the profile-copy process is finished, the Copy To dialog box will close and you’ll be back with User Profiles. (Depending on the profile and system, the process might take some minutes to complete.) Click Start and then Switch user from the power options. Open the new account — with luck, it’ll have all the profile settings you’re accustomed to.
• The wrap up: Sign out of the new account and sign back into the admin account. Now, you can change the new account to Standard user. Click Control Panel/User Accounts/Manage another account. In the list of users, select the new account and click the Change the account type link.
  

  Figure 4. Once you have a new account with all your preferred settings, you can change it to a safer Standard user.

  When you’re done changing the account type, sign out of the Admin account and start using the new account for your daily work — with all your preferred user settings in place.

Some final notes: Again, this method for cloning Win7 profiles is a bit of a hack; it won’t work on all systems. Moreover, the results are unpredictable — it worked on two of my systems, but not on a third, where the problem seemed to be a lock icon applied to each new account I created. I tried a couple of recommended steps for removing the locks, but that didn’t help. There was a hint that some shared service might be an issue.

Also, a warning about the button-enabling apps. They’re designed to work with many applications and settings that have grayed-out buttons. But their sites warn that circumventing disable options can have fatal consequences for Windows. You want to be extremely careful about the use of these tools.