My Foray into Windows 10.

[milky]

I thought I would provide a "mini-blog" into my experience when trying to migrate to Win10.
Background.
I have a (fairly) grunty PC mainboard, recent AMD Radeon video card and M-Audio Audiophile 192 sound card system with lots of RAM, SSD hard drive yadda, yadda.
It worked very well under XP Pro, and about ten months ago, I upgraded to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit (because XP support was being withdrawn). The upgrade was relatively smooth, after the approriate driver upgrades.

I ran that configuration for several months, but, of course, got nagged by Mickey-Soft to upgrade. First, I waited until Ots released their Win 10 compatible version. My other concern was that Echo Audio (developers of the M-Audio card), had moved on and had not supported the PCI card I was using.

Anyway, with a few months to go, I tried the compatibility test, and my PC came through with flying colours. Even things like Breakaway DJ were given the tick of approval.

So, I bit the bullet, and hit the OK button. There was the usual delay whilst downloading, installing, reboots etc, but, eventually, things calmed down, and OtsAV TV sprang into life. Magic!, I had audio - that had been my biggest initial concern, because of the vintage of the audio card (guess 2000).

Then I tried an Ots video track through the Radeon (AMD) card. BIG ERROR in Ots. Couldn't/wouldn't connect to subsystem. I upgraded the AMD drivers to Win10/64 bit. Same problem. Stuffed around with numerous other system combinations, but Ots would happily play anything but a video file. I could "see" the extra screen (in my case a 3D projector), but the only thing it would display was the Windows logo - no Ots options would change that. Any attempt to connect would produce the "Overlay Error" message. Moving the cursor past the edge of my "primary" screen would show a functional cursor on the secondary screen.

Another weird thing I noticed. In XP and Win 7, I had the option to switch the primary and secondary display. In my case, the primary is an HDMI socket (for the projector), and the secondary is a DVI (with VGA adaptor, for the monitor - only used occasionally, as control is via Remote Access). In Win 10, this ability to swap primary and secondary wasn't available. Big problem, seeing as my projector was ONLY HDMI and my PC-attached monitor was VGA through a DVI adaptor. This rendered the entire project useless.

Lastly, I use some custom-written scripts through AutoHotKey to control various functions within Ots. These can Play, Pause, Stop etc via a remote control program. They work by issuing "wParams" directly to Ots, These select the various menu options you can usually access via the "Ots Guy" icon. The scripts appeared to work, but not completely. For instance, they would not open an Ots screen by name (essential so that focus can be achieved before issuing a command). However, they would play an audio file, and do some other functions, so the compiled script was attempting to run.

So, to summarise:-
1) The upgrade went without a hitch, from Microsoft's point of view.
2) The Audio card (even though from an earlier vintage and had no published Win 10 drivers) worked perfectly.
3) Breakaway DJ with ASIO worked as before.
4) OtsAvTV worked for audio tracks, but refused to select the video overlay - so no video options.
5) Video output selection options were useless.
6) Ancillary programs like AutoHotKey which work with background display functions don't work any more.
7) Be prepared for a lot of agro and very little payback with the migration. Good Luck.

The net effect is I eventually took the roll-back option (you can do this for up to a month after upgrading). This worked perfectly, taking me back to a fully functional PC. The things I have detailed above that didn't work, especially the video output, suddenly sprang into life.

I have no idea whether this problem is AMD or Ots, but don't try to go there if you don't need to.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

Sorry to hear of your issues Milky.

I don't know what to tell you about the video problems, but as for the AHK issues, were you running the scripts as Admin? I find I must do so to get wParam access, but even with OSs all the way back to Vista. The UAC requires it if left at the default level or higher. Ots must also be run with admin privileges.

[clover-leaf-productions]

I know i have mentioned this before, but I have three of our primary, daily operation software packages at work telling me that their product does not work in windooooozzzze 10.  I can not make a switch to 10 if I wanted to with issues like this.  I have to stay on windooooozzzzzze 7, 64 bit for now, where 90% of our software works.

Here is the real rub, I was given the go by our Board to purchase several new convertible laptops.  Last year I could still purchase windooooozzzzzze 10 machines with downgrade rights to 7, 64 bit.  Now none of my suppliers have any of those machines.  If I am lucky i can find a machine with downgrade rights to 8.1, which might as well be 10.  -Tell me this is not a plot by M$ to push their new junk on the market.  When businesses start doing more purchasing, as the year progresses, and they find they can not get the windoooooozzzzzzze 7 units any longer there will be an outcry!

[Darryl]

I think you can still purchase OEM Windows 7 installation DVDs.  As long as you can buy a Windows 7 licence from somewhere you should be able to re-format the disk and install it instead of 10.  The question is whether you can still buy Windows 7 anywhere.

[clover-leaf-productions]

Amazon is our friend for old versions of win 7, but the other interesting issue with the new equipment is that there are no drivers for the systems that will  work with anything less than win 10.  Plus to add insult to injury, there has been a type of new system BIOS developed that only will work with win 8.1, and newer.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

I'm not saying this is the best option, but you can get licenses for 7, and on the cheap too!
I bought a license to Windows 8 Pro for my desktop, to allow me dual booting to 10. After I wiped the system clean, starting completely over, I now have a perfectly working Windows 10 system that boots with Windows 8.1 after upgrading the version 8. The windows 8 license is very likely a license from a corporate licensed group license, but it does what I need it to do, and was only $23 when I purchased it.

I stumbled across the site through a Youtube video on building a new Skylake system.

http://www.kinguin.net/catalogsearch/result/index/?q=windows+7

As for drivers, this provides you with some info as to why Skylake systems won't support older OSs...
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-remove-support-usb-based-windows-7-installation-platform-specs/