anyone else having Windows 10 issues?

CoolCat

Well-known member
Ive had recent issues with my pc freezing up on audio and video.

Its been a long time since any issues and so assume its the auto-Windows update.

The audio problems seem to be resolved by removing Windows- Groove player removed as Default they stuffed in on me.

My youtube/videos tend to freeze up now.

The only thing changed would be a recent Windows Update.
Ive rebooted about 5 times past 3 days. Due to audio/video freeze.

Did learn the trick...window/key + i .... gets to apps and can set the default media player to whatever is preferred.
 
My old reliable notebook that started with Win7 and even survived Win8 is now running Ubuntu, thanks to Win10. So, yeah, I had problems. Thankfully I started switching to Macs before Win10 began its assimilation campaign. Our other old Wintel systems (an even older notebook left behind by one of the kids and wife's AiO) are going to stay on Win7 until they stop working.
 
I pause my updates every 34 days (calendar reminder set), especially recently with some serious vulnerabilities and buggy patches being deployed that create more problems then they solve.

if you have system protection enabled, try recovering your system to a time prior to the issues starting, then promptly pause updates until the dust settles from the whole meltdown/spectre vulnerability issue(s).

If you don't have system protection enable or snapshots available from before the issue, try installing updated drivers for your sound, motherboard chipset, bios, nic, etc. The software (windows) updates being deployed to fix the vulnerability involve the hardware of the computer as well as the software/operating system.
 
My two machines running Win10 have been running fine lately. Some time last summer an update rolled out that killed ASIO4ALL for me, but I only use those drivers for demonstration purposes. Other than that, things have been smooth sailing for me and Win10, auto-updates and all. I've got an AMD Ryzen 7 system and an Intel Core i7 system that are both humming along nicely.

I'd highly recommend doing as advised above, and check for any BIOS, firmware, driver, and software updates to make sure everything is current. Also it might be worth doing some dust patrol to make sure dust and crud isn't hampering your cooling. CPUs tend to throttle when they hit certain temperature thresholds. Keeping a clean cooling system and good air flow is the remedy for that.
 
I had a long run of bliss and assumed WIndows 10 wouldnt repeat the Windows 8 fiasco.
The mandated 10 updates left my interface drivers alone so I was ok with WIndows rearranging other things as Microsoft pleased.
Seems this last mandatory update they changed my media and video players, and even worse the Microsoft Players dont work as well.
So I think I put my defaults back to my choice. (I tried deleting the microsoft crap but Windows doesnt allow that)

I know smart people reading this are saying to themselves..."dude dont use your studio pc for internet crap". that golden rule still holds true apparently.
 
My 'studio machine' is also my internet PC, can't justify the cost/afford a second dedicated machine. Make do with what you got.
 
Yeah, I get the "dedicated audio computer" idea and all, but you're right that its not very practical. All of my home machines are internet-connected, audio machine included. It's rare that my audio computer is affected by any updates or other software. The ASIO4ALL thing is the only example that I can think of where an update obviously blew something up that was working before. Maybe its a testament to RME's bulletproof drivers, but my interface seems unfazed by any software changes that happen around it.
 
My Win10 freezes up/crashed on a regular basis - almost always when I'm online and opening a new page. The 'What crashed' ap seems to point to some Windows 'kernel' (but not consistently). I've had the computer crash and actually delete the system restore points I have set up, too. Have I mentioned Windows 10 sucks? Don't know what I'm going to do if my old Win 7 recording computer goes belly up.
 
I was offered a win 10 disc/license a while back (wonder why?!) and asked around about upgrading.
I don't use my Win7 box for much really but, reading around, I'm really glad I took the advice I got and didn't bother with the update!
Sounds like it's being a pain for a lot of people.
 
It's been bullshit since about 1998.
Hmm. Well, yeah, that's impractical for most folks, but I do have a computer that is dedicated for audio. It is connected to the internet, of course, because I'm not carrying SD cards up and downstairs or setting up a deadnet just for the purpose of moving files around in the house.

But, if I have someone over to record (infrequent, because mostly I record away from the house, or just myself), I do disable the (wi-fi) networking while I'm recording and turn off Time Machine (OS X). I mean, why have other stuff going on if I've got someone here for a limited time, and risk having to ask them to do something over (or worse, come back) because I didn't "dedicate" the recording system to them, i.e., respect their time? I don't know what might go wrong, but I don't want to be careless, either. (I have been described as "a stickler for details" - as my equally ancient friend politely put it ;)).
 
Nah, fair enough. There's a difference between disabling a distraction or taking a convenient precaution, and a hard fast rule.
Sometimes computer advice around here looks like it's been transcribed from a PC magazine from the 90s. :p

I'd probably knock off Time Machine, if I used it. That's bound to be intensive.
I've never disabled internet for anyone/anything, though, but that's just me. Never had cause to.
 
Nah, fair enough. There's a difference between disabling a distraction or taking a convenient precaution, and a hard fast rule.
Sometimes computer advice around here looks like it's been transcribed from a PC magazine from the 90s. :p

I'd probably knock off Time Machine, if I used it. That's bound to be intensive.
I've never disabled internet for anyone/anything but that's just me. Never had cause to.
I have to add that the reason I have a dedicated system is because my old Windows notebook got pressed into service while I temporarily tried out junior-college teaching (post retirement) so I decided to put all the "home stuff" on the 2010 MacBook Pro. Once I did that, I had the case to make to the wife that I needed a computer for my audio hobby :). I have less than $1k invested in the used 2012 mini I got including the kbm, SSD upgrade and external RAID drive (using old spinning media left over from SSD upgrades). It's the newest computer in the house!

But Windows 10, jeez, I am certainly repeating myself, but I worked pretty closely with MSFT while working with a major OEM through Vista, Win7 and Win8 releases, and they *used* to really test the snot out of as many systems as they could and block upgrades they had found problems with. I naively assumed they were still doing that, but it's clear the Win10 team management was given different marching orders, and probably a smaller budget. I'm sure it's fine on newer systems, but if you've got a system that is from the first half of the Win7 cycle, or perhaps even a Vista upgrade, just don't even think about it.
 
Windows 8 and Windows 10 work perfectly well on my edit computer and audio computer, and the operating system is more stable than the versions before them. They do odd things of course - Microsoft seem to let them swap their allegiances - so clicking on an mp3 that would open what software I chose, suddenly opens a random app I've never seen before? That kind of thing - and sometimes housekeeping processes suddenly turn on and wreck a recording, suddenly using up resources, and I can't seem to identify them or stop them. On balance, they cause me little grief nowadays. I also use some computers in the workshop for programming 2-way radios. These were always trouble. Windows 7 works on some but not others and I have man old XP machine to programme the ones Windows 7 cannot - however, Windows 10 now seems to programme virtually all of them, which is a surprise. I really do not like some of the ways Windows now displays itself, too pretty and what I want is always more mouse clicks away, but that's a minor gripe really.

One thing I do know - my MacBook Pro died, and despite me fixing it, is now temperamental and unreliable, so I bought a new one £1500, a 250Gb drive, only two USB-C sockets so everything has to be hanging out on adaptors and boxes with rocketry. The keyboard is horrible, and I hate it with a passion. Windows 10 and a brilliant laptop would have been mine for less money. High Sierra works, but is totally lacking in pro features and full of stuff for teenagers. I just don't get it when people pan MS and say Apple. Clearly Apple don't have professional users in mind at all now - just students and people under 30.
 
I think people just have different tolerances and things they're prepared to accept for comfort and familiarity.
If my computer suddenly decided to use random apps that I've never heard of before and starting housekeeping processes out of the blue, the visual layout kept changing, and the location of things changed or became less convenient, I wouldn't start by saying it works perfectly well.
But if you know what you know and that's that, well then that's that.

All of these things, and worse, are given a huge pass every time there's a debate, in favour of concluding that OSX and any windows OS is "exactly the same" and the only difference is preference,
which makes me think the people concluding are either just happy with their lot because they know it, or they've never used any other OS.

High Sierra introduced a lot of mobile+tablet related features that the majority of pro users probably have no interest in, and that gained it a reputation that people love to regurgitate,
but you have to remember that OSX and MacOS has been the same great operating system, more or less, for many many years now.
They're building on an already great foundation.

MS seems to pretty much throw everything in the bin and try again once in a while which, personally, I find way more off putting than anything else I've heard anyone complain about.
People always tell me you can disable X and configure Y and make it just like it used to be but they never realise that's my point. I want to turn it on and have it just like it used to be.
That IS personal preference. I just like that OSX has been largely the same in terms of layout for about 15 years or whatever.

True to say that Apple as a company are less geared towards their pro customers these days, but the OS has been so solid for so long that I wouldn't care if they were selling lemonade as their main income.
What I have works just as beautifully as ever.
The introduction of this years new modular mac pro will say a lot about their future intentions with the pro market, though. They know they dropped the ball with the 'trash can'.
They're quick to dump old technology and, personally, I like that, but I think dropping PCE-Express was too far or too soon.

In terms of pro features, I'm not sure what's missing? It's got solid disk management with cloning options, an unobtrusive file-level restore system that works, updates that you don't need to down tools (for two hours?) for, great image library management, native browser that's better than most alternatives, mail client, ftp client, messaging, a decent enough starter DAW, video editing, audio file conversion, programming IDE+framework.
There's also only one version of each OS and no specific requirements in terms of hardware so backing up and cloning the entire OS back to a new drive, or moving it to a new computer!, should you ever need to do that, takes something like 20 minutes.
It's actually pretty well kitted out, no?

I've never had to defrag (wouldn't know how), never run an equivalent to disk cleanup, never looked at a loading screen for more than about 10 seconds, never had to maintain startup items, never had to scale back OTT visual effects, I don't have to watch my back for all the auto-ticked bloatware boxes when I "install" something, never had to disable internet for any reason, and although I've run virus scans for giggles I've never found anything.
I also restart, on average, about three times a year.

I agree that it comes down to preference in the sense that someone will always prefer one or other, but I don't think that they're in any way equal.
 
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When I got the biggie Fall Creators Update I lost several drivers. I also lost compatibility with my network adapter. That's when every online connection either timed out or got locked in an endless loading loop. I had to reinstall my original CD (previous version) network adapter software and everything started working again.

Now, every couple of updates I have to repeat the process. I just finished a reinstall 5 min ago.

If you ever go to the Microsoft Community support forums, probably 50% or more posts are users with similar problems every day. What an airline.
 
I'm running windows 10 now for about a year on my business computer and it's been rockin the Casbah cleanly (knock on wood) I don't EVER run in admin mode when I am on the internets only when I need to install something period end of sentence...NO VIRUS PROTECTION other than windows defender. I use C-cleaner to clean up every so often and process explorer to help me peek into what is going on...gotta say after getting through the learning curve moving from win7 I like win10 just fine...now that said it is not being used for recording music....zero problems watching videos or playing music on it though......using an old Imac @ 2008 that is dedicated for recording and for the lightweight recording I do it is way more than enough computer for me...
 
At first, with Windows 10, I had trouble with terrible, noisy, and low quality recordings.. Short version: Once I turned OFF the computers internal microphone everything works great!

SNDGUY - An analog guy in a digital world
 
They do odd things of course - Microsoft seem to let them swap their allegiances - so clicking on an mp3 that would open what software I chose, suddenly opens a random app I've never seen before? That kind of thing - and sometimes housekeeping processes suddenly turn on and wreck a recording, suddenly using up resources, and I can't seem to identify them or stop them.

Yikes!! That is one huge security risk. I've seen some vendors sneak that into their install programs -- usually in the form of an easily missed checkbox, asking if you would like the installed software to be the default app for the file type.

I authenticate any executables I download, but data type files like mp3s and jpgs, I use with more confidence, relying on them being treated as data, rather than executables. But, an unknown vendor who takes over the playing of an mp3 could allow the mp3 to be used to download instructions, bypassing a heap of security. Even if the vendor is kosher, they could have vulnerabilities in their mp3 player.

It would be extra suspicious if the icon beside the file you clicked on wasn't different from the Microsoft mp3 player icon, but opened a non-Microsoft app. You should be able to tell that something different will open from the icon.
 
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