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Windows 10 experiences on cMP

I have mixed feelings about the forced updates. On the one hand, there are all those hosers that never update their OS, making their computers vulnerable over the years and inevitably ending up as bots for the hackers and spammers who then go on to attack us all.

But on the other hand, twice I've had updates that flat out didn't work with my hardware. First with a MacBook Pro, and second with a Dell Venue 8 Pro. In the case of the MBP, it caused instant bluescreens on booting; the fix was to simply skip the update and never install it. For the DV8Pro, it killed the Wi-Fi card; the fix was to manually apply two specific updates in the opposite order that Automatic Updates wanted to do them in.

This isn't rare, anecdotal stuff. There's a reason why IT departments in businesses hold onto updates and test them before rolling them out. They are known to break stuff.

I'm really uncomfortable with forced updates, and at most I think they should be limited to security updates only.

I've seen similar issues with OS X updates, and I'm happy to let the rest of you test them out for a few weeks before I follow suit.
 
ActionableMango said:
I have mixed feelings about the forced updates. On the one hand, there are all those hosers that never update their OS, making their computers vulnerable over the years and inevitably ending up as bots for the hackers and spammers who then go on to attack us all.

But on the other hand, twice I've had updates that flat out didn't work with my hardware. First with a MacBook Pro, and second with a Dell Venue 8 Pro. In the case of the MBP, it caused instant bluescreens on booting; the fix was to simply skip the update and never install it. For the DV8Pro, it killed the Wi-Fi card; the fix was to manually apply two specific updates in the opposite order that Automatic Updates wanted to do them in.

This isn't rare, anecdotal stuff. There's a reason why IT departments in businesses hold onto updates and test them before rolling them out. They are known to break stuff.

I'm really uncomfortable with forced updates, and at most I think they should be limited to security updates only.

I've seen similar issues with OS X updates, and I'm happy to let the rest of you test them out for a few weeks before I follow suit.
Click to expand...

That's right it should be for security only. Apple has been force updating malware protection for more than a year without telling us but at least they didn't go beyond that.
 
To auto update or not to auto update? I'll be that judge on my (self paid) machine, software and data on it! If auto update is the only way to use, you'll lose it! Even it's the best Windows MS has ever designed!
 
Has anyone been able to get Windows 10 EFI to install on a 5,1 Mac Pro?
Going to give it a try this weekend and was wondering if there's any other trick to it besides removing all but the C drive.
 
Demigod Mac said:
Has anyone been able to get Windows 10 EFI to install on a 5,1 Mac Pro?
Going to give it a try this weekend and was wondering if there's any other trick to it besides removing all but the C drive.
Click to expand...

cMP is EFI 1.5. Apple advises to have at least 2.0. I have seen no benefit to EFI. Boot speed is 9 seconds on SATA2, that's 2 seconds faster than OSX on SATA3
 
wwanthony said:
I have not played around with W10 yet, but I would not even mention MacOS X and replacing it.

Let's see how it goes for Microsoft. If it is better than 6, 7. and 8 then that is good news for a lot of folks.

We all know why there is no Windows 9.

Let's see how it plays out.....
Click to expand...
We do?
 
Yesterday I upgraded my mac pro 5,1 to windows 10 pro.

I had previously installed windows 8.1 pro in EFI on its own hard disk, and it was working flawlessly.

The upgrade went smoothly with no problems. When it was done, I noticed that bluetooth was not working in the device manager. Also, my evga gtx 680 was running on basic drivers.

I reloaded the bootcamp 5.1 driver pack, then downloaded and installed the new win10 geforce driver from the nvidia site.

No problems yet, and seems to be working perfectly. Its booting in EFI mode, since I never prepared the disk partition with the bootcamp utility.

Dont forget to run Disk Cleanup after your done to clean out the old windows files. Disk Cleanup will show up in search. Mine had almost 19gig of junk files after the update. Run disk cleanup to delete the trash, then restart it again and use the clean system files option, and you will see a lot more trash. When done, defrag and your good to go. If your windows activation isnt done, and you manually tell it to activate, it will probably fail with the error to try again later. Dont worry about it, it will auto activate on its own without telling you. Check your control panel System window to see if it did.
 
So far this seems like my game plan for getting an EFI Windows 10 install (5,1 MP):

1. Backup Windows drive with WinClone
2. Upgrade to Windows 10 normally (to activate)
3. Shut down and yank out all hard drives except the Windows C:\ drive*
4. EFI Boot from USB flashdrive
5. Do a clean Windows 10 install
6. Put all drives back in
7. Edit firmware="efi" into VMware Fusion's VMX file

Any steps I'm missing?
* For EFI, does the Windows drive need any pre-install treatment like wiping it or partitioning? (it's a dedicated SSD)
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
If your Windows update hasn't shown up yet you can try two things

1 type the following in Command Prompt to force check for the download:

wuauclt.exe /updatenow

2 download the ESD file from Microsoft Update direct. These were posted a week ago for manufacturers so they might not include all the updates that have been produced since

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3ee1gx/windows_10_10240_esd_download_here/

I would recommend using the first method to get the newest and most stable installer
Click to expand...

How exactly does one use this esd file?

I finally got the win icon in the Task tray, clicked it, did the whole reserve thing and notification that at some point in the future win 10 would install. 2 days later it still hasn't done anything.

Next I downloaded that esd file but I'm not sure how to use it.
 
I recommend you download the image maker here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Use it to create either a USB stick installer or a DVD install disk. You can choose 32 or 64bit and all languages using that utility. Remember to choose the correct version, if you have 7 or 8 pro or ultimate, choose 10 pro. If you have any lower version, use 10 home/standard.

The problem with the windows update version of windows 10 that you get from your reservation icon, is that if the installer fails for any reason, and rolls back to your original windows, it will delete the downloaded 3gig install files, forcing you to start over.

The USB or DVD made by the above utility is perfectly fine for doing your upgrade, and I used it to create a DVD when I upgraded my mac pro 5,1. There is also something nice to be said for having a hard copy of your chosen version of windows 10. :)
 
crjackson2134 said:
How exactly does one use this esd file?

I finally got the win icon in the Task tray, clicked it, did the whole reserve thing and notification that at some point in the future win 10 would install. 2 days later it still hasn't done anything.

Next I downloaded that esd file but I'm not sure how to use it.
Click to expand...

There is a tool to download from MS that creates a bootable media from it. Check the Win 10 upgrade discussion thread in Bootcamp forum. You can just download the installer on your desktop and run install from there.
 
crjackson2134 said:
I tried running it from the download folder and it did nothing at all when clicked upon. I'll try from the desktop and work into making the physical media later. Thanks...
Click to expand...

My experience:

Installing it to anything else than an empty (as in media) cMP with only your Windows media on a SATAII isn't worth a try! MS is just a pickey PITA when it comes to an update/grade! The route, update or media created USB/DVD just does not change that! Pull all your disks, but leave your PCI cards in, if SSD is involved, empty the PCI cards and just let them sit there.

Good luck CrJackson!!!
 
Last edited:
Restored my 400gb Steam library from back up was painless.

The only reason I have to boot back in OSX is for Storyist (best novel writing app), SuperDuper (best Mac back up app) and Winclone (best Windows back up app). Why can't Windows developers make awesome software like that?
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Restored my 400gb Steam library from back up was painless.

The only reason I have to boot back in OSX is for Storyist (best novel writing app), SuperDuper (best Mac back up app) and Winclone (best Windows back up app). Why can't Windows developers make awesome software like that?
Click to expand...
Paragon Software does.

Hard Disk Manager 15 Professional Service Pack 3

Migrate OS to SSD 4.0 Service Pack 2

 
m4v3r1ck said:
My experience:

Installing it to anything else than an empty (as in media) cMP with only your Windows media on a SATAII isn't worth a try! MS is just a pickey PITA when it comes to an update/grade! The route, update or media created USB/DVD just does not change that! Pull all your disks, but leave your PCI cards in, if SSD is involved, empty the PCI cards and just let them sit there.

Good luck CrJackson!!!
Click to expand...

Installing win8.1 was no problem, it's just that when clicking the downloaded file, the file type isn't recognized. It doesn't open, execute, it does nothing. It's like I just clicked on a blank area of the desktop.

I'll try it again from the desktop to see if that makes a difference.

EDIT:
Well that's a bust. It just opens the App Store to search for an App to open it with. I guess I'll call it quits for Win 10. I'm already getting tired of the dance.
 
Last edited:
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Got Windows 10 EFI up and running on my 5,1.

Install went smoother than expected. I removed all Mac hard drives first as a precaution. It's true though you have to basically erase the destination volume to get it to work, otherwise the Windows installer doesn't like the hybrid GPT/MBR combo that Apple uses for Bootcamp and refuses to install on the volume.

Good parts:

+ Boot times are noticeably quicker. 10+ seconds shaved off. Windows logo appears almost instantly after selecting EFI Boot (option key); BIOS emulation took its sweet time getting that logo to show up.

+ Works in VMWare Fusion. Remember to change the machine type to Windows 10 x64 because Fusion will it will assume it's 8.

Now the bad parts:

- Does not work with Boot Champ currently. The developer is aware of the issue and is working on it, but no ETA on a fix.

- Activation shenanigans with VMWare Fusion. After successfully upgrading from 8.1 and activating in Bootcamp, after booting in Fusion it broke activation and refused to reactivate in both environments. I was able to restore it using WinClone, so my license is still intact. But I cannot use Fusion at all until this issue gets resolved.

Anyone know of a solution to this? Tried calling Microsoft's activation support line but gave up after an hour and a half of waiting (they're probably getting slammed right now) and I don't see much of anything useful on the Fusion community forum.

Got this sneaking suspicion that I'm going to have to end up buying a new Windows 10 license unless I can convince the MS techs to give me one as a special case.
 
I'm not having any luck with Win 10 yet.

Managed to get it installed via USB eventually (edited bootcamp assistant) but it gives endless reboots at various intervals, sometimes before desktop, sometimes after.

I'm thinking a driver issue as I managed to get it into safe mode and it didn't restart there, although I couldn't access the net to update even though I had networking checked.

Machine as in sig except I've got my Gt120 in at the moment for boot screens.
 
There are still some sleep from wake and boot up bugs which probably effect cMP more than other Macs. They are resolved with a hard reboot but doing that can damage your Windows install.
 
SoyCapitanSoyCapitan said:
Restored my 400gb Steam library from back up was painless.

The only reason I have to boot back in OSX is for Storyist (best novel writing app), SuperDuper (best Mac back up app) and Winclone (best Windows back up app). Why can't Windows developers make awesome software like that?
Click to expand...
if you have something like Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro it works right off the bat as a microphone.
Try front mac inputs I think those are for mic/headphones
 
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