Windows 10 or Windows 7 on New System

Windows 7 is supported to 2020.  Windows 10 upgrade is not free.

In a business environment they usually DOWNGRADE windows 10 pro to windows 7.

OEM's can no longer ship systems with windows xp or windows 7 media.

Windows 10 is pretty buggy and unstable and a mess.,

Thanks for the comments.

My new system was shipped with Windows 7 installed but with Windows 10 media.

From this I assume I can go ahead and install Windows 10 at no additional charge but I also get it that Dell can no longer ship systems with Windows 7 media.

Asking around it appears to me that folks in enterprise situations are understandably reluctant to move to Windows 10.  But for small scale operations most I have talked seem to feel that Windows 10 has matured to the point where it is safe as long as you verify that all of your applications are Windows 10 ready.

Of course it remains interesting the Dell "recommends Windows 10," makes it nearly impossible to purchase a business system online with anything except Windows 7, and supplies the Windows 10 media. Interesting, yes?

If you decide to upgrade to Win 10, be sure you image the hard drive with Win 7 on it first. That way you can quickly revert if Win 10 doesn't work out for you.

On major deal breaker is that businesses with a substantial software base work fine on windows 7 and work not at all on windows 10.  Imaging/cloning of the drives with windows 7 is recommended.

DBAR and other things don't work without jumping thru hoops because windows 7 cannot delete or remove windows 10 partitions.  This means that drives become contaminated with 10 and can NEVER go back to 7.  You can use windows PE and DISKPART to remove this but its easier to use a cloning utility that boots from a cd like the Acronis Drive wire or Macrium Reflect.

Too many sloppy updates from microsoft over the past 9 months booting to black screen with blinking cursor congratulations you are dead and require win10 boot media to repair. OOOPS we dont provide bootable media try auto repair OOOPS that doesnt work at all try system restore OOOPSS its FUBAR thankyou for using microsoft and have a nice day!

Windows 7 for certain.  After 2020 I'm not sure what we will do, perhaps Windows 11 or 12 will offer some hope because Windows 10 certainly isn't the answer.

Thanks for engaging SpeedStep & Ron.

Definitely will image if we take the Win 10 plunge.

Sounds like for simple systems we "might" be OK but there remains some risk.

For sophisticated systems the risk remains quite high.

So could dive in and if it works, great.  I was one of the lucky ones.

Risk is that a Win 10 update could cause things to fall apart with very painful/not existent recovery.

Also prevents installation of any app not Win 10 ready.

Googling: is windows 10 ok for small businesses

Provides interesting reads.

At this juncture I remain undecided.  Seems like risk averse -- Win 7 -- risk tolerant -- Win 10

If you upgrade to Win 10, image the HDD once all the updates and your software are installed so you can quickly restore to a working state if any problems occur. And back up data files on external media regularly, regardless of whether it's Win 7 or 10.

But I honestly don't know why all the fear of Win 10.  I've installed old (really old) software on this Win 10 laptop using compatibility mode for XP or Win 7, and everything seems to work fine. For example, Microsoft Office 2003 (32-bit)  is running in XP compatibility mode under Win 10 Pro (64-bit).

I had MS Project 2003 (32-bit) running in XP mode too. That was  recently upgraded to the latest version, but only because 2003 doesn't support some new features my clients were using in the Project files they send to me.

And Win 10 even offers a compatibility mode all the way back to Win 95. True, that the farther back you go, the more potential problems might arise but...

Your system is shipped with a Windows 10 Pro OEM License. This means the UEFI contains both a Windows 10 Pro SLP key and SLIC 2.1 which allows for Windows 7 Pro OEM SLP via Downgrade Rights. In essence you are free to install Windows 10 Pro or Windows 7 Pro at any time you like. More details here:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/uefi/#OEMSLP 

Since Windows 10 Pro is a Free Upgrade to Windows 7 Pro (still works via Clean Installation) practically its more or less the same thing...

Since Windows 7 Pro has reached End of OEM sales its unlikely Dell are allowed to ship physical Windows 7 Pro Reinstallation media and any Windows 10 Pro Installation Media Dell ship should be binned as it'll be obsolete by the time you get to use it. - Microsoft have been creating downloadable new Windows 10 Pro installation .isos every 3 months or so:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-windows-10-oem-and-retail-iso/ 

Its likely Dell are allowed to provide a Windows 7 Pro Reinstallation Skylake .iso so you should download one so you have it to hand for Reinstallation purposes. This is far superior than Microsoft's 2011 offering as it gives the necessary inbuilt driver support needed to install Windows 7 on this system:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-dell-windows-7-64-bit-reinstallation-sp2-oem-iso-for-a-uefi-bios/ 

Again, thanks to all for participating and for the links, Philip.

I'm thinking situational context is important here.

In my case we are in a church environment with 2 full time and 3 part time paid staff.  All staff are happy with Win 7.  If we go forward with Win 10 it will be on only 2 new systems and these are used by the part timers.  We would migrate others as systems are replaced.

System admin is done by a dedicated but volunteer team of 4, one who has had a good Win 10 experience, two with no Win 10 experience, and one with a bad Win 10 experience.  We cannot afford to have the paid staff down and no one on the admin team is in a position to drop what they are doing to address a problem.

The question is now boiling down to is there a compelling reason to go to Win 10 on the new systems at this time?  I'm not finding that "Win 7 support goes away 2020." is all that compelling.  As noted above, by that time surely Win 10 will have shaken out and be safe, there will be an 11 or 12 solution, or Microsoft will be forced to relax Win 7 2020.

But I'm far from a Win 10 guru.  Are there other Win 10 compelling reasons to go there?

Paul

Personally I like Windows 10. Briefly some of the reasons I would recommend it over Windows 7 are...

Security

The main reason for you to go to Windows 10 will be because of security. 

• Windows 10 builds upon some of the Security Features of Windows 8 and takes full advantage of the Unified Extensive Firmware Interface (modern hardware).
• SecureBoot for instance is a firmware based check which only allows code with a Microsoft Digital Signature to boot preventing malware etc. from hijacking the boot record and booting before Windows and disabling all the inbuilt security. A common issue in Windows 7 and earlier.
• Having security updates beyond 2020 is also important. Updates for Windows 7 are likely to be patches whereas updates for Windows 10 may be completely revised Editions of code. Windows 10 Upgrades build by build (essentially a working OS Upgrade install) opposed to patching the base Windows OS.

Under the Hood

• Mainly performance tweaks. Will take advantage of your newer hardware.
• Boots faster.
• Improved battery life etc. (probably not important for a desktop)

Lack of Driver/Software Support

• Windows 7 reached end of OEM sales in October 2016. This means new hardware may be released without Windows 7 drivers. - I think its unlikely for the next 2 years for peripherals (printers, scanners etc) to not have driver support for Windows 7 but it may happen eventually.
• The Windows 10 OS pretty much obtains the system driver for most devices. It has a larger inbuilt driver base and is far better at getting drivers via Windows Update.

User Interface

The user interface unlike Windows 8 is very intuitive and not very different from Windows 7. It should not take much time to get used to for a Windows 7 user. 

Start Menu:

• Hint right click the start button to get the power user menu.
• Hint sort out the start menu/start screen and pin things that are in use. - I prefer the full Start. Screen as long as you take the time to pin things in the correct place and remove the unwanted items its very useful.

Windows Explorer:

• Better integration with OneDrive (optional).
• Much better copying queue in Windows 10 than in Windows 7.
• Quick Access - essentially automatically pins (the most used folders) or allows the user to pin what they want on File Explorer.

Multiple Taskbars:

• For those using multiple monitors having multiple taskbar helps.
• You can set it up correctly so you only see the item on the taskbar the window is open.

Virtual Desktops:

• Essentially if you want to have different desktop workspaces. It might not be used too much. More details here: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/04/16/virtual-desktops-in-windows-10-the-power-of-windowsmultiplied/#dHKAtZIkDPSOHO53.97  

Personalisation

• Some silly things in Windows 7 are fixed like the ability to easily change not only the Desktop Background but the Lockscreen Background.

Notification Tray

• Much more useful than the Windows 7 version and contains some useful settings. 

I've assumed you are using a traditional Desktop (non-touch). If you have a touchscreen the touch response is much better on Windows 10 than on Windows 7.

OS Reinstallation

Quite a lot of work has gone into providing up to date installation media (saves a lot of time) and the product activation is more rock solid preventing reinstallation hassles. 

• If you need to quickly diagnose something or reinstall the OS files its a good bit easier and less time-consuming with Windows 10. Tools like "Reset" more or less automate the Windows reinstallation procedure giving the options of retaining userfiles but reinstalling the OS files.

Apps

The Edge Browser

While still has a lot to be desired and I still use Chrome in preference to it. The Edge Browser gives the OS an inbuilt means of opening the likes of pdf files meaning the likes of necessary Adobe bloatware (Reader and Flashplayer) can be avoided.

The inbuilt Apps for Pictures, Music and Videos usually work quite well. I don't typically use the Windows Store much personally but there might be some useful things there.

Proper Applications

Unless you got some esoteric badly written software (unlikely in a church environment) pretty much every designed for Windows 7 also works for Windows 10.

Thanks for taking the time for the detailed response, Philip.  Very much appreciated.

The team has decided to take the Windows 10 route.  This is based on information posted here and on team member interaction with their respective networks.

Two factors that were key influencers for me:

(1)  These are long term systems -- beyond 2020 for sure.  A clean install of Windows 10 now makes more sense than an Windows 7 install now then an an upgrade to Windows 10 at some point in the future.

(2)  Two of the team members are in enterprise environments, one very large.  Both are beginning the migration to Windows 10.  What this means to me is that, while there were initially significant issues with Windows 10, it has matured to the point where issues likely to bite us are behind us.

Again, thanks to all who have contributed.  The discussion has been most helpful.

Unless something comes up sooner, I'll report in a few weeks with experience.

Paul