For PC users that are running one or more versions of Vegas on their computers with Win 7 or 8 I see that Win 10 is being offered by Microsoft as a free upgrade when it's released this month.

Does anyone know how this will affect current software? I really don't want to have to wipe my drive clean and have to re-install everything for a new operating system .. Is this just an "upgrade" that will replace the current Win 7 or 8 system with the new Win 10 system??? We all love freebies BUT I don't want to have to start from scratch!!!

interesting question....

all my pc's are eligible for 10, not that i'd even dream of upgrading my nle till i've read how it goes for others (no intention of bleeding to death on the cutting edge), but i thought i might do an old laptop i use for general office work. however, forget even that if it requires a clean install. i have better things to do with my time ;-)

Thanks Leslie

I think I'll wait too and see how many bugs they left in!! I cannot afford to have my main machine down due to an OS fault ... Let others try it first

Chris

I’m mostly concerned with device drivers. MS tends to change their device driver interface in various versions of Windows. For example my Canon Selphy (a photo printer) does not work with Windows 8 and I have to turn on a broken Vista machine to print photos because Canon has never released Windows 8 compatible drivers for it.

If I switched my computers to Windows 10, how many of the devices I use would be instantly turned into paper weights?

Hi Chris, you could image your current C drive before Windows 10 goes on. That way, you only need to put the image back on if you don't like 10.
That's what I'd do. I use Ghost and still use a floppy drive to do that. Wouldn't be without it.

Thanks Chris ... I think I'll stay Leslie's route and let others be the guinea pigs with the upgrade ...On all our machines the upgrade icon has been on the desktop for a while now but the official launch down under is supposed to be 29th July 2015

Are you still planning a trip to Australia???

Certainly am, Chris, I have a wedding booking for late September in King's Park and Two Rocks although I'm still in the UK right now. The flight is the killer though.
Looking forward to catching up for a chat if that's ok?

Hey Chris

Brilliant ! Nothing like booking weddings from the other side of the world! Let me know when you are leaving and I'll PM you my contact details and mobile/home phone number so we can catch up!

How disappointing.
Some 3 weeks ago I bought myself an new pc with Win 8.1, Sony Vegas Pro 13 and DVDA ver 6.
Now I also knew, that MS was feasting us on a free Win 10 and I thought, let others do the experiment and then I will decide to switch.
So I looked on here every day, as I found the highest amount of experts here, who certainly would be so serviceable to do the experiment.
Mwha . . .
OK, I will give you guys another 2 weeks after MS releases Win10.

i would prefer at least 2 months of vegas users using it before i'd even consider installing it as an os for my nle system.

that said, i might stick it on an old laptop as i've said just out of curiosity

Well in 2 months time I'm right in the thick of the wedding season and there is no way I will have my main edit machine failing in my busiest time so if I do it its gonna be a long longer than 2 months!!

in your situation i would keep going with what you know works. to be honest i don't think (let alone know) whether 10 is going to do anything under the bonnet that's going to make a VAST difference anyway, AND there's always the possibility that it might well work in adverse ways, especially with peripheral drivers, etc.,

as i wrote, it'll be a while till i'm willing to try it on my editing rig - yeah, i know i can image, etc., but i'm too old to be wasting my time playing (or perhaps beta testing) an unknown os. i did the same for vista and never once regretted not installing it ANYWHERE. same holds partially true for 8 and 8.1 - put them on both my office and wife's laptops. it lasted about a month on my laptop, my wife adapted to it a lot more easily since she's been using tablets since they first came out. however, she's often said she prefers working on her desktop with 7 rather than the laptop. if it had a touch screen it might be another story ;-)

as i've often written - the problem with being on the cutting edge is you can easily bleed to death....

Will do, Chris.
Regarding Windows versions, I was disappointed to be forced to leave XP 64 as it was so stable. Win 7 is not bad in classic mode but Vista was a nightmare by all accounts. I never installed it and feel the same about Win 8. My wife has 8.1 on her laptop and it wants to control everything. Some people seem to like all the bells and whistles. I don't even have internet, anti virus or anything unecessary on my edit pc or let stuff run in the background that doesn't need to.

Will do, Chris.
Regarding Windows versions, I was disappointed to be forced to leave XP 64 as it was so stable. Win 7 is not bad in classic mode but Vista was a nightmare by all accounts. I never installed it and feel the same about Win 8. My wife has 8.1 on her laptop and it wants to control everything. Some people seem to like all the bells and whistles. I don't even have internet, anti virus or anything unecessary on my edit pc or let stuff run in the background that doesn't need to.

Vista was terrible. Windows 8.1 is fine in terms of stability and being solid; and you can ignore the "bells and whistles" (which I do). This is based on my own extensive experience with Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 on multiple computers. I don't get how you can comment on it given you "never installed it."

A couple thoughts...

W10 will be free for "at least" the first year after release, you've got time...

Drivers are ALWAYS an issue - old hardware that becomes "unsupported" is the same as old software that is updated or replaced, or just dies from natural causes... sometimes you just have to upgrade your peripherals.

No doubt there will be plenty of people jumping on 10 when it's officially released, so you should get plenty of "samples" not long thereafter. No harm in waiting.

I'll probably pick a lesser used machine to start with (and yep, running a backup image on a spare HDD is not a big thing, so that will happen too), and eventually upgrade the "fleet" of computers, testing functionality as I go - and no doubt there will be software updates coming out for some of the programs and such, that's just life with computers of any sort...

Mark, I never installed it on my edit PC...is what I meant. We have several dedicated PCs here and with my brother's business using various platforms and it's just my personal preference. Is that ok?

I did it. Had my C drive cloned so no risk.
I did it the worst way possible, ran the iso from my desktop and chose upgrade and keep all files and apps.
More experiment than a serious go at it.

As expected, Vegas went mutant, it froze and had to end task 3 times before it would open. Reinstalled and got to the UI but it still seemed laggy. Was even a problem to get it uninstalled, Add Remove programs has a new look and kept hanging/not responding.
Adobe apps were fine.

After about 3 hrs of problem solving, I restored my 8.1
If upgrading, do a clean install for sure.
Cant see a reason to upgrade though unless the benchmarks show improved performance in Vegas or other apps you use.

Thanks Gerald ..Glad you were the beta tester and not me! I think maybe install on a spare machine but that's about as far as I will go ..Let them debug the software first otherwise we might have a hige backlog of work and a dead computer! Not a good idea

I'll stay with 7 Professional for the moment !!

I have personally been involved in upgrading to Windows 10 on six Windows 8.1 machines, from desktops to laptops to tablets and 2-in-1's. None encountered any problems. It's a faster, leaner (takes up less space) operating system. It natively works now with H265 video, btw (thumbnails from h265 clips and the built-in video player plays h265 clips too). And, oh, yes, Sony Vegas Pro works fine (loads faster). No disc cloning on any.

seem to have lost who posts messages in the header?

anyway, in response to last post:

you say 'no cloning'. are / were these installs clean or updates then?

Updates, the way it is supposed to work. My own files are backed up; that is what is valuable. Anyway, I am not promoting anything just providing info.

Thats interesting.
My pc was in no way usable after upgrading. I put it down to not being a clean install.
Will try a clean install and see if any better....

I installed it over Windows 7 and have seen a couple bugs, but nothing that was much of a problem. Vegas 13 did a whole screen flash a few times, like a white flash transition. It did it during one editing session and hasn't happened since. It's been running fine since.

I have Office 2010 32bit on the machine and I have a small issue with Windows switching my tabs from Home to File after every edit. I also installed 10 on 6 other machines and have had no issues at all.
I did update my Firefox to 40.0 Beta which seems to have fixed a small CPU usage issue.

I've already downloaded and installed the first batch of 10 updates too.
Overall, I like it a lot and don't see a reason to roll back to 7 anytime soon.

God mode is very handy for changing settings. You may want to use that.
Unlock Windows 10's hidden, powerful GodMode tool | PCWorld (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2881613/unlock-windows-10s-hidden-powerful-godmode-tool.html)

Did the upgrade(Not a clean install) from 8.1 pro to 10pro and Vegas is working fine for me ..
Just completed a small project and no issues thus far..

Well I'v just wasted two days in trying to get the windows 10 upgrade from 7 to complete without success.
Error no1 system reserved space too small as win 7 100MB and 10 needs more. Solution is to use a third party partition manager in increase the size. What a pain.

Error no2 system service exception igdkmd64.sys this relates to Intel HD4000 graphics driver (took ages to find this out. 10 rolls back to 7

Error no3 Still no luck as migrate data error stops the upgrade with 10 rolling back to 7.

Stay with 7 I think, at least for now.

Sorry to hear that.
I've just upgraded from WIN 7 with no problems - apart from first attempt aborting because I still had some external drives connected, as well as not de-activating anti-virus software. After that, everything went like a dream.
Vegas Pro 13 as well as Hitfilm 3 Pro all behaving well...

Hmmm, seems a bit hit and miss...

I tossed 10 onto a little laptop I'm selling anyway, and it went fast and clean, and the W10 interface actually felt quite comfortable and usable, right off the USB stick.

I have a schedule of machines to be upgraded, with my current main machine the last on the list, so in a few days I might get to a machine with Vegas on it!

I will say that for the most part it seems like people upgrading relatively current machines are having few problems (seen that partition one reported elsewhere), and the little laptop I did was already fast with 8.1, and felt even more responsive with 10.

I have a few odd bits of hardware that never got driver updates after XP, I hope I don't "lose" any with the W10 update, but I have a funny feeling that there may be a couple obscure things that will stop working...

I've recently upgraded both my laptop (Acer 5755G, 3 years old) and my old 8 year old desktop machine with W10 and they both ran fine without a clean install.
I had to reinstall some minor drivers like printer, usb mouse etc, but it was a nearly painless transition.

With regards to Vegas Pro 13 (on desktop machine) I had to reinstall it, but not the 3rd party plug ins I've got (mainly Newbluefx plugins and Neat). First thing that was immediately apparent was that prior to W10 I couldn't use GPU acceleration with Neat (I've got version 4, GPU is AMD R290x), but on W10 I can ☺. Neat used to crash Vegas when trying to do so. What a pleasant surprise!

I don't think that I'll ever return to 7. It took a while for me to adjust, but now it feels more stable than 7.

<I don't think that I'll ever return to 7. It took a while for me to adjust, but now it feels more stable than 7. >

Same here. I like how configurable it is. I don't see a need for 7. It already feels like XP did when I switched to 7 years ago. I have'nt had hardly any issues at all. Firefox ran weird, but now they're up to version 41 and that seems fine now too.

I upgraded to W10, there was a few minor issues from the upgrade on my 3 year old install of W7 so I did a clean install a few days after my upgrade & it's been rock solid since, everything is running 100%. I'm loving W10 & couldn't go back to W7, MS nailed it with W10.

I've never had issues with Windows 8 even from the early beta releases, and I feel that Windows 10 will be trouble free much in the same in that way. 10 is clearly a great OS but there will still be people who try to make it work with outdated hardware and that will be the majority of the problem children we will see posting, or those that did not do a clean install. And they'll be crying and complaining, as usual. But I'm glad to see so many here already having good luck with it.

my laptop keeps reminding me to update which i simply dismiss every morning.

quite frankly i really don't have the time or the patience to do a clean install - it'd take the best part of a day reloading software, re registering, etc, etc., etc., that equates to over $500 of my time.

i'll eventually give it a whirl on the laptop (having a backup of course), and if that goes well i'll try a coupe of other pc's before i do my nle - but as simple upgrades, not clean installs.

i've got to the point where i feel that unless there's a significant advantage to ANYTHING new, the waste of time, energy and worry just isn't worth it anymore - i'd prefer to spend that time in something more productive, such as sleeping ;-)

Right on Leslie!

My PC bugs me in the morning too!! I simply don't change my OS midstream and also until all the bugs are ironed out. I can imagine the chaos of being down for a week ! Now I see in the audio forum that Win10 is corrupting WAV files??

my laptop keeps reminding me to update which i simply dismiss every morning.

Mine did that, too, until I got fed up with the popups, so the next time it appeared, I went to the task manager and found which executable was doing the popping up. I dismissed the message, then deleted the executable and it has never popped up since. :)

adam, care to share that info ;-)

btw. this from over at scs:

Sounds like Windows 10 is having other issues too:

http://www.sounddevices.com/news/sound-devices-news/sound-devices-technical-alert

"
Sound Devices Technical Alert

We have confirmed user reports of a serious issue with Windows 10 and removable media formatted as FAT32. Users are experiencing corruption of .wav media files by simply inserting FAT32 formatted SD or CF cards into a Windows 10 computer. Files do not need to be opened or accessed in order for them to become corrupt.

We wish to emphasize that this problem exists with .wav files regardless of whether they were recorded on Sound Devices equipment or not. We strongly recommend not using Windows 10 with your Sound Devices created audio files.

This problem has been reported to Microsoft who will have to issue any fix, update, or further information on the behavior of Windows 10. If we learn of any new information we will share it at the earliest. Thank you for your continued support!"

adam, care to share that info ;-)

But I did. :)

I don’t remember the name of that executable anymore. I just remember what I did. When it popped up, I pressed the Windows key and the letter X, then the letter T. That got me to the task manager (that is in Windows 8.1, in previous versions I would have pressed ctl-alt-del and picked the task manager from the options that would have appeared).

I looked through the list of tasks and noticed one whose name I no longer remember, but the name was fairly obvious as being the one asking me to reserve the update to Windows 10. I opened the folder with that executable (I should add I am using Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com as a replacement for my task manager, which makes handling the tasks much easier). I then deleted the task from the Process Explorer and the popup disappeared. Then I double-clicked on the executable to make sure I had the correct executable. The popup re-appeared.

I then killed the task again, and deleted the executable. It is possible I renamed the executable to something else at first, just to make sure deleting it would not mess up the system, then rebooted, and only when everything worked smoothly without the executable running. It did, so I finally deleted the renamed file, and everything has been working ever since, just without the annoying popup.

I have no intention to update to Windows 10 because in my experience each major release of Windows tends to have problems with third-party device drivers written for the previous version of Windows. For example, my printer would not work with Windows 8, only with prior versions and the manufacturer does not provide new drivers. I had to buy a new printer just to be able to print from Windows 8(.1), and I do not want to have to buy yet another printer for Windows 10.

Also, I have had heart problems and have to monitor my blood pressure with an external BP monitor which its manufacturer does not make anymore, and there are no newer drivers for it. I am not willing to get a “free” update to Windows just to be forced to spend hundreds of dollars to buy new hardware for everything I do.

Adam

I'll eventually upgrade. A few years later.

The exe is called GWXUX.exe

By the way if you're not sure & simply want to test W10 it is possible to downgrade & restore back to W7 if you're not happy with the W10 upgrade.

Well I'v just wasted two days in trying to get the windows 10 upgrade from 7 to complete without success.
Error no1 system reserved space too small as win 7 100MB and 10 needs more. Solution is to use a third party partition manager in increase the size. What a pain.

Error no2 system service exception igdkmd64.sys this relates to Intel HD4000 graphics driver (took ages to find this out. 10 rolls back to 7

Error no3 Still no luck as migrate data error stops the upgrade with 10 rolling back to 7.

Stay with 7 I think, at least for now.

I thought I would update you on this.

I now have Windows 10 running and producing video with Vegas 13.

Note: I used an ISO image of Windows 10 burnt to a DVD to upgrade as this saves hours of re-download if a system error stops the upgrade.

These were the issues I had to solve to do it on my PC running windows 7

1). Resize the reserved system area on the SSD (used a free partition utility)
2). Uninstall/remove the intel HD4000 graphics driver igdkmd64.sys
3). Change the security permissions on the SSD to full control for all users (not just system). Error system exception not handled fixed as a result.
4). Windows 10 did not like Kaspersky and froze when looking for an update, on reboot just kept rebooting. The only way out was to do a windows refresh/repair which deleted all my apps. Roll back to win 7 not possible via recovery panel after this.
5) From windows.old directory (windows 7 roll back directory) I was able to recover all my e-mails and settings for most of the uninstalled apps).

So quite a frustrating process that certainly did not go smoothly. I am currently getting used to Windows 10 and re installing many of my previous apps. I did find the Vegas settings, scrips, templates from windows.old to copy over to the new install. Win 10 seems faster and I guess most will probably eventually end up migrating eventually.

I hope this may be helpful to anyone else having similar errors when trying to upgrade.

Haven't gotten to the "main" machines yet... but have done several older machines while finding the tricks. W10 is definitely faster once installed and updated (and it DOES go through at least one upgrade cycle after install, so it feels sluggish during that process!). Video drivers seem to something that comes in after the initial install, so things don't always look quite right, and I was getting some error messages until the updates settled in, not huge, just something to be aware of. Overall, W10 actually adds new life to an old machine, which is nice - performance improvements over 7 are noticeable (as they were with 8 over 7).

Found some strangeness with "gestures" on Synaptics trackpads, work in some programs, not others (reported on the web). No drivers for a really old Radeon video card, which worked fine with generic MS drivers after 10 install. A couple other minor programs that had to be updated, but most things seem to work, and faster...

Haven't tried or run across the problems with audio files reported on the audio threads here... fingers crossed.

I just set up a USB stick, and recommend hooking up an ethernet cable vs. wireless - there are several "updating" cycles while installing that take a LONG time on older wireless (g).

Have a couple more computers to do before I do the desktop that was recently retired for a zippy laptop, that one is the final test, as it has all the "production stuff" on it, and was due for a reinstall anyway, something went a little "off" with the 8 install.... it worked, so never got around to reinstalling, 10 should clean out the cobwebs...

I have two editing pcs - a high(ish) end laptop which I occasionally use when travelling and a big brute of a desktop where most ofthe work gets done. I upgraded the laptop to Windows 10 and took it away with me on a couple of recent jobs in Spain and Denmark. It wasn't essential that I could edit while I was away but I wanted to get the job of ingesting and logging done before I came home. As such it wasn't going to be a major nightmare if it all went horribly wrong.

Installation was a breeze (I upgraded rather than clean installed, just because I really didn't have the time to spend reinstalling everything) and all apps and peripherals work fine. Immediate impressions were that W10 is snappier, cleaner, more logically laid out than it's predecessors. I haven't looked at any user guides and was able to tweak some of the more annoying defaults easily. I really like the 'new' start menu - a lot. I hated the full screen Metro interface (was that what they called it?) and rarely visited it, but this Minimetro I like. So, a little bit of re-education and I was up and running. All the apps I tested worked as before. I can't say I was conscious of any performance enhancements.

As it happened I also edited a couple of fun projects for my wife while I was away, with multiple tracks, a mix of stills, iphone video (landscape and portrait - sigh), 4K straight from a GH4 and a GoPro (at 24fps and 96fps) and 10-bit DNxHD from a Samurai Blade/AF101 combo. I also added some music in mp3 format and a few wav sfx. Simple colour correction using the excellent Colorfast, a couple of audio plugins, final output 1080i. Long and short is that Vegas performed flawlessly. Actually, that's not strictly true - I had failed to upgrade Vegas to the latest build and I did have trouble opening a project which I created on the big box and ported over to the laptop. I have a feeling it was a footage format issue but didn't spend any time troubleshooting. A quick install of build 453 and all was well.

I guess I have spent about six hours editing with Vegas 13 Pro on Windows 10 and so far not a single blip. I would have expected a crash or two by now but nothing yet!

I'm afraid I'm a bit gung ho when it comes to upgrading to latest versions of anything. I should be a lot more cautious, given that this is my sole source of income, but I can't help myself! The big question is do I dare upgrade the big box now . . . .?

Ian, thanks for sharing your experience, very encouraging!

I just might go for it!

ditto ;-}

well, on the laptop to start with.

I am waiting for Sound Blaster to finish the Windows 10 drivers. Meanwhile, there is no sound and the apps do not work.

I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate on a separate hard drive, did a cloned backed up and then upgraded to windows 10.

I can easily go back to Windows 7.

I took the plunge and installed W10 on the big box yesterday (having backed up the Win 8.1 installation to an unused internal drive - I'm not THAT gung ho!)

I've just finished the first draft edit of a client job combining 1080p, 4k, high res stills. Basic colour correction with Colorfast, lots of pan/crop keyframing on the 4k footage and stills. So far so good. I did get a curious 'your last project didn't shut down properly' message on reopening the project (and through habit I always pre-empt the system message 'do you want to save your changes' by forcing a save before exiting, so I know it is the latest version). Other than that, though, so far it's been crash free.

No problems with my peripherals - Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 audio interface, Canon MG5250 inkjet/scanner, HP LaserJet Pro wireless laser printer, wide array of USB2 and 3 drives, plus some NAS storage. Network and internet all seem fine. Haven't tested the DVD/BluRay burner yet (rarely use it these days) or my Wacom tablet or Shuttle Pro (both also little used).

Other major apps tested (not as thoroughly as Vegas) - Cakewalk Sonar Platinum, which really pushes the audio hardware; Photoshop CC2015, Lightroom, Cinema4D - all seem fine. Haven't tested After Effects or Camtasia yet.

Same performance report as with the laptop - it all seems nippier. I have to do a bit more tweaking to get rid of the junk but that's par for the course with any new Windows install I guess.

I'm encouraged by my experience to date. I can't believe there won't be any issues as I go forward but for the time being I'm sticking with 10.

I updated my lowly Dell Vostro with a Core Duo chip, and four gigs of memory. It had Windoss 7 Pro 64bit on board, with 4 gigs of memory. I had been unsatisfied with Vegas 12 on that system, so I decided I wouldn't be missing much if it didn't run well on that system. I was pleasantly surprised that the upgrade was uneventful, and Vegas is actually more usable with this version. I went ahead and upgraded my main box and the general overall report is that it runs faster, cleaner, and seems to be bug free. I will be editing with a producer on Tuesday, so we'll see how that goes.

thanks to all for reporting in. i am getting a little bit more confident with the idea of trying 10 on one of my laptops at least....

oh well it's pissing down and i really didn't feel like doing anything so i wasted the afternoon....

another heads-up re 10:

still avoiding risking it on 'work' pc's, but i did stick it on an old tosh sat pro s200 duo core laptop with 4gb ram.

have been pleasantly surprised how (relatively to 7) snappy it's become. the upgrade was slow, but painless. all my apps and settings still seem to work.

next is having a play with the gui. don't like not being able to sort / arrange my apps in 'view all', but the tiles now do seem to have some use... we'll see...

Update:

While searching forums I found where a person said that if one disables the Sound Blaster driver and then re-enables it, it will work.

I tried it and it indeed works. My Sound Blaster Titanium HD now has sound AND the sound fonts work as well. I am not yet sure if my audio tools work.

I have the real time audio analyzer that lets me see what I cannot hear and my midi music software.

So a big step in the right direction but I am not sure if I can get full results with it yet.

As for auto-updates, just like with Windows 7, I disconnect the editing system from the internet so it cannot update in ways that are undesirable.

Meanwhile, I can still use my windows 7 ultimate boot to get important video projects done. When I am finally satisfied with the Windows 10 boot, I will then start using it for serious projects.

I read elsewhere a post from a person who upgraded their working system right in the middle of the wedding season. That is a HUGE no-no!

One should always develop the upgrade on an extra boot drive and not use it for important projects until they are satisfied that it is ready for prime time. One can take their time with it this way and it will not matter if it goes bad or not.

Another Update:

I used my Zoom H2n to make a test recording to see what happens with its wav file.

I put the card in the reader and the wav file is perfectly fine.

Maybe there is a problem with certain recording devices and/or certain settings for the wav file?

I used 48/16 for the recording setting.

I used the Sound Blaster utility to check for updated software. It said that my software is up to date and that it does not need updating even though only two of the apps work with it. At least for me, the most important app for the sound font works. The audio editor app works though I will still use Audacity.

Great News! The real time audio analyzer works perfectly! In fact much better than it did with Windows 7.

It never did work with Windows 8.1

Things are looking better and better. I hope these positive results continue.