Our club has been using Microsoft Windows 7 Professional operating system for many years now on our contest logging computers. It’s pretty stable, everyone has learned the interface, and it runs fine on modest machines. There are two issues however that suggest we might have to move on to Windows 10 down the line. WIN7 Install media and proper licenses for any new computers we get are getting harder to find, even on eBay. Microsoft stopped mainstream support for WIN7 in 2015, and will terminate all support the first day of 2020. Our computer are all hooked to the Internet so a steady stream of security patches is highly desirable to keep our machines safe. That will be ending in 2020.
As the club’s computer maven I like to stay ahead of things as best I can. So it was time to test Windows 10 for suitability in a club situation. To that end I’ve been running Windows 10 on the Dell OptiPlex 7040 at position #4 for the last year. I just didn’t tell you. We’ve run four M/M contests running N1MM+ Logger networked, some of our remote software, and generally carried on quite nicely.
So what is the secret to success? The first thing I did was replace the dreadful “tiles” WIN10 interface with a shell program called “Start 10” to make the interface look and feel like Windows 7 Pro. Sure there is a half-ass start menu implementation in WIN10 you can turn on, but “Start 10” does a far better Windows 7 emulation. It’s the best $4.99 ever spent on a computer. That’s why most of you never knew you were sitting at a WIN10 machine.
Windows 10 is incredibly stable, I can’t remember even seeing the “Blue Screen of Death”. Peripherals and programs install cleanly, and updates go well. More about updates in a bit. Windows 10 does require a more capable computer i.e. a bit faster, and more RAM memory compared to WIN7. Fortunately Anders, SM4KYN has donated several nice machines to the club. By-the-way: The computer at position #4 is our best unit, it even has a solid state hard drive. Thank you Anders.
OK, so what’s the main disadvantage you ask? I’ve got one for you, and it’s a doozy too. Windows 10 can actually try and install system updates in the middle of a contest – whether you want it to or not. Imagine having a 200Q hour going on CW and suddenly things stop working? You go to re-boot the machine and you get a message to wait while Mother Microsoft (or is it Big Brother?) installs what it thinks you need. Boom! Oh boy, you can bet has Microsoft gotten feedback from critical use folks on this “feature”.
Here is the current solution while Microsoft putters around the edges of a fix. Whoever is in charge of the computers for a specific contest should hit Start->Settings->Security/Updates and force any system updates no earlier then the Wednesday before the contest. Why Wednesday onward? Tuesday is Microsoft update release day. We usually do updates with WIN7 Pro too before a contest, but WIN10 forced updates before a contest is a pretty important task.
So yes, change really IS constant! Doing my best in CCC computer land to be ready with options, I remain your computer maven,
Gene, KB7Q
One reply on “Windows 10 and Contesting”
Thanks thanks thanks Gene for handling this. Years back, when we transitioned from XP into Windows 7, I had to figure everything out and implement that change. It is soooo nice to NOT have to do that this cycle.