When we last pressed “publish,” on Windows Rant #27433 (or thereabouts), we were stuck with a refurbished Windows Vista machine that had been reloaded with Windows 7, therefore “theoretically” eligible for “free” upgrade (is it really?  An upgrade, that is.) to Windows 10.  However, the compatibility check failed on the built-in ATI Radeon display adapter, deemed too old to have a Windows 10 driver written for it.

In fact, after some checking, it appears that Windows 7 itself uses the Vista driver in compatibility mode.  So much for buying older machines.  But, wait.  For just a few dollars more (about 40 of them, now raising the cost of the  new system to approximately the price of discount Windows 10 OEM installation disk, which I could use to build a virtual machine on our KVM server), I ordered a PNY video card with an Nvidia chipset that I verified: 1) was compatible with the PCIe 2×16 slot in the HP computer 2) came with the short connector brackets needed for a slim-case desktop computer, and, most importantly, 3) had an available driver for Windows 10.

So, the box arrived: I swapped out the connector bracket, moved the existing RS-232 connector on the computer back panel, and plugged in the new card.  Then, I turned on the computer, which had been offline for a week or so waiting for the new card.  The display wouldn’t come up.  Oh, maybe the new card disables the on-board adapter, so I moved the cable–still black, but the disk light is blinking, so the computer is doing something, I just can’t see it.  Foolishly, I turned off the machine (never do that when the disk is active), and turned it back on again.  OK, I get the bootup screen, but then a message that Windows cannot load.  Autorecovery doesn’t work.  The messages on the screen invite me to reinstall Windows.  I don’t think so.  A person without decades of IT background might be tempted at this point to haul the $80 (now $125, with the new video card) machine off to the nearest PC repair shop for a $150 minimum service charge, but, then, the average user would just have  bought a new machine with Windows 10 already on it in the first place, rather than trying to install new hardware in the old one..

I remove the new card, plug the display back into the old one, and reboot.  Yes!  It comes up, but needs to fiddle with updates, going through many long minutes of “Do not touch the Power button” warnings and several reboots.  I should have made sure the system was stable before opening it up, but I’m not used to the “hands off” policy where your computer is not available to you for hours on end, at the whim of Microsoft and their “reboot often, and, when in doubt, reinstall” system philosophy (yes, I was actually taught that, in a Microsoft system administration class, many years ago–in contrast to Unix and Linux machines that run for months or years between reboots, except maybe for kernel updates, for which you can now buy “live” update tools).

Finally, the machine stabilizes, and I download the latest Windows 7 Nvidia driver, for the next step, which is: reinstall the new card.  This time, the system, having passed through the weekly throes of patch management, boots, in Large Print mode, since it has no idea of what kind of video hardware is installed, and reverts to the default minimum resolution.  Installation of the Nvidia driver goes smoothly, and the system reboots to a nice, crisp, high-resolution screen.

The next step is to ask Microsoft to reconsider.  But, the upgrade compatibility tool apparently only runs once in a great while, and still says “This machine can’t run Windows 10”–because of the obsolete Radeon display adapter, which is now disabled.  Bummer.  Well, some quick research on sites where the bloggers make their living fixing other people’s Windows installations shows me how to schedule the compatibility checker to run again “real soon now,” from an administrative command line.  It’s been over 15 years since I was a Windows administrator, so I have to research how to “runas” administrator in Windows 7, being somewhat different (but, as it turns out, much simpler) than in Windows NT, and, of course, completely different from using ‘su’ or ‘sudo’ in Unix.  So, I ran the request, which says it had “SUCCESS,” but the scan is only “scheduled” and, according to the FAQ, runs only once a month.  Removing the Appraisal.JSON report file from the hidden “Telemetry” directory  did nothing–the report, which seems to be delivered over the Internet from Microsoft, is still displayed in the appraisal tool, so all we can do is wait.  Everything is “wait” in Windows.

Oh, and it seems the browsers are still infested with adware, too, as I can’t seem to click on any link in Firefox without getting a new tab with some advertisement in it.  Either that, or all the site links _are_ actually wired to ads for expensive tech support or software of dubious value instead of actual on-line help.  I wonder if I can start a campaign to get Garmin and Intuit to port their software to Linux, or at least get it to run under Wine?  Then, we wouldn’t ever need to use Windows at all.

To be continued…