In Safe mode, we boot the PC with just the essential services and drivers that are required for Windows to run and most of the third party services and all non essential Windows services are disabled. We use this method when we suspect that a third party service is causing the issue or when we are unsure of what is causing the issue. Since all non essential services are disabled when you boot the PC in Safe mode, any issues occurring as a result of these services/drivers will not be present in Safe mode. This way we can identify that the issue is caused by one of the non essential that was disabled in Safe mode.

Once we have determined that the issue is caused by one of the non essential services/driver, we need to determine which specific service/driver is causing the issue. To find out the culprit, we will perform a procedure called as "Clean Boot". In Clean boot we will disable the services group by group until we find the specific service. For example, if we have 25 non essential services, we will disable the first 5 services and boot the computer to check if the issue occurs. If the issue occurs, then the first five services disabled might not be causing the issue. The next time, we disable the next 5 services and boot the PC. If the issue doesn't occur, then one of the 5 services currently disabled might be causing the issue. Then we will disable the the 5 services one by one till we isolate that one service causing the issue.

Steps to boot the PC in Sade mode:

To boot the PC in Safe mode, press Windows key  and the "R" key to gather to get the "Run" command box. Type "msconfig" and press enter. Click on the "Boot" tab and then check the option against "Safe mode" and click "Apply". Now restart the PC to boot in Safe mode.

Steps to boot the PC in Clean boot:

Once you have confirmed that the issue doesn't occur Safe mode, you can boot the PC in Clean boot as described in the following Microsoft KB article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135 

Once you have identified that a particular service is causing the issue, you can uninstall that software that service belongs to or install a more recent version of that software and check if the issue occurs.

Is my PC eligible to upgrade to Windows 10 for free?

In order to get the free Windows 10 upgrade, your PC must be running Windows 7 with service pack 1 or Windows 8.1 update and must be activated. To check the hardware requirements to install Windows 10, check out this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-specifications

How do I upgrade to Windows 10?

If your PC meets the above requirements, then you can install Windows 10 through Windows updates or through the Media Creation Tool. All eligible PCs will get a notification to install Windows 10 automatically provided they have installed the latest Windows updates. Just click on the notification to reserve your copy of Windows 10 and it will start downloading through Windows update as soon as Windows 10 is available in your area.  If you don’t see the upgrade notification, the check out this article to find out why:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3081048

If you are an impatient geek like me who doesn’t like waiting to try out new things, then you can go ahead and download Windows 10 using the Media creation tool. You can check out my other post here to find out how I upgraded to Windows 10 using this tool.

Which version of Windows will I get if I upgrade?

Here is a concise version of the upgrade path showing which version of Windows 10 you will get.

Windows 10 upgrade path and editions

The above image is taken from the following page and you can refer to the section ‘Upgrade editions’ for more information.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-specifications

How do I clean install Windows 10?

Once you have upgraded to Windows 10 and have activated your copy of Windows 10, then you can perform a clean install anytime.

Note: Your activation status won’t be affected when you make hardware changes to graphic card or HDD/SSD, but making changes to hardware like TPM, Motherboard and might have a negative impact your activation status. In such cases, you can do a phone activation as explained in this article:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/950929

You can also refer to this FAQ by Microsoft for additional information:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-faq

More Questions? Leave a comment and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

I upgraded my PC to Windows 10 and have been using it for the last couple of days without any major issues. However, looking into the web, it seems that many users are facing installation issues and other problems with Windows 10. So, here is a list of the known issues in Windows 10:

UPDATE: Microsoft has released a Cumulative update which contains patched for most of the known issues. So if you are facing any issues with Windows 10, I would highly recommend installing all latest updates and then check. Check out this article for more information:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3081424

Windows 10 failed to install with error code 80240020.

Many users who have tried to upgrade to Windows 10 through the reservation process have reported that is an error 80240020 when they check the Windows update section. The Microsoft Support Engineers have mentioned that this error is normal and it doesn’t mean that something went wrong with your upgrade. It looks like the installation files are downloaded but the installation prompt hasn’t been shown as Windows 10 is being released in waves. So in areas where Windows 10 is not yet available through Windows update, few users might see this error if their PC has already downloaded the files but haven’t displayed the notification to begin installation. Check out this announcement in the Answers website:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/windows-update-installation-failure-80240020/d695e827-9774-4e10-8972-df8d51a7bb51

In this case, you can either wait to get the notification or install Windows 10 using an ISO like I did. Check out this post: http://www.the-super-geek.com/2015/07/my-thoughts-on-new-windows-10.html

Activation errors:

You can also check out this article for Activation errors and what they mean:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/activation-errors-windows-10

Start button/Menu not working.

If the start button or menu is not working, then you can try the suggestions provided in this post. Few users have mentioned that this has fixed their issue.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_desktop/start-button-is-not-working-in-windows-10/af20e8c8-1783-463f-8fd1-1cbfd8a80d63

Office error: The File is corrupt and cannot be opened

For office users who are unable to open Office documents after upgrading to Windows 10. Microsoft has published a KB article to fix the issue:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086786

That’s it for now Geeks. Will update this post if I come across any more issues for which a fix is available.

I just installed the latest build 10166 in my Lumia 620 and was little disappointed to find that there weren’t any major features released in this build. This build contains mostly fixes for the known bugs which weren’t fixed in the previous builds. The main change that I noticed in this build was that the old store app has been removed and the new store app (the beta store app from previous builds) has been made as the default store app. Apart from this, I noticed that my WhatsApp is still not displaying its icon in both the start screen and the all apps menu. So it looks like the icons issue is yet to be fixed.

Gabe Aul posted the following in the Windows blogs:

“Most of the known issues we listed for Build 10149 have been fixed. We also fixed the issue where the post-upgrade migration status screen was missing, which made the Lock screen appear frozen without the date and time for up to 10 minutes. The post-upgrade migration status screen should appear normally now. We also fixed the issue where you were unable to unlock your phone after entering your PIN and it keeps letting you type even though you entered your pin correctly that was caused by a TPM issue. The colors in apps should now appear correctly including in including the titlebar in the Outlook Mail app which is no longer orange. And we also improved reliability of app downloads and updates from the Store (which is now no longer marked as “Beta” and the old Store has been removed).

We also got a lot of feedback about the size of the battery icon, so we bumped that up a bit larger to make it easier for everyone to see.”

Though there is no new features in the new build, it has fixed most of the major bugs in the previous builds and has made Windows phone smoother and better for day to day use. If you haven’t installed this build yet, you can go ahead and install it without any hesitations.

It was almost a day since Windows 10 was released as an update in other regions and yet the ‘Get Windows 10 app’ in my PC didn’t show any prompts to install Windows 10. I knew that Windows 10 for reserved users will be released in waves, but being a very impatient man myself, I took the route of upgrading to Windows 10 through the Media creation tool offered by Microsoft. Since the ‘Get Windows 10’ app has already reported my PC and all software were compatible, I quickly downloaded the Media creation tool from this link.

My PC with Windows 10

The Media creation tool first asked me to choose if I wanted to upgrade my system right away or wanted to create an installation media. From my previous experience, I knew creating an installation media was the best choice as you will have the media at least if something goes wrong and won’t have to start downloading from the beginning. So, I chose the option to create an installation media and then chose the option to create an ISO file (the other option was to create a bootable USB media). Then I was prompted to select the language, the version of Windows 10 that I wanted to download and the option for 32 bit and 64 bit files. Once I selected the right options for me, the tool started downloading the files and displayed an option to open the ISO files or burn them to disc when the downloaded completed. I chose the option to open the ISO image with File Explorer, double clicked on the setup file to start upgrade process.

Once the upgrade process began, the setup prompted me to choose what I wanted to keep from my previous OS. Once that was done, it again took some time to check for updates (wonder if it was looking for some patches for issues that might have reported after the final release), and then finally 

informed me that Windows Media Centre would be uninstalled and a confirm button was displayed to approve this action. Since I haven’t used Windows Media Centre much, I clicked on the confirm button and clicked next which started the installation process. Once the installation was done, I signed in with my Microsoft account which was already there and was happy to find that all my files including the desktop icons and taskbar shortcuts were intact. The user interface looked great and new action centre was a plus. I tried using the edge browser as well which seemed quite smooth and fast than Internet Explorer. So far Windows 10 looks great to me, will post an update soon after I use it for few days.

Note: Please make sure that you only perform an upgrade installation like me and not  a clean installation (booting directly from the installation media and installing) as clean install requires a product key. Once you have upgraded your PC as mentioned above and activated your copy of Windows 10, then you are free to perform a clean install without affecting your activation status.