Adventures in Windows 10, part 1

Adventures in Windows 10, part 1

Quick summary: This week, I finally figured out how to put Windows 10 on my desktop PC without removing (upgrading) Windows 7. Then I dealt with Wifi issues, as in two Wifi adapters wouldn't work with Windows 10. Then I ran into activation issues. Some of the information here might help others in their Windows 10 adventures.

Installing Windows 10 to dual boot

I had previously downloaded Windows 10 from Microsoft and put the image on a 32GB USB stick. This copy worked for upgrading -- a colleague used it to upgrade his home PC. But when I tried to run the setup program on my machine, I couldn't figure out how to do a clean install on another partition. The setup program only wanted to do an upgrade, as far as I could tell. 

After a lot of searching online, I ran across a post (sorry I didn't save the URL) that explained how to run another setup program. It seems that you have to go into the SUPPORT folder and run the setup.exe that's in there; there are several programs that have setup in their names, but only one that is named just "setup.exe." Running that gave me the option to choose a partition. I was able to choose the new SSD I had installed and never used, which was what I wanted -- a clean Windows 10 installation running on an SSD. 

When the entire setup was done and I rebooted for the last time, after seeing the hardware start screen, I got a Windows boot screen that listed both Windows 10 and Windows 7. I was able to choose either one and boot into each OS. Great!

Just one problem: In Windows 10, I did not have a network connection through the Wifi adapter plugged into a USB port on the system.

Getting Wifi to work

So again I started searching online, and found many posts about Wifi adapters no working after Windows 10 upgrades. That wasn't exactly my situation, since I had done a clean install for dual boot, as described above.

Here's some of what I tried, and what happened:

Downloaded the latest drivers for the Netgear RangeMax Wifi adapter, model 111 v2. But there was no Windows 10 driver, and on the Netgear support page I found out that very few of their Wifi adapters had Windows 10 support. Bummer. The adapter I was using is relatively recent -- it support 802.11n after all.

Tried installing the drivers several (many) times, in different ways. In each case, the drivers installed, but when the installer asked me to insert the USB adapter, it never detected it. Here are things I tried:

• Device Manager showed a USB lan adapter -- but not its full name.
• Using the Update Drivers command in Device Manager didn't work, probably because the setup program was a full executable, and didn't have an MSI or INI file that the update dialog box could read.
• Deleting the adapter in device manager and reinstalling didn't work. The setup program always failed with the adapter not detected.
• Trying to reboot Windows without the drivers installed, hoping that a Windows generic driver would be used automatically, didn't work.
• Another Netgear Wifi adapter had the same problems. This one is a micro adapter, WN1000M I believe. It also had no Windows 10 drivers available.

So what finally worked? I really wanted to play around with Win10 and the new Edge browser, so I moved the Wifi router closer to my desktop, ran an Ethernet cable to the PC, and booted Windows 10. Of course I had network then. But I also had 2 Wifi adapters installed. And I could connect to them and get to the internet. (!!)

Yes. Simply using ethernet for a minute somehow (and I mean, how?!?) made windows recognize 2 wifi adapters that were still plugged into the PCs USB ports, recognize the drivers, and WORK. 

The last thing to do was unplug the Ethernet cable and make sure everything was still all right with Wifi. And it was, and is.

STRANGE but true. 

A little more detail: I can't remember every place I checked, but when I did the Ethernet cable, I first noticed that the Wifi adapters had appeared in (I believe) the Networking (?) panel in Win10. 

Wherever it was exactly, I new something different had happened because their full names appeared -- brand, model, etc. I checked Device Manager and they were there under Network Adapters, again, with full names. In the Connect window (clicking the network icon in the system tray), my Wifi network name was available, and I clicked "Connect" there. It asked for the Wifi password, which I entered, and the connection was successful.

Chasing network settings

Windows has always been tricky with its networking settings seemingly scattered among multiple dialog boxes, control panels, windows, commands, etc. 

There's the network explorer view, there's a "Network and Internet" control panel, there's the Network and Sharing Center, there's the command prompt tools (ipconfig, etc.). There are the properties dialog boxes for the adapters. There are connection properties (where are those now? I forget). 

Even now, after years (since Windows 98 or so) of working with Windows networking, I often can't find the dialog box or panel that has the feature I want. And I end up in the same wizard or properties dialog box over and over again, trying to make the magic happen.

It's no wonder I sometimes long for the days of AppleTalk. Having a bunch of Macs get together on a peer-to-peer network as easily as plugging in a cord was amazing.

#technostalgia

So I have a new, Windows 10 Wifi adapter getting delivered today from Amazon that now I don't need.