Threshold 2

[artbuc]

Anyone install yet? Any bugs? On another forum someone reported certain keys on his keyboard do not work.

[Calum]

I just Googled this because my machine doesn't have any updates available and found out that anyone who's upgraded to Windows 10 within the last 31 days won't be offered this update yet.  This is because of the 30-day rollback period, where you can roll back to Windows 7 or 8 from Windows 10.  I did a clean install on this machine so I'm not entirely sure why I don't have the update available, but at the same time I'm a little glad because I'd rather wait a few days to install it anyway.

[Computer_Commando]

Not much different from the previous version.  No problem installing on 4 machines; will not install on the 5th machine.  Hangs while checking, no matter what download is used.

[BC_Programmer]

Updated one of my Win 10 systems and it seems to work fine.

The main visible change is that Title bar colors can be adjusted now, though I presume there are a number of other changes that have been made as well.

[Salmon Trout]

Works fine for me; I already had it on an Insider machine about a week before, I have been using the "cast media" feature in Edge and am pleased with it. Pinned Start tiles can now be 4 wide versus 3 before.

 

[Computer_Commando]

Here's what got me past the hangup on the HP.
Start---Run---msconfig---Diagnostic Startup---Reboot

If I choose "Normal Startup", it always reboots back into "Selective Startup".
Task Manager now controls Selective Startup.

Now run the upgrade from the USB flash drive.  It got past the "making sure you're ready to install" & is now Installing Windows.
It switched back to the desktop with a small window that says "Windows 10 installation has failed".  Never got to the 1st restart.

[Computer_Commando]

Finally figured it out. Problem is related to UEFI/GPT & the hidden partitions needed for upgrading.

Been trying to upgrade from 10130 to 1511 for the past 2 days.
Could not get past the "making sure you're ready to install".
Laptop had 2 "blank" partitions, 312MB UEFI Boot before Win10 & 950MB empty one after Win10. I split the 900MB into 700MB & 150MB, like my T100 tablet. I named the 700 MB "Recovery". It now got past the "making sure you're ready to install", went to the big blue screen & then the big black screen with the % in the center circle. Never got this far in 20 hrs of screwing around with it. Had pretty much given up on it. It completed successfully!!

Didn't have the same problem on a UEFI/GPT desktop or UEFI/GPT tablet or 2 non-UEFI/GPT machines. The UEFI desktop had single 128MB partition after the Windows partitions; none are designated "Recovery".

Didn't matter if upgrade was via Windows Update or downloaded ISO burned to flash drive. It would always stop at "making sure you're ready to install". Didn't lock up computer, but shut it off & re-imaged every time with Macrium Reflect, so always trying something different from the same starting point. Must have tried it 20 times, even disabling startup item with msconfig. That resulted in switched back to the desktop with a small window that said "Windows 10 installation has failed". Never got to the 1st restart.

I've been an Insider for over a year & previously Win10 created the empty partitions wherever it needed.
Looks like this version changed how this is done.

It completed & Windows has now resized & renamed some of the partitions:

328 MB No Name (EFI System)
62.89 GB Windows
912 MB No Name (Recovery) Windows resized & removed the Label on this one
128 MB No Name Windows resized this one

[strollin]

I've been running the insider version in a VM for a week or more.  My laptop that came with Win 10 factory installed just got the Threshold 2 update today.  No issues for me with either the VM or the laptop.

Mostly bug fixes, a few tweaks with Edge, Cortana and the Start menu.  As far as I'm concerned the biggest new "feechur" is that you can now clean install using a valid Win7 or Win8 Product Key so it's no longer necessary to first do an upgrade install and then go back and do a clean install.

[Clayto2]

My Windows10 running OK after update except for booting problem I am dealing with plus a number of features which have never worked or which worked for a while then stopped or which are supposed  to have been in the November Threshold2 update:

CORTANA     notifications donot popup, at any time
           notification do not sync to my Windows phone
                     there is nowhere for creating hand written stylus  Notes --- no Notebook for doing this
                     no comments, tips from Cortana
 
EDGE            no option for casting media appears in the menu (I see others have it)

AND there is more, despite upgrade from 8.1 and the November update having been successful (but with a BSOD attack)

[soybean]

Umm ... how do we know whether we have Threshold 2?  Does "Threshold 2" appear somewhere in a Properties panel, like "SP1", "SP2", etc. for previous versions of Windows? 

My insider preview version of Windows 10 obviously got an update 2 days ago.  I suspect this was Threshold 2 but, again, how can a user verify that?

[artbuc]

Umm ... how do we know whether we have Threshold 2?  Does "Threshold 2" appear somewhere in a Properties panel, like "SP1", "SP2", etc. for previous versions of Windows? 

My insider preview version of Windows 10 obviously got an update 2 days ago.  I suspect this was Threshold 2 but, again, how can a user verify that?

It will say Version 1511, Build 10586. 1511 is for 2015, 11th month.

[soybean]

It will say Version 1511, Build 10586. 1511 is for 2015, 11th month.

Thanks, Art.  For the benefit of anyone else wondering how to determine whether you have it,  you can find out by clicking Start, Settings, and the selecting About.   The full OS Build number is 10586.3. 

[patio]

Nice catch Art.

[strollin]

Thanks, Art.  For the benefit of anyone else wondering how to determine whether you have it,  you can find out by clicking Start, Settings, and the selecting About.   The full OS Build number is 10586.3.

I find it's easier to open a command prompt and type in winver.

[Calum]

Well, this is weird...I've checked and I installed Windows 10 on the 11th of October, so it's not the 31-day thing that's stopping me from getting this update.  I definitely don't have it installed, I checked the build number as above, so I'm not sure why it's not available for me.
The one oddity I can think of is that I distinctly remember having the option to defer upgrades, which I thought was odd as I have the Home edition which I thought didn't have this option.  I've read some info about some update that may have added this option to the Home edition, not sure if that actually happened though as there's a lot of false info about Windows 10 out there.  Anyway, I did have this option, and now I don't, so I wonder if me ticking this option before has left it "set" somewhere in the registry...can't find info on this either from Googling.  I haven't spent all that much time on this but thought I'd mention it in case anyone else has the same issue, if I find a fix I'll post it here.
I do know I could use the media creation tool to create installation media and upgrade from this, but I'd rather fix whatever's causing this update not to show up.

[Clayto2]

After a long saga of errors, freezes and restarts I now have Threshold installed more or less OK. Like some others (in the UK) I wasted much time trying to find the Cortana Notebook inking feature, only to learn it is not(yet?) available in the UK (and elsewhere). Why was this not explained?

[Calum]

Wish I could tell you but I still can't get Threshold 2
As per my earlier post I've waded through the registry to check if there was an option set that no longer had a UI to unset, but I came up blank, cmae across a few settings that looked promising which I couldn't find much info on...backed up the registry and changed them, but no dice so I reverted my changes,

[Computer_Commando]

I know some who just got the Windows update that puts the Win10 icon in the system tray, that's 4 months.  If you don't want to wait, download the ISO file.

[Salmon Trout]

I know some who just got the Windows update that puts the Win10 icon in the system tray, that's 4 months.  If you don't want to wait, download the ISO file.

Open this page in a browser in a non-Microsoft OS, choose your edition and language and it gives you download links for 32 bit and 64 bit Home/Pro valid for 24 hours to get the ISO:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Doing it in a non-Windows OS by passes the media creation tool and gets you the actual ISO link. You can right click the link button and copy the link location and use it in a browser in Windows to do the actual download (about 3 GB)



[update]

Or (at the moment) you can use a browser in Windows to go to the German Tech Bench site and get the ISOs, just be sure to choose the right edition (Edition auswählen) and language (Produktsprache auswählen)

https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/software-download/techbench

[Calum]

Sorry CC and Salmon, thought I'd replied but have returned to post an update and realised I didn't.  I know you can download the ISO, which I have, I have just been holding off to see if it eventually trickles down through Windows Update.  Salmon's post above is useful for anyone who wants to be able to download the ISO easily though, I did that initially to do a clean install of Windows 10 rather than use the media creation tool.

My gf's laptop picked up the November update today after the normal Patch Tuesday updates, it's been downloading it for a while so it'll probably install tomorrow.  Installed the same round of patches on my machine, rebooted and re-checked for updates, but still no TH2.  It looks like that means it's still not available for everyone, which I see Computer_Commando has alluded to above, that MS may still not be making it available to everyone at once possibly to conserve bandwidth.

Just updating here as I thought someone may find this useful and/or reassuring, if they haven't got the TH2 update showing yet then it may just take a little more time.

Edit: though, I'm not sure what criteria they are using to determine which machines get the update.  My gf's laptop was upgraded quite a while after I installed Windows 10 on my machine, and we use the same connection and the same IP so it doesn't seem like it's based on location or available bandwidth.  My machine also runs 24/7 whereas hers is on for maybe 4 hours a day.  Maybe it's semi random or MS are using some internal logic that isn't obvious to outsiders to determine which systems get the update before others.

[BC_Programmer]

I was able to get my old desktop updated to Threshold 2, it wasn't showing it in Windows update, but after 5 or 6 reboots, it started showing up. Then it failed to install and I had to reboot another 5 or 6 times for it to succeed, not sure what was up with that.


Speaking of that, In another post, I mentioned that Floppy Drives didn't work with Windows 10, and CC stated they did. I was curious so I turned on my old desktop that evening. It has Windows 10 and I hadn't updated it to Threshold 2 at the time. It was also my 'source' For Floppy drives not working, as it has a Combo Card reader FDD drive installed- I was able to boot DOS 6.22 but Windows 10 never let me access the floppy drive- A: at the prompt gives me Invalid Drive specification, for example.

This behaviour persisted- but while I had it on I went through the fun described above to install the latest updates. After that, I was able to access the floppy drive.

I don't know if it was Threshold 2 or another previous update, but at some point it seems they added-back support for Floppy Drives- I'm quite certain it had at least RTM since I had installed Windows 10 from the release MSDN ISO.  I'm a bit tempted to see what Windows 10 thinks of my 5-1/4" floppy.