Windows 10 messed things up for me. What about you?

A clean install solved all my problems.

Second that.

An upgrade is great because you don't have to reinstall all the programs and configure settings, but a clean install is always the best way to go for a new OS.

I'm going to need to do a clean install as well. A lot of things aren't working, namely older Word documents refusing to open on MS Word and OpenOffice.

This Windows 10 seems to be more messed up than I thought. I did a clean install on my brother's high end Dell Laptop (core i7, 8 GB RAM, AMD graphics). Downloaded Windows 10 drivers from Dell. First problem, they refused to extract or install. Had to move them to my desktop PC to extract them, and then run setup from the Dell laptop. Even after this, the AMD graphics driver (which was downloaded form the Dell site for this specific model) installed fine, but after restart, gave an error that AMD hardware is not found. Tried to revert to the default Intel HD graphics, but it showed up with that dreaded yellow exclamation mark under 'Device Manager'.

I'm well versed with computers, and I even work in IT. But looks like I need a pHD in Computer Science to solve the issues with Windows 10. Way too many problems, and abysmal driver support. Don't know if this blame goes to Microsoft or the device manufacturers. Of course, there are people who are having a great experience with this new OS, but for me it has been an utter failure on more than one device. Hard to call it a co-incidence.

I just have to give Windows 10 a rest for now, and perhaps get back to it after an year or so, when (hopeful) the driver support would have improved. And yeah, most, if not all, Windows 8.1 drivers did NOT work on Windows 10. I have never had this much of trouble with ANY previous Windows OS a month after launch. Not even the universally panned Windows ME and Windows Vista.

Looks like you've had a bad luck run with drivers.

I've upgraded 5 PCs already and none of them has caused me issues except my one which needed a fresh install (reset).

Yeah, I guess so. From what I have seen, people are either immensely satisfied with Windows 10, or are simply unable to get it to function well. No middle path. But I'm really surprised that WIndows9.1 drivers never work for Windows 10. Since Microsoft made the NT family of Windows mainstream, previous drivers have usually worked. Even before that, Windows 9x drivers used to work with Windows ME.

Had some issues with sound, but it was just a driver issue that I have since fixed. Windows 10 is simply amazing.

Driver are drivers.

Some will work with current and future versions of Windows, some won't.

For example my Win8.1 drivers for my printer worked fine on Win10, but my sound card ones didn't and I had to find third party ones.

Suppose a hardware manufacturer refuses to provide Windows 10 complaint drivers, and those meant for Windows 8.1 don't work Windows 10, am I left with only 2 options - Either buy new hardware, or not upgrading to Windows 10? 3rd part drivers, in my experience are pretty difficult to find, and are usually a gamble. Especially for on-board peripherals and laptops.

Well there's a few different situations here:

1) the manufacturer should have had Win10 drivers ready to go before launch. Win10 has been out nearly a year with alphas and beta so that's just lazy on their part.

2) contact the manufacturer and ask if they are bringing out Win10 drivers or if they know how to fix it

3) search for 3rd party drivers, or even try drivers for different models (sometimes you get lucky)

4) when all else fails, only thing left to do is downgrade sadly and wait till they release drivers, or buy new hardware in the future

I normally wait at least 6 months before upgrading to a new OS because of these issues. This time I did it in the first month because my OS needed a reinstall anyway.

@FelipeInside:

I have a pretty cheap Gigabyte motherboard (GA-78LMT-USB3). The worst part is, my board is rev 5.0, which is the only one having VIA onboard audio. All other revisions have Realtek audio, and people have been able to find drivers for it. But for VIA audio, I tried 7 different drivers and none worked. The Gigabyte customer support people are such imbeciles. They are totally clueless if they'll release Windows 10 drivers for this board. They give generic responses, like "Just try Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 drivers, they should work". In fact, Gigabyte does not even list Windows 10 under 'Supported Operating Systems".

So the only way I would be able to upgrade to Windows 10 in the future, is using an add-on PCI sound card. Should probably stay away from Gigabyte boards. Even the expensive ones don't seem to have Windows 10 drivers listed.

Like you said, just get a PCI Sound Card. You can get one as cheap as $30 these days.

It's been a while since I upgraded all three main computers. So far, the only issue was my GTX 770 which needed an updated driver. No other issues. Windows Update automatically did the rest. No printing, scanning, webcam, network/WiFi, or sound issues.

Close Combat 2, Combat Flight Simulator 2 and 3 won't work now on 64-bit Win 10. But, they still work on the 32-bit version. Not really a big deal. CFS3 is 12 years old.