Windows 10 Upgrade--Good or Bad?

After much time spent deciding if I wanted to upgrade my OS to Windows 10 I finally did it.  I waited until I had heard mostly positive things from others who had downloaded the upgrade out of fear that tweaking my OS could mess up my computer.  The good news is that the upgrade was relatively painless and was actually quite a bit easier than I anticipated.  Everything works fine and the change from Windows 8.1 to 10 don't seem that drastic.

The good part of the upgrade is that they have brought back the start menu rather than the weird full screen back and forth from Windows 8.1.  It's also really nice not to have to search through a whole page of apps to find what you are looking for.  I opted not to mess with Cortana--Microsoft's supposedly superior knock-off of Apple's Siri.  The assistant feature looks interesting but in my experience issuing voice commands can be frustrating.

The Start Menu is back!

But what does this upgrade have to do with gaming?  Well, if you haven't read about it yet you should be aware that Windows 10 can scan your system for counterfeit products--so any pirated games could possibly be unusable.  I've never been a big fan of piracy so this little tidbit isn't upsetting to me but could cause some serious problems for others.  I'm not exactly sure how it will work and I have read that it will mostly effect Games released under the Microsoft label.  Unfortunately with this upgrade you could also have a difficult time playing some older games from CD-ROM's.  Supposedly Windows 10 won't recognize older forms of DRM and could mistake it for the aforementioned pirated software. Article

There are also some other possibly upsetting intrusions to your privacy in the fine print of the User Agreement that you must agree to before you upgrade.  My best advice is to upgrade with caution.  I don't see a drastic difference between the previous versions of Windows and this latest and greatest version.  Could it have an impact on your machine or gaming experience?  Possibly, but I haven't experienced any great hiccups.