Had an old ATI X1550 video card start to fail on me today in a Windows 10 Pro desktop box here at the shop.  I know it is old but it still worked fine.  Didn't really want to stick a new card in this system so looked around at our spare video cards.  Still had an old Nvidia 6200LE card.   I like a challenge, so we'll give that a go.   I know Microsoft will complain about it and say it is not compatible and probably even Nvidia's own site will say the same.

Here we go, removed the ATI card, do not see any physical damage but it has had a few caps replaced in the past, so maybe they are bad again or perhaps another issue... that is for later post.   Installed the Nvidia card.  Powered on and Microsoft did the normal default video driver and poor resolution.  Went over to the Nvidia driver download site and put in my video card information and sure enough there is a Windows 8 x64 driver.  Slightly surprised, I was guessing it would be Vista driver.  Downloaded and Installed the Nvidia driver. Working perfectly.  Windows is also working perfectly with all the normal video related pretty whistles and bells turned on.  I am a happy camper.

This Nvidia card has....wait for it.... wait for it.... 64mb of video memory.  I remember having discussions with my techs here at the shop where they would all say they needed mega memory for their video cards and they could see the performance difference using desktop apps.  I always said they were mistaken but nobody would ever listen.  This once again proves that I was right....  just sayin'.    Of course if you need 1000 fps rate on your first person shooter then old video cards are not for you.  Desktop applications do not need that.

Windows 10 Update1511,10586

Microsoft gave all of us an annoying update awhile back called Upgrade to Windows 10 (Pro/Home) 1511, 15086.  Like most Microsoft updates, it brings in fixes, security updates, etc. but one major annoying side effect is removal of software Microsoft does not want you to have installed.   One such application is CPU-Z.  Completely harmless application that shows you specs of various hardware items.  Current CPU, amount and speed of memory, mainboard BIOS version, all tech stuff that must users do not understand nor need to.  I enjoy running this program, due to upgrading processors and memory constantly.  It provides you with quick one stop shop of all the data I need to know if that current system can handle a faster processor and which processor along with if more memory can be added and what kind.   Sure you can figure out this info from other built-in sources and some internet searches, but I don't want to.  Every single time this Microsoft update has been installed it has removed CPU-Z because it doesn't work on this version of Windows.   Hmmmmm... it works very well thank you.  So far that is the only program we usually install that has been removed.  (If have read reports of CCleaner, Cisco VPN client and certain SATA drivers being removed as well).  I understand why Microsoft is doing this, everybody wants a stable system but the programs they are removing do not make the system un-stable.  At install time the end-user should have control over what gets removed.  Okay, I know some end-users wouldn't have a clue but some do :)