Windows 10 Netflix, YouTube Streaming - Choppy Playback

[wevsspot]

So I've been off work for a couple of days due to a stress fracture in my foot.  Since I had some spare time I decided to "upgrade" my laptop and HTPC from Windows 7 / Windows 8.1 respectively to Windows 10.

 

A couple of things I learned;

 

1.  If you want the "free" upgrade you need to do an in place upgrade first (i.e. install over an existing installation of Windows 7 or higher).  You can still choose not to keep anything and get a fairly fresh installation, but if you choose any option other than "Upgrade this PC" and try to do a full fresh install you won't ever get activated (at least I couldn't).

 

2.  After doing an in-place upgrade, you can do a complete fresh install from a USB drive or other installation media and Windows 10 will activate correctly.  If you decide to go this route, you'll still be prompted to enter your license code at two different prompts, however you can choose "skip" and "do this later" respectively and once the OS is installed and you have internet connectivity W10 should activate almost immediately.  WARNING:  Make sure that the upgrade installation has activated prior to attempting a fresh install.  Apparently the activation process ties a "digital" footprint of your hardware configuration to your W10 activation key.  Once that sync takes place you should be good to go on a fresh install or any re-installs after that.

 

3.  Entering your valid Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 license key won't get you anywhere.

 

4.  Calling the MS Activation hotline and claiming ignorance in the update path won't get you anywhere.

 

5.  W10 has an impressive driver store.  My laptop is about 9 years old now, has an old AMD dual core processor, MSI mainboard and nVidia 9600M GT discrete graphics card.  After installation I was only missing the co-processor driver and card reader drivers.  Surprisingly enough W7 drivers worked find for those two items (go figure).

 

6.  Netflix and YouTube streaming is terrible using Edge, IE11 and even the W10 Netflix app that I got from the Microsoft store.  Buggy, lagging, video freezes while sound continues to play etc.  I tried lots of different ideas over the last three days to resolve this.  I messed with adapter settings, tried various gpu and network adapter drivers from W7, W8 and everything I could find for W10 but nothing worked.  I finally gave up and installed Google Chrome (which is my normal default browser anyway) and online streaming finally started working close to as well as it does on W7 or W8.1

 

I really wanted to give the default W10 browsers and apps a chance to shine, but apparently they aren't quite ready for prime time yet.  

 

7. I'm having similar problems with web browsing.  Edge and IE11 don't scroll smoothly and some web pages take a long time to render.  And, while you're waiting for a page to render you can't do much of anything else until that process is completed.

 

8.  After ditching Edge and switching to Google Chrome as the default browser things are going a little better.  I opted for Panda Free Cloud AV over Defender and will continue to use Google Chrome until MS rolls out some updates that address the issues with the stock box Windows browsers.

 

While I'm still discovering new things and familiarizing myself with navigation within the new OS, it isn't as daunting as it seemed when I went from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

 

Left clicking the start button brings up a hybrid start menu including tiles, but you still have access to your apps alphabetically on the left hand side of the Start screen.  Right clicking the start button brings up a fairly familiar list of apps and utilities that many power users find useful.

 

There are a lot of other more in-depth and better reviews of the new OS available, but I wanted to get a "first impressions" list out there for my fellow community members and as a reference point for myself in the future.

 

I can't comment on gaming performance as that isn't a priority on my laptop or HTPC.  With that being said, I'm going to wait a while before doing anything with my primary PC or Server.

 

I've read multiple instances of people having issues with OEM license keys of W7, W8 or 8.1 and the upgrade process.  I'm not sure what the solution is there, all of my W7 and W8 keys were retail software keys.  

[bp9801]

I think the Netflix app itself is having problems in Windows 10. Viewing it in Chrome is fine, like you found out, but the app itself still needs some tweaking. There are multiple issues like that with various apps, plus the number of apps that are Windows 10 in the Store isn't quite there yet. Again, it's a new OS so it'll take some time to get things switched over, made, modified, improved, whatever.

 

Likewise for Edge. It's still extremely barebones right now, with no extension support or other things that bring it in line with other browsers. Given its similarity to Chrome, all of that can be imported easily once the fall update for Windows 10 arrives. A lot of other problems should be fixed in that update, too, with other stuff coming in later updates.

[Braegnok]

Latest updates KB3081441 and KB3081444 resolved all issues with streaming Netflix's on my rig, haven't tried YouTube yet,.. 

 

I do not like the new camera app for importing images from camera, preferred Microsoft scanner and camera wizard on W7,.. and the new W10 movie player app does not go to full screen regardless of settings, I have 2" black space at top and bottom of screen when playing mpeg4 files,.. with W7  the picture is edge to edge all the way around in full screen playing same files.

 

But Windows 10 & DX12 on gaming rig should be sweet with stacked memory running SLI.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Braegnok

[wevsspot]

Good to know that the latest updates seem to have resolved the problems.  When I left for the office this morning both rigs were busy downloading and installing those updates.  I'll check when I get home.  Last night Automatic Updates was miss-behaving and I had one KB stuck at downloading for hours.  Ended up having to clear out the downloads folder and resetting the Windows Update history, but after that things appeared to start working normally again.

 

Guess I'll know for sure when I get back home tonight  

[wevsspot]

I have discovered one thing.  On both my laptop and HTPC shutdown times were painfully slow.  It seems counter-intuitive but I disabled the Fast Start option in the Power Options menu and that has drastically reduced shutdown times.

 

My guess is that with the Fast Start option enabled much of the shutdown delay is caused by writing services and apps information into temporary memory in order to facilitate a "faster boot" next time around.

 

Even with the Fast Start option disabled, boot times haven't changed that much if at all.  I didn't put a stop watch to it, but just from first hand experience sitting at the machine I couldn't feel much difference.  So if you aren't happy with the W10 shutdown times you might try disabling the Fast Start option.  Worked for me.

[Braegnok]

I have a work station with CrossFire and was having issues after upgrading to W10,.. just installed Catalyst 15.7.1 and display driver 15.20.1062.1002 this morning,.. every thing is working great now.

 

Going to try the disable fast boot,.. seems shut-down is damn slow on all my rigs running W10,.. 

[wevsspot]

Yep, give that a try.  It made a world of difference on both machines I installed W10 over the the weekend.  And they are both pretty old rigs, not power houses by any means.