But 14.1 is bigger than 10 - it must be better! So we're good.

I will admit that I do not have any experience with UEFI. I have one system that I own that has UEFI capabilities. Secure boot is disabled and I am booting in legacy mode with LILO.

I read the Wikipedia article on UEFI and I don't think the Microsoft goal is to damage themselves. I think that Microsoft, along with Red Hat (as well as other OS's and some vendors), are just trying to accumulate more systems that will only ever run these operating systems. By doing this they are gaining more market share and therefore become closer to a monopoly (more so Microsoft than Red Hat of course).

Do I agree with this approach of selling operating systems? No. Operating systems should be free and the OS should allow the user all the power in how their hardware is used. After all, the user purchased said system. Owning something should mean that you have full control over what happens to it. For this very reason I will never install Windows 10 and have stopped using all Microsoft products all together in the recent past.

I think though that the way these companies have gone about making UEFI forcibly available before making sure that UEFI is actually fool proof, is horribly unethical. All you have to do is look at the Black Hat Conference (2013) demos outlining exploits in Windows 8 secure boot to see the dangers in UEFI. Was it a security vulnerability in the UEFI specification? No. There was however a gap in the specification. Somehow, something was not fully dictated to vendors about what the specification requirements required to be securely implemented.

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I'm sorry about your loss, but aside you being forced to have an 'ms account' to access some functions of 'your' own system, now they bring Cortana:
This mole will never land on my drive...

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And why exactly should operating systems be free?

Whether they are inferior products as microsoft is tending to produce these days, or Linux in whatever flavour is your preference, they shouldn't necessarily be free.

The fact that the people that produce them choose to be so magnanimous speaks volumes for them for which I am sure many people on here are grateful.

I wonder how on many here then would still use Linux were it a product that could only be had with monetary exchange.

Surely the real issue then is not the price of the OS, free or otherwise, but the way M$ has used its dominant position to effectively blackmail manufacturers to bundle it with hardware.

Until that situation is addressed and stopped, then we are where we are.

As for Win10, I expect it will be forced on me at work, but it'll never see the light of day at home.

He means free as in you should be free to choose what you want to run, not free as in $0.00.

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Yeah, sorry for the confusion. I did not word it correctly.

In this discussion, hinted at by Dugan, there still seems to be two issues running that complicate matters but has to be distinguished in order to find solutions.

a) having an (u)efi-system vs bios (or legacy-bios): this means specific drive formatting (GPT vs MBR) and bootloading (elilo vs lilo): GPT/elilo for efi-systems (on Slackware) and MBR/lilo for legacy-bios; only the GPT/elilo/efi set-up gives a possibility of secure-boot control; thus when one opts for legacy-bios and MBR-drive formatting one cannot control secure boot (i.e it won't be visible/accessible in the 'bios'). So, if Win10 is allowed to format partitions during install, it can be that the legacy-setup is disrupted (by change of MBR to GPT). This possibly happened in the case of the OP.

b) controlling secure boot from within an efi-install. This is where the issue lies when the option to turn this off (which seems mandatory acc. to specifications) is well-hidden by manufacturers.

Please read a bit up on this before continuing this debate. A good starting point is: www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/index.html

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Wow, great source of information. Thanks for the links!

For what it's worth, I've done my Windows 7 => 10 upgrade on a laptop that also contains Slackware and has not experienced any BIOS/boot modifications. My BIOS has been running in a legacy mode and can without problems boot into Slack.

Why is that sad? Why should I care?
If Microsoft finally does get hurt by their own wrongdoings (and to me, that still sounds like a big “if”), then I can only consider that long overdue. Other than that, their destiny is of no concern to me whatsoever.

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Microsoft has the potential to do right by their users and allow open systems and interoperability betwixt and between systems. Don't get me wrong, Windows 7 was a damn good system. It was Windows done right. Microsoft listened to their users. Since Windows 8, it's been a complete 180 degrees away from Windows 7.

Microsoft has roots in UNIX(*) and they could revive those roots. They had a UNIX compatibility layer for NT systems, they built Xenix years ago to be their flavor of Branded UNIX. GNUWin32, Cygwin, and MinGW have been great add ons.

I don't see Microsoft as bad inherently, but I do see them as misguided and misunderstanding of UNIX(*) and GNU/Linux. Xenix could have been a great asset to Microsoft, and it could be a great asset to the future of Windows and Microsoft. You can't blame or hate Windows, but you can blame and hate leadership that is misguided.

After doing some research I've decided that I'm going to stay with Windows 7 on my one Windows machine; there will be updates for several years. I have some security concerns about Windows 10.

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Microsoft does share code with older variants of their OS. It might not look the same, it might not have the same advertised features, but underneath, stuff like their security platform may all be the same fundamentally.

That's weird. I have a UEFI BIOS and installed windows 10, because I can, and nothing has changed in my BIOS. UEFI Secure Boot is still "Off" disabled and my boot options are still "Legacy First". Maybe your BIOS has similar options. Secure Boot on my BIOS requires both UEFI and CSM to be enabled.

Curiosity got the better of me. I clicked on the upgrade icon and installed Windows 10. After the reboot the installation worked partially(the settings menu was inaccessible).
Thank Bob that I have recovery DVDs for Windows 7. I'm just finishing up a Windows 7 re-load this AM and installing updates.