John
Tip; Some of you may know this. Windows 10 has the ability to have multiple desktops.

I knew it existed, but didn't know how it worked. Now I do. Thanks!

My Windows 10 upgrade was smooth as well.   I have one plugin that is really slow loading in Sonar but that is the only issue I've had.  Windows startup time is about 3 seconds to login screen and a couple seconds to the desktop.  Everything has been snappy fast compared to Windows 7.  
 
I support about 60 Macs at work and the issues with El Capitan have been pretty bad.  It broke Microsoft Outlook and most of the printer driver installs.  Most users lost their network printers after the upgrade.  Adobe Creative Cloud apps have had issues but that was even with the prior upgrade to Yosemite.  The latest 2015 apps are very buggy with memory leaks. 
 
Jim

As far as indexing the newer builds of 10 don't do that as much. In 8 and 8.1 it got on my nerves. In the latest preview build its much less a problem. One thing that should be said because the insider service is still ongoing a lot of feedback is getting back to MS and helping in a big way in making Windows 10 better.
 
Some insiders are DAWs users. They have been active and helpful.   

After many months of Win10 now, my laptop runs smooth and, it seems, faster. But. I still have no control over updates that Microsoft considers critical. They will upload to my laptop no matter what settings I have in place, even though I do have control over when they are installed. The only option is to nuke the network stack if I don't want any interruptions. (Thanks to this forum for providing the method to do this, I used to just pull the plug).
Specific to a 32bit system, my memory usage using Win7 was around 32% after a clean boot, with Win10 I can't seem to get it below 36%. It may not seem like much, but that extra 4% will allow me to use extra FX, and more time in things like Melodyne, Vocal Sync and Drum Replacer. It's taken me a long time to get it to 36%, after the initial install of Win10, memory usage was around 40% and some projects that were particularly memory intense in Win7 refused to run.
I like Win10, just not some parts of it.

Craig,

I have gone for days staying in the green with latency Mon on my laptop.

I have the battery disabled as well as the video driver and everything is great. All green all the time.

The computer is off for a few weeks before going to make a recording. While recording, I'm obviously not doing much beyond tweaking settings in RME TotalMix. The computer decides it is idle and starts doing who knows what. Heavy disk access prevents the smooth writing of the data. RME DigiCheck reports the disk access percentage during the recording.

This is a thread where I brought it up.

http://forum.cakewalk.com/m/tm.aspx?m=3285072

At this show, I only captured about thirty five minutes of music from a two and a half hour show.

Since then, I periodically open the laptop and monitor the disk access. It often starts quiet. After an hour or so it will peg the disk for a while then settle down. A while can be thirty minutes or more.

I haven't had an issue during a recording with a computer I use every day yet. But, if it is a risk, it is a risk. When I go out and run sound for a band in a bar through my RME, it sux to say sorry afterwards. And always the first thing said to me after I have to apologize is, why are you using Windows or you are the only one using Windows.

Last Tuesday, I didn't take my laptop to go out and record. I took the studio cat with monitor and all because I didn't trust Windows on the laptop. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but so far I haven't heard any issues. Really, this is because I boot the studio cat every day. I don't do this with the laptop. I only use it for recording out. It has been used to record probably more than 100 many track shows over the 9 years I've had it. But I probably have to apologize for a damaged recording or partial recording more than ten percent of the time.

Also, since I'm not pro, it doesn't cost me to apologize.

I've been mixing Tuesday's show using your rock template. It is really fun!

John, it is nice that Windows gets more efficient, but only nice.

When I need it to work and stay out of my way there should be a switch, like presentation mode that shutdown wasteful processing that could ruin your work. They do it for people with power point slide decks. Why not us?

I'm totally convinced it isn't a hardware issue. Same computer using Linux works great, but when monitoring through ardour I have the sample buffer latency I don't have monitoring through TotalMix. Also when using TotalMix and DigiCheck, I can raise the buffer for recording to the max without any monitoring delay in the live mix.

Gswitz
This may help with presentation mode http://www.tenforums.com/...eate-windows-10-a.html

John,

Presentation mode doesn't have to do with display changes.

http://windows.microsoft....-giving-a-presentation

It's about the computer not messing up your presentation by sleeping or misunderstanding how you are using it and installing updates our something.

It is only available on battery driven devices.

Presentation mode may not be the right thing for me to ask for. Live recording mode? That's what would make me feel safer.

Yes  I guessed that. I not sure how it would be useful for a desktop? All the things that could interfere with a DAW on a desktop can be turned off. 

I've certainly tried.

I've disabled Windows update service.

Like I said, it stays green in latency Mon for days, literally. But it cannot be trusted.

I want to add that I'd still use the laptop but I would boot it and let it run an hour before going out with it.

I have it with me here at the in-laws and I'm using it to mix and practice.

When there is no pressure it always performs.

Because I would never use a recording laptop except to occasionally make mobile field recordings, I presume that a new laptop would be just as unreliable if not more than my current one.