About the Windows 7 support expiration.

Dartnut said
Thanks for posting this info.
I decided to get a new tower with Windows 10 professional factory installed, it should be here by early next week.
Any other tips on making this transition as easy as it can be?
I am running Windows 7 at the moment, and it was an easy transition from Vista, kinda like a cross between Vista and HP.
What programs specifically will I not be able to use?
Thanks for your time.........

Not knowing your individual or family usage of the computer I can't really give you much in the way of pointers, except to store your important stuff on disconnectable devices like thumb drives or an external drive that is only plugged in when needed.

If you live in a neighborhood you might want to look into wireless network sharing, as Win10 by default shares your wireless network password with anyone in your Microsoft address book (contacts in Win10)
A google search will show you how.
One of the reasons we recommend off system backups for everything important is so a forced change won't change much in this case.
For example: My Wife only uses a computer for games and Google for the most part, so the recent swap to another computer for her was just to copy over her shortcuts and favorites. (her hard drive was corrupting Windows causing boot issues)
Actually she is a great candidate for Linux.:D

Also one thing you might like is a program called Classic Shell from Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements
The download button redirects you to a site called Fosshub and that's ok.

It makes Win10 start button menus and folder options look like they do in Win7 instead of having the new stupid "charms" desktop.
A lot of people like it because it makes Win10 not look so different than 7,8, or 8.1
Most of the mainstream programs run in Win10, like Quickbooks, Quicken and such.
Downloaded and installed programs are more suspect, but the list of programs that won't run in 10 is so long there is no way to know until the install is attempted.
10 will refuse to install most that won't run.