Well, for those curious....
It was a nightmare.
Why? It would not install! I spent days trying this and that, everything under the sun, and nothing changed the end outcome.
For me, what happened was essentially regardless of the media used (dvd, multiple types and USB flash drives, and a USB HDD) the win10 logo would show up, the little 'balls' would start spinning down below (similar to win8), and then it would just reboot.
My system should be able to run it just fine (no compatibility issues). It's an older Intel system, an Intel i7 930 based on the 1366 pin x58 chipset (ASROCK x58 Extreme3 specifically) I've run countless 64-bit OS's on it, including win8 as a trial (hate 8).
After throwing everything at it, and downloading the source numerous times, I gave in and tried the 32-bit after finding a few, small non-popular posts saying others (with newer 2nd gen i5's mostly) who claimed they couldn't run the 64, but the 32 installed fine, was able to do that. Even after though, the 64 bit would still not install, nor boot.
I've no idea why it wouldn't work, but from searches there aren't many in my boat - And those who had the same or similar issue had nothing in common with my rig.
The OS itself was... Well, they at least gave in got rid of that stupid non-desktop/non-startmenu type system in win8.1 (yes is has a desktop, that part refers to stock win8), but now when you open the start menu it slams your genetically modified start menu WITH a bunch of metro tiles on it. No way to get rid of those. (yet). And since some of them advertise and load crap, one can only wonder how slow it's going to make the PC when you click on start with a full system of programs and games installed, and of course, any extra widget things/tiles. It's at least a step in the right direction, I'd have been happier to read that the think tank responsible for the whole tiles system were shipped off and out of Redmond, but hey.. It is what it is.
I dind't link my account to my install or anything, fwiw, because I spent my majority of time in my 32-bit install searching for fixes/posts/comments on my inability to install the 64-bit version.
The only thing I Can offer is that I tried doing the md-5 verification of FOUR (yes, four download attempts) - All four were the exact same file size, and done from two different locations (3 at my house, one at a friends, thinking possibly ISP provider cache corruption??) - All four had the exact same sha results, all four did NOT match what MS claims it should have been. No word on a bad release from MS though, I suspect they just didn't update the md5 info from between builds or something.. Going to try downloading it again in a week or so and see if any data values change, as it's the version I truly want to test and run.
Anyone else given 10 a whirl?