With your recording device connected open Audacity. Press Pause then press record. The recording box should appear. Click on the down arrow next to Audio Track. The selected display type will be grayed out.
Waveform, Waveform db, Spectrogram, Spectrogram log (f), Pitch (EAC).
You want Waveform or Waveform db selected.

I currently have 2.0.0 installed and have 2.1.1 and 1.2.6 available.

You may need to run through the Preferences in Audacity also.

Nope that wasn't it...
So went and compared all the preference settings and the down arrow box... in the old xp laptop, and except in Preferences / Devices / Recording / the xp computer had SoundMax HD Audio: Microphone.. which Win 10 did not have available..
So instead changed the recording Device to the same setting in xp, that Win 10 is using. And tested that in XP, ... made no difference with the better waveform that I have been getting in XP.

So went to Device manager and could updated two of my three audio drivers, but that also did not make any change.

Hmmm so no big deal, I'll just use the old lap top, with XP, to test my lenses. But its a curious 'problem'

It most likely has to do with your audio card/software, not Audacity or the operating systems.
I noticed when testing long speeds they are more arced than faster speeds.

Yes agree with you.. its not important enough to get a different card.. so will just do the do when needed in the old xp laptop, until that dies.
Will have to wait to see which one goes first...