W10 upgrade question

[Muse]

My Thinkpad T61 is running W7 Ultimate 64bit. For over a year it has failed to successfully install Windows Updates. Every time I run them, after seeming to have installed correctly, at the last minute Windows Reports during the boot process that updates failed to install and it was reverting, which takes another ~2 hours. I spent 1/2 a day a few days ago trying to run Windows Update (there were 118 important updates initially), and after the failure it said there were 87 important updates. I know that if I run Windows Update again, it will fail to complete them all successfully. Two updates have consistently failed: KB6828725 and KB2868626, security updates.

Presumably, I can do a free upgrade on this machine to Windows 10. Might this succeed and effectively do an end run around the Windows Update failures with the Windows 7 Ultimate installation? Of course, I could do a clean install of Windows 7 before doing anything else, but I'd have to reinstall a ton of apps, configure things. Thanks for sage wisdom!

 

[Dahak]

While from Win10 it could/should end the WU errors, but if its an applications for some reason that you have installed it could cause errors with Win10

Now there is also the fact on how you do the upgrade, as doing so through WU might fail too. But you could use the media creation tool and do the upgrade from there.

 

[corkyg]

Dahak's tip about using the Media Creation Tool might work It did for me on my T510. MS's Win10 upgrade process refused - saying it was incompatible. That happened when I tried using the DVD burned by the MCT, but only after checking for updates. So, I used the DVD with Internet disconnected and said NO to checking for updates. Win 10 then installed perfectly and upgraded all apps from 7.

I also have a T60 with Win7 Ultimate installed and working. Auto updates work AOK, but, it is X86 not 64 bit.

 

[Underclocked]

Muse, might be impossible to predict whether your upgrade install would succeed.

I will just say that you can do an "almost" clean install of Windows 10 without installing Windows 7 first. You would just need to extract a file from the Windows 10 iso (or extract the iso using 7zip or other), then run the file and save its small output file. That process takes 5 minutes as opposed to having to reinstall Win7.

Copy gatherosstate.exe from a Windows 10 10240 ISO (might be two versions there... 32bit and 64bit, copy the one you need)

Run gatherosstate.exe on your Windows 7/8 PC

It'll output GenuineTicket.xml

Fresh install Windows 10 with the internet connection disabled. Once it's installed copy GenuineTicket.xml to C: \programdata\microsoft\windows\clipsvc\genuineticket\

Reboot and connect online

It'll activate the same as an upgrade.

Credit for that operation belongs elsewhere, not to me. I can tell you it works perfectly.

ps: ignore a couple of odd spaces in the above - one is to prevent a smiley face being generated and the other is there because the forum puts it there for some strange reason.

 

[Muse]

While from Win10 it could/should end the WU errors, but if its an applications for some reason that you have installed it could cause errors with Win10

Now there is also the fact on how you do the upgrade, as doing so through WU might fail too. But you could use the media creation tool and do the upgrade from there.

Yeah, I read some of the beginning of the stickied thread and noted JackMDS's counsel to not upgrade via streaming but to create an ISO. I did that and burned a DVD. I believe I can both do a fresh install and do an upgrade using the DVD. They say if I'm not happy with my upgrade I can use a utility to determine my Win10 key and use that and the DVD to then do a clean install.

I figure to upgrade the T61 machine, and also another Thinkpad, a T60 with which I was having WU problems that I finally worked out last week, and OMG moment. That machine's running Win7 Home Edition 32bit.

Thanks, Underclocked, for that detailed info. It's going to be an interesting week.