Win 10 Upgrade Questions

[lupi]

I have multiple devices eligible for Win 10 upgrades. The main 3 I care about are all desktops, 2 win 8 and the other 7. The two win8 machines are heavy WMC users and won't be transitioned any time soon due to that. All 3 have retail keys bought from MS (with edu discount).

For the Win7 machine: due to windows update being screwy lately, i'll probably just do a fresh Win 10 install. Assuming no problems if I wanted to wipe and go back to 7.

For the 8 machines have a couple issues; first since I won't be actually installing what do I need to do to get an install "key" that will work after free period expires. Second, I am planning on changing hardware in both "soon". How will this impact the win 10 "keys"?

 

[Puffnstuff]

There is no install key for an upgrade. You just upgrade in place before the expiration of the offer which is sometime near the end of July of this year. Otherwise you can use your win 7 and 8 keys to clean install 10 before the expiration date. Once you've upgraded the hardware signature is registered with MS and you don't need a key for future clean installs as you just skip the enter key part when it's presented which is quite convenient.

How soon do you plan to change hardware? If before the expiration date change it out first then come back with a clean install of 10 using the keys for your current eligible OS's.

 

[lupi]

As my win8 machines won't be operating on win10 for months if not longer due to WMC, how do those the the win10 credentials?

 

[bruceb]

There are a few ways but this is the simplest and safest (sure to work)
Get a copy of Acronis TruImage and make an exact Clone of the current
hard drive to another hard drive. Test the clone (remove existing drive and install
cloned one) If all is ok, you can then do the Upgrade to Win10 on that drive while
retaining the Win7 or Win8 installation on the original drive. If you want to go back
just swap the drives again (or if you have room for 2 drives, you can use a Boot Manager to select which OS you want to run)

 

[BonzaiDuck]

There are a few ways but this is the simplest and safest (sure to work)
Get a copy of Acronis TruImage and make an exact Clone of the current
hard drive to another hard drive. Test the clone (remove existing drive and install
cloned one) If all is ok, you can then do the Upgrade to Win10 on that drive while
retaining the Win7 or Win8 installation on the original drive. If you want to go back
just swap the drives again (or if you have room for 2 drives, you can use a Boot Manager to select which OS you want to run)

Here's what I finally did with my laptop. It has a 500GB Crucial SSD.

So I used Acronis to create the self-booting DVD CD/DVD optical version -- either Disk Director 11 Update 2 or True-Image 2014 or later (that I know of -- older may work) -- and use it to shrink the windows boot/system main volume and partition.

Run your Windows 7 with the smaller space and hopefully with enough unallocated that it can accommodate 3x or more of initial OS disk consumption -- maybe a total of 100GB. More if it's a 500GB, but do what you can.

In Windows search for the direct download of Win 10 USB or ISO Media Creator. That's what you download and save.

Make sure you either get the button/link to the 32/64 package, or the 64-bit package if you have a machine and processor with two cores or more. (You should). Unless -- you're one of those people who still frets about software compatibility.

Run the Media Creator; have a USB or blank DVD-R ready, depending on your preference.

Now reboot, change the BIOS so that the USB or DVD is at top of the boot order, and if it goes directly to the existing Win 7 bootup, reboot again and use the F10 for the boot-menu. Select the USB or DVD as you preferred.

Win 10 will boot, give you the option to install it on the unallocated disk space, and create automatically a configuration that allows you to select initially either Win 7 or Win 10. If it asks you for a Product Key, use the product key that came with the Windows 7. Activate the license as you please once Win 10 is successfully installed, connected to the internet, etc. Perhaps also after you've installed a driver or two where it might be indicated on the Device Manager tree. More likely it won't even require that.

You can now use either Win 7 or Win 10 at your leisure or choice as you cold-boot or restart the system.

 

[bruceb]

That should work fine. As to software issues with Win 10 most programs will work even if you have to install them in compatability mode for Win 7 or XP ... I even found Win 10 Drivers from HP for the HP7410 All In One

 

[BonzaiDuck]

That should work fine. As to software issues with Win 10 most programs will work even if you have to install them in compatability mode for Win 7 or XP ... I even found Win 10 Drivers from HP for the HP7410 All In One

YEah -- you would figure that over the years, they would produce OS releases that are more reliable or able to cover more hardware. But as the OS becomes more complex, there's a "substitution" effect between glitches and features.

I just think over the last 20 years how much extra time and energy I had to put into "complete makeovers" that didn't leave me with a familiar system for just doing day-to-day work.

This dual boot ability and the way they did the licensing takes care of all that.