Win7 ---> Win10 question

[Muse]

I have a couple of laptops running Win7 (one 32bit Home Premium, one 64bit Ultimate) and am preparing to go to Win10 in the next few days.

I have created a couple of USB Win10 install drives (flash memory), one 32bit, the other 64bit, because I want one 32bit machine and one 64bit.

Each of these machines has 2 partitions, C: and a D data partition.

I have the keys at ready.

Should I reformat the C: partition before installing Win10 on these machines? Or should I install right over the Win7 C: partitions?

 

[Dahak]

If you format, then it will erase all the files off that partition

If you keep the data, it will make a windows.old folder and copy the program files,windows folders in to it, and leave any other original file structure intact.

As for which is better, personally I would say format the partition

Just an FYI for you and other in case they did not know

Also you could have made 1 usb stick that has both 32-bit and 64-bit, with the media creation tool, you select universal and it will put both on there

 

[Ketchup]

I guess I don't see why you wouldn't, as you just reinstalled Windows 7, right?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2479392&highlight=

If you did want to keep data/apps, just run the upgrade from within Windows 7.

 

[Harvey]

To date, I have attempted to upgrade six Win 7 machines to Win 10, four laptops and two desktops, with two successes and two failures, both via the online upgrade and using the previously downloaded bootable DVD or USB installation drive. Before starting, I downloaded all the latest drivers for all machines.

On two HP laptops, one 64 and one 32 bit, the upgrade was smooth and flawless.

On two others, it went through the entire upgrade process, on rebooting, each machine gave the same unidentifiable error message and restored the system to Win 7.

The same errors happened on both desktop machines, one Intel and one AMD based, both with an online upgrade and when using my bootable DVD.

With nothing to lose, I next tried a clean installation, using my Win 7 key, on a formatted drive on one of the desktops, and the results told me a lot. I had no problems with the base installation. The installation completed and booted to the Win 10 desktop, but I got an error message that my nVidia video driver was not compatible with Win 10. I downloaded the latest Win 10n compatible driver (on another machine), and that solved the problem.

Then, I had problems connecting to the web. Finding and installing the latest Realtek Win 10 network driver for my chipset resolved that issue, as well.

On the second desktop, I just cut to the chase and went for the clean installation which required exactly the same updates for both video and network drivers.

When I had earlier tried to upgrade the first laptop, (before I did the clean installations, I tried to beat the system and install the Win 10 drivers while still running Win 7, and I ran into a "gotcha' moment. The network driver installed well, but the new video driver was not compatible with Win 7, and I had to reboot to safe mode to uninstall the driver and re-install the previous version just to attempt.

I don't know about AMD video drivers, but one problem I've encounterd with trying to do this with laptops is that some nVidia video drivers are tweeked for specific laptop graphic systems, and they will not allow updating from from any source other than the laptop manufacturer. If this happens, and you can't find Win 10 drivers, stay with Win 7.

My conclusion is that a clean installation is the best way to go, but do it on another drive so that if everything falls apart, you can just stick your old drive back in the machine and get back to work or play... whichever comes first. If you need more partitions on the drive, do that first, and install Win 10 on your preferred partition.

Hope that helps.

 

[Muse]

If you format, then it will erase all the files off that partition

If you keep the data, it will make a windows.old folder and copy the program files,windows folders in to it, and leave any other original file structure intact.

As for which is better, personally I would say format the partition

Just an FYI for you and other in case they did not know

Also you could have made 1 usb stick that has both 32-bit and 64-bit, with the media creation tool, you select universal and it will put both on there

I noticed that when I made the 64bit install. I didn't do both because I'd already created a 32bit Win10 USB stick a week ago, using Rufus and the ISO I'd just downloaded. I figured that having both on one stick would be more convenient but that it wouldn't matter having two sticks... after all, in not much time these installs figure to be obsolete, I'm figuring. I have a Win10 32bit install DVD I made I'm guessing last September or so, and figure that's obsolete now.

 

[Muse]

I guess I don't see why you wouldn't, as you just reinstalled Windows 7, right?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2479392&highlight=

If you did want to keep data/apps, just run the upgrade from within Windows 7.

The Win7 64bit machine has a new Win7 install, the Win7 32bit machine has a far from new installation of Win7 32bit. It seems OK ... EXCEPT it does get iastor() timeouts almost daily, but I hope those will go away with Win10. One guy at Thinkpad Forums said he has the same hardware as mine running the same OS and his timeouts went away when he upgraded to Win10. However, I figure it could be a problem with my Intel 330 180GB SSD. He had the same SSD, basically same machine and OS.

Honestly, I figured to clean install, and to me that has nothing to do with a Windows.old folder, I've never seen one of those, don't know why I'd want that. I'm prepared to reinstall everything. It's a lot of stuff, I have lists of what I need/want to install, and of course, things I forget, when I need them, I'll install them then!

I may wait until Tuesday to start installing Win10 on the two machines. Busy tomorrow and Monday.

 

[Muse]

Thanks for the tips, Harvey. I hadn't thought to download Win10 drivers for the machines. I'll look into that before doing the upgrades. And yeah, I don't figure to upgrade but rather format the C: partitions and install into those. To do that I guess I'll have to remove the HDs to an enclosure and do it with another machine. Unless I can format the C: partitions using the USB Win7 sticks. Can I do that?

Both machines have Win7 backups I can restore to the machines' HDs. I might have to remove the HDs to an enclosure to accomplish that, but I think that'd work, should I need to back out of the Win10 installs for any reason.