Another Windows 10 question

[Hawkmoon]

Don't want to hijack zxcvbob's thread.

Awhile back I bought a new Dell desktop. It was right at the bitter end of Windows 7 and I bought it because it was available with Windows 7 installed but it included a license for Windows 10. Now that the drop dead date for Windows 7 support is upon us, it's time to migrate the Dell to Windows 10. Does anyone know how to do that? Is there a button somewhere that I just push, and everything gets changed over?

[lee n. field]

Google search on "windows 10 media creation tool".  Go to the MS link, probably the first hit.   Blue button at the top that says "upgrade this pc".  Click it, will download updater program.  Run it.

If you;re using Microsoft Security Essentials, uninstall it first.  In my experience, uninstall AVG Free first too, if you're using it.

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10

[zxcvbob]

Google search on "windows 10 media creation tool".  Go to the MS link, probably the first hit.   Blue button at the top that says "upgrade this pc".  Click it, will download updater program.  Run it.

If you;re using Microsoft Security Essentials, uninstall it first.  In my experience, uninstall AVG Free first too, if you're using it.

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10

I've done the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool thing on a couple of Win 7 machines lately.  Last one was about 2 weeks ago.  It works well.  Good to know about uninstalling MSE first.

Your Windows 7 license will work for 10, it will activate automatically.

[Brad Johnson]

I'm about to run into this with Dad's daily-driver machine.

To clarify, does going to the Media Creation Tool mean you have to burn a disk, or are you downloading an image and Windows handles the rest?

Brad

[zxcvbob]

I'm about to run into this with Dad's daily-driver machine.

To clarify, does going to the Media Creation Tool mean you have to burn a disk, or are you downloading an image and Windows handles the rest?

Brad

You can do it either way.  Generally you wanna just run the "upgrade this computer" exe and upgrade in place.  BTW, it usually takes a few hours even with a fast Internet connection.

[Calumus]

To clarify, does going to the Media Creation Tool mean you have to burn a disk, or are you downloading an image and Windows handles the rest?
Brad

You can also make a thumb drive with the tool. I think 8gb is what the program asks for. Installing from that should be a fair bit quicker than upgrading in place through the tool. Worst I've seen on a machine with hdd is about an hour. It's considerably quicker on an ssd obviously.

[RocketMan]

It's been awhile since I've done and I have another laptop to upgrade. Does the current version of the upgrade wipe programs and data, or will that stuff remain intact?

[zxcvbob]

It's been awhile since I've done and I have another laptop to upgrade. Does the current version of the upgrade wipe programs and data, or will that stuff remain intact?

You can wipe the programs but keep the data, wipe everything, or keep everything.  The tool will default to what it thinks you want, but you can change it.

The only problem I've run into was upgrading my old work computer; i7 processor and lots of RAM, it easily supports W10 but it's not on the company's list of supported models.  I wanted to keep it as a "work from home" workstation rather than turn it in and having it scrapped, so I upgraded it myself.  That went okay, but when I connected to the network they detected it and scanned it and found out I didn't have "secure boot" enabled (that's a new corporate requirement for 10) I went into the BIOS and enabled secure boot, then by HDD wouldn't boot anymore.  Not sure if the thumbdrive thing that Calumus mentioned would have worked or not.  I got some install media from one of our technical sales support guys and did a clean install from that.

[Calumus]

Not sure if the thumbdrive thing that Calumus mentioned would have worked or not.  I got some install media from one of our technical sales support guys and did a clean install from that.

It's just a clean ISO that the tool downloads for you.

[Ben]

Slight thread veer because I am so out of the loop on IT stuff these days that it's ridiculous: At this point in time, if a guy has Windows 7 home, the only way to go to win10 pro is to buy it, yes?

[zxcvbob]

Slight thread veer because I am so out of the loop on IT stuff these days that it's ridiculous: At this point in time, if a guy has Windows 7 home, the only way to go to win10 pro is to buy it, yes?

Why do you want the Pro version?  There is very little difference between 10 Home and 10 Pro; mostly group policy stuff that nobody uses, and some of the remote desktop function.  The one thing I can see you might want is the Bitlocker support (I have no need for that much security on a home PC but some might)

If you upgrade from 7 Home to 7 Pro, the media creation tool will upgrade that to 10 Pro for free, so you might want to see what that route costs in Windows Upgrade.

[Ben]

Why do you want the Pro version?  There is very little difference between 10 Home and 10 Pro; mostly group policy stuff that nobody uses, and some of the remote desktop function.  The one thing I can see you might want is the Bitlocker support (I have no need for that much security on a home PC but some might)

If you upgrade from 7 Home to 7 Pro, the media creation tool will upgrade that to 10 Pro for free, so you might want to see what that route costs in Windows Upgrade.

I can't even remember now, but will need to do a search here. A long while back, I had brought up migrating to Win10 and one of the IT guys here had a couple of good reasons for going to pro over home.

Edit: It might have had something to do with overriding the stupid automatic updates that always crash. More functionality to do that in pro than in home.

[lee n. field]

Slight thread veer because I am so out of the loop on IT stuff these days that it's ridiculous: At this point in time, if a guy has Windows 7 home, the only way to go to win10 pro is to buy it, yes?

if you have a Win 7 pro license you can use that.  Otherwise I'd upgrade to 10 home, then buy the pro upgrade through the MS store.  Do you really need Pro?