SOLVED Win7 to Win 10

[Iceboy]

Can you still upgrade from windows 7 to windows 10?.

 

[Bighorn]

It was when I last did an Upgrade about a month ago for a client, used the Bootable USB drive created by the MCT/Media Creation Tool process..

 

[BigFeet]

I'm pretty sure you still can.

 

[Grizzly]

It still works as Microsoft seemed to want everybody on Windows 10. When doing the upgrade, skip the serial input at the beginning and choose [I don't have a key]. When finished upgrading go into settings -> [update&security], then [Activation]. there you can insert your Win7 key for activation...

Has worked for me not too long ago. After activation you will have a digital license. Unless you change the motherboard of your computer, this license will be valid forever, even if you make a fresh install with Windows 10 (you do not have to go the detour through Windows 7 anymore).

 

[Wolfie]

I used a Win 7 key for a clean install of Win 10 and had no problem recently on a broken PC. Then key was never used for a Win 7 install!.

 

[Iceboy]

Something used to come up about upgrading , but it doesn't do it now ..thanks.

 

[Wolfie]

Go to the link and click on the "Download tool now" and upgrade direct.

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

You may want to change the language of the page as the link is GB English.

See also.

How to upgrade Windows 10 to the latest version

PLEASE TAKE NOTE THAT AN UPGRADE IS NOT AN UPDATE PER SE; SEE THE LINK CREATED BY @Regedit32 BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS ON UPDATING AFTER CURRENT CUMULATIVE UPDATE. https://www.windows10forums.com/threads/windows-updates-after-kb4016871-reminder.13030/ See also: the following links about updating...

www.windows10forums.com

 

[Bighorn]

Something used to come up about upgrading , but it doesn't do it now ..thanks.

Yeah, it was the GWT [Get Windows Ten] applet when Win10 first was released [RTM] 4 or 5 years ago but it was time-limited at a year or so.

 

[Iceboy]

So downloading this will turn my old win7 into win10 I'm right in thinking, so can you also use this if have a time when you want to do another complete re-install in a case where windows crashes?.

 

[Bighorn]

Installing Win10 should work but be aware there may be driver issues with your hardware. Also, there can be two ways to install, one is clean which will lose everything on the drive and the other keeps most things. For Upgrades I run the setup.exe file from within Windows Explorer [renamed to File Explorer in Win10] rather than booted to the source either DVD or USB. For clean installs you can use either the x86 or the x64 version, what the hardware supports, but doing the Upgrade requires the same as already installed.

 

[Iceboy]

I wondering about issues about the computer hardware as it's about 12 years old, probably more, but still faster than my Lenovo laptop. I don't want to jump out of the frying pan so to speak. I did try once before some years ago but it failed, that's why I'm asking if it's still relevant. It does take about 12 mins to warm up and run on windows7, so that's why I'm asking if it's worth it. Or just keep running windows7, assuming I can still get things to protect me online?... or would it be too risky to shop on the old version?.

 

[Grizzly]

You still can speed up your pc by replacing the HDD (I assume you have one) with a SSD. This will give you an extraordinary performance boost. The laptop I am writing this from is already 14 years old and is running Windows 10 (although an older version due to hardware restrictions). My other laptop is 13 years old and runs Version 20H2 without issues (Version 21H1 on the Insider).
In your case I would get a SSD , install Windows 10 and keep the HDD in case it does not work out. Then you always can go back to Windows 7 but can mirror the HDD to the SSD to get that boost I was talking about. I always have a SSD or two in spare, they are not so expensive anymore...

 

[BigFeet]

I would 2nd Grizzly's suggestion. Even though I run linux on my old laptop (an acer from 2010), I recently bought a small SSD for it, and it gave it a significant boost in performance.