Finally upgrading to Win10, several questions... about several systems...

[Cyber Akuma]

Ok, I figured I have put this off long enough, I have several systems on Windows 7/8 that I want to upgrade to 10 by taking advantage of Microsoft's free offer... but I still have several questions about it.

First of all, for some of the systems I want to do a upgrade, while the others I want to do a clean install, if this possible? Or is the free upgrade to 10 only available as an upgrade? Or can you do a clean install?

And while I am at it, I plan to create an image of the drives before I upgrade them, so I can just restore that image if I don't like it or run into too many issues with software/hardware not being compatible with 10. Thing is, I heard that MS "burns" the old Windows 7/8 key when you upgrade. Is this true? And yes, I know you have 30 days or so to decide to downgrade back, but I would much rather restore a disk image than have the mess that is the result of an upgrade, then a downgrade. Not to mention I might run into problems past the 30 day mark.

... and on that note, can I tell it not to waste drive space "backing up" the old install since some of these systems are on SSDs where space is at a premium and I can just image the drive back? Yes, I know you can delete it later, but is there a way to tell it to not even bother during install?

Also, one of the systems is a Mac Mini running Windows 7, not sure how I would even begin to upgrade that one. Do I have to do it through BotoCamp or whatever in MacOS, boot to a DVD/USB drive with the Windows10 installer, or just install 10 from within 7?

Another question I have is will it install a matching version of 10 based on the version of 7/8 I have? One of the biggest things I HATE when I read about 10 is how there is no option to disable automatic install of updates. Yes, you can defer and re-schedule them, but no option to manage them manually... in home versions at least. Can you disable this junk in the Pro versions? And if I have Windows 7 pro, will it install Windows 10 pro then? If there any method to disable this in the home versions of 10 too?

And finally, I have some very old hardware I still have connected to my systems, namely printers and scanners. Despite the drivers only going back as far as WindowsXP64 versions, they still work in up to Windows 7 (Yes, I know XP64 was very different from Vista64 and above, I was surprise that they work too). When I tried them in a Windows10 VM though.... it complained that the drivers are not signed, even though 7 (and yes I have the 64bit version) did not. Any idea what I can do about this? I know I can enable Test Mode, but that puts a rather annoying watermark on the corner of my screen.... not to mention lowers security. From my understanding, self-signing the drivers no longer works in 10.

 

[ob1]

1. You generally have to upgrade to 10 first, then you can do a clean install. It registers and activates your copy of 10 specific to your hardware hash.

2. I don't think they burn the old keys after you update. We updated my wifes system and ran 10 for about a month, then restored her old 8.1 setup (long story), but the 8.1 restore worked fine. We eventually re-upgraded to 10 without issues.

3. I'm not sure if there is a way to tell it not to backup the old Windows install during the update. However, I have formatted several times and used the Windows reset tool several times now and they work fine without the old versions being saved.

4. Can't help with bootcamp but there is info out there, (co-worker did it).

5. If you have a pro version of 7/8/8.1 you get a pro version of 10. Same with home versions. Now, I still don't think you can manage the updates like you want, except for the driver stuffs.

6. No idea on old HW and driver signing.

 

[bigdogchris]

3. I'm not sure if there is a way to tell it not to backup the old Windows install during the update. However, I have formatted several times and used the Windows reset tool several times now and they work fine without the old versions being saved.

If you use the Media Creation Tool, there's one chance you get to customize the installer and tell it to not keep anything (user data and programs). After the upgrade, either clean install or run disk cleanup and check the box to remove previous versions.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

If you use the Media Creation Tool, there's one chance you get to customize the installer and tell it to not keep anything (user data and programs). After the upgrade, either clean install or run disk cleanup and check the box to remove previous versions.

Well, I do want it to keep my user data, installed programs, and everything. Just didn't want it to keep the data to downgrade back to 7.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

You have to upgrade to Windows 10 first - that is the offer Microsoft is making to everyone for the first year of Windows 10's release: there is no alternative since that's the offer: upgrade to Windows 10, free of monetary cost.

AFTER YOU UPGRADE you can then do a clean install anytime you so choose to do so, on the same exact hardware (meaning a few minor changes can be made to RAM, storage, perhaps the video card if it's a desktop, and so on - but not the entire motherboard), and the clean installations will a) not require a Product Key (you skip the request to enter one twice during the installation) and b) will activate automagically once it's online because the activation hash is stored with Microsoft now unlike in the past with Vista/7/8/8.1.

You have 30 days to roll back to the previous installation of 7/8/8.1 or you technically surrender the 7/8/8.1 license towards the Windows 10 upgrade or clean install done at a later time. I suppose technically Microsoft won't hassle people that do make an image of a 7/8/8.1 installation before hand and do use Windows 10 for more than 30 days but decide it's just not for them for whatever reasons (privacy issues, hardware incompatibilities, telemetry crap, who knows) so I wouldn't worry that much about it. If you do make an image of your present installation(s) before the upgrade - remember, the upgrade is mandatory to get it free - and decide after 30 days to restore the image(s) that it'll still work as expected. Microsoft isn't going to be yanking activations of upgraded machines, that would just be another nightmare they don't want right now.

Your best bet to save space is:

- back up your personal data someplace (not SSDs if you can help it, even if it's just temporarily) and make the system disk or partition as small as possible so your image will be as small as possible. If you have a lot of music files or video files or a lot of both, those files are NOT going to compress well since they're already in a compressed state most likely so, you don't want to waste time and effort including them in the image(s) you're going to create - move that kind of stuff off the drive(s) you plan to image beforehand

- once that's done, defrag the drive(s) in question - if they're SSDs I suppose it's irrelevant but I myself would do it anyway, that's just me, and it's a few write cycles out of potentially hundreds of millions an SSD is capable of so, irrelevant in the long run on even older SSDs

- image the drive(s) in question and store 'em someplace safe, preferably on a hard drive or drives for that purpose alone

- use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to create either an ISO you intend to burn to a blank DVD or use it to make a USB installer stick of the appropriate edition of Windows 10 for the upgrade. I don't suggest doing the live upgrade directly from the media creation tool; make the ISO or the stick and do it from either of those booting the machine so things go fast and smooth.

Having said that you should probably use that live upgrade method from the media creation tool for the Mac mini - it'll be easier than trying to get it done from the USB stick (assuming you have a more current Mac mini that doesn't sport an optical drive at all). It'll be easier to get things done in that respect on that machine by doing it "live" and direct from the media creation tool.

You can only upgrade to the corresponding edition from what you have: Home Premium upgrades to Home, Professional upgrades to Professional - you can't mix and match. And yes, Home doesn't allow disabling Windows Updates, only Pro can defer them.

The driver signing is a factor when dealing with 64-bit versions of Windows so keep that in mind, and yes it's relevant to this process. It's entirely possible that some of your older hardware could potentially fail to work entirely with Windows 10 but if it's not some cheap ass low end hardware then you should be ok - if it's name brand hardware with support you should be fine but obviously I can't guarantee such a thing.

Good luck.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

The driver signing is a factor when dealing with 64-bit versions of Windows so keep that in mind, and yes it's relevant to this process. It's entirely possible that some of your older hardware could potentially fail to work entirely with Windows 10 but if it's not some cheap ass low end hardware then you should be ok - if it's name brand hardware with support you should be fine but obviously I can't guarantee such a thing.

Yes, this one confused me. Because these drivers, despite being for Windows XP64, have worked fine in Vista64 and Windows 7 64. But when I tried them in the Windows 10 preview they complained about not being signed... I thought MS started forcing signed drivers since Vita64? How come several of my Windows 7 64 installations did not complain, but Windows 10 is complaining?

My printer is old, but works great (and frankly, a lot of the new printers are garbage nowadays) so I don't want to have to replace it for no reason.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

They have used the driver signing since Windows Server 2003 64-bit was released which is what XP Pro x64 is based upon - it's not just XP Pro 32-bit with an XP theme slapped on it and compiled for 64-bit operation, it's not the same OS since it has Server as the foundational base - I loved XP Pro x64 and still consider it the fastest desktop OS I've ever used since I started with 'puters in 1975.

Anyway, with Windows 10 Microsoft altered the way the digital signatures are interpreted but there are other architectural differences as well so, you're bound to encounter issues especially if you're using hardware that was supported for XP Pro x64 which means it's probably at least 7.5 years old minimum or even older.

I know people invest a lot of money in hardware over time, and they tend to keep holding on to some particular hardware because it just works and hasn't ever been an issue, but in our increasingly disposable society that now practically lives by the practically forced upon us "forced obsolescence" (go figure) of so many companies in the computer and technical industries that won't last forever just like the hardware or support for it won't.

Only solution: make the image(s), test things out with that older hardware, it'll either work or it won't, there's not really any middle ground to work from. If it works, fantastic, congrats - if it doesn't, make some attempt(s) to get it functional if at all possible, look for potential driver updates, even a workaround if needed by disabling the driver signature verification (which is still possible in Windows 10 but may be removed at a later time with some updated version)

If none of those are workable solutions then you'll either a) roll back to the previous image(s) as required or b) you'll buy new hardware to replace the old stuff.

That's just how it goes.

 

[Cyber Akuma]

I just remembered one more question I had. I noticed that the installer for Vista and 7 (not sure about 8) had the rather annoying quirk of installing the boot sector on whatever drive was "first" on the motherboard, even if it's not the drive you chose to install Windows on. I had a hard time installing Windows 7 on this system (which at the time had a 500gig SSD and a 8TB RAID5 HDD setup) because it kept complaining that both drives, despite being empty and not even formatted or partitioned yet, had "not enough space"... it wasn't until I physically disconnected the RAID that I was able to install Windows 7 to it.

A cousin that was building a PC with a single SSD and HDD had a similar problem, Windows 7 kept installing the boot sector to the HDD even though we told it not to touch it unless we unplugged the HDD itself first before installing 7.

Since in most SSD/HDD setups the OS and usually most to all installed apps are on the SSD, while the HDD is just used for storage, this is pretty maddening if anything happens to the storage and one wishes to replace it while still being able to use the system until the new parts come in. It makes the OS drive dependent on the Storage drive basically for no reason other than the fact that the motherboard initialized the HDD first.

Does Windows 10 still do this stupidly annoying behavior? And now that all my drives are partitioned, would doing an upgrade and/or a clean install after the upgrade to 10 still do it?

 

[wbo]

Does Windows 10 still do this stupidly annoying behavior? And now that all my drives are partitioned, would doing an upgrade and/or a clean install after the upgrade to 10 still do it?

The behavior you describe would only occur if you are installing the OS in MBR/legacy mode. In MBR systems, some motherboards will only check the first hard disk for a boot sector and will ignore any other drives. Windows works around that problem by ensuring that the boot sector is always installed on the first drive.

If you install to a GPT formatted disk in UEFI mode then the boot partition will always be on the same disk as the System partition by default regardless of whether or not it is the first disk in the system.

I highly recommend that you use UEFI if your motherboard supports it because it has a few other nice benefits and some newer systems don't support MBR boot at all anymore. If you must use MBR boot then simply make sure you connect the drive that you want the boot sector on to the first port on your motherboard.

 

[ob1]

Also, the new installers want to make partition changes to the drive you install the OS. On my clean Windows 10 install, I removed all partitions and let it do what it wanted and it made 4 partitions, three used by Windows recovery or something, (400 MB total), which at first I thought would be confusing seeing all of those partitions with drive letters, but it doesn't actually give them letters. I eventually did a system reset just to test out that function, and it worked great, thanks in part to those partitions I think.

 

[Zahid Iqbal]

After my upgradation, i am completely disappoint. I have to return to my win 7 back. overall best of luck