win 10 ssd swap to old win 7 ssd ??

N

ncjoe

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 16, 2016
Messages
239
Let me ask you guys something.....I'm thinking about upgrading to
win 10, but like win 7 so...

I have win 7 home on crucial ssd... if I download ms creation tool
shut pc off
swap out crucial win 7 ssd with new sandisk ssd
boot up using the iso or usb , do fresh install of win 10 on sandisk
update win 10..... ok so far so good I think

then activate win 10 with my win 7 key

shut pc off , swap ssd's , take the win 10 sandisk out of pc and put
it on shelf,
put original crucial ssd with win 7 back in as c drive , boot up
and keep on using win 7 ???????????

or will there be problems ??
 
Rofl are you trying to have two OSs installed, on separate SSDs, and getting this in before the July 29th deadline? :p

In all seriousness, I'm not sure how the activation would work.

I'm planning to just do a Win10 clean install in a couple days myself...
 
I was considering doing this myself. I've read of the worries about registration or about Win10 killing the Win7 key, but I've also read those are not true. As it's an "upgrade", and you don't have a valid (ie: original) Win10 key, the Win7 key will remain active.

Having said that, anyone with actual documentation one way or the other, please chime in and set us all straight.
 
All you need to do to "lock in" the free offer from Microsoft is:

- take out your current SSD with Windows 7 on it, entirely, get it out of the machine
- put the other blank SSD in the machine
- either use the Media Creation Tool to make the ISO (that tool does NOT download an ISO, it downloads an ESD file - a heavily compressed and encrypted Electronic Software Distribution file - that must be converted to an ISO - which the MCT does and then it will offer to push the ISO contents to a USB stick) or just get the ISO direct from the Tech Bench and use the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool or Rufus to push the ISO contents to a USB stick

I highly recommend getting the ISO from Tech Bench as the Media Creation Tool still uses the original Windows 10 distribution whereas the Tech Bench ISO is the more updated build released in February 2016 aka "Threshold 2" build 1511. This saves times since if you use the original files it means you have to do all the updates since last July whereas the 1511 ISO means not nearly as much. But then again, with the Anniversary Update coming in a few weeks then all this is just really a temporary thing I suppose because you might want to do a proper clean install of that after August 2nd or whenever they do release it.

Anyway...

- once you have whatever version of Windows 10 on a USB stick with the blank unused SSD in the machine, install Windows 10 cleanly, when it asks you for the Product Key skip it entirely (might ask for the key twice so skip it both times)
- when the OS is fully installed and online go to activate it and when it asks for a Product Key use the Windows 7 Product Key to get the free upgrade locked in
- after it's activated (and MAKE SURE it shows as activated under System Properties) then you can do whatever you want and clean install Windows 10 on the same hardware again in the future at any time and you won't need to input any Product Key whatsoever - install the OS, get online, it'll activate automagically because the activation hash is stored on Microsoft's servers for that hardware configuration

Understand that the Windows 7 Product Key technically becomes invalid after this because in order to claim the Windows 10 upgrade for free you're doing just that - upgrading the license to Windows 10 which means (if Microsoft really wants to do it) they can invalidate the Windows 7 key at any point in time meaning it would balk on Windows Updates (since it always checks for proper activation during that process), and so on. It technically doesn't mean you can use both OSes forever just because you damned well please but, for the moment Microsoft more than likely doesn't give a shit about people using both OSes even though they're only legitimately entitled to one or the other.
 
Wow - thanks for that breakdown.
Yeah I'm actually clean installing Win10 on a new SSD, so I may just keep my other SSD (Win8) with the OS intact.
 
Thanks for the detailed report Tiberian.... never would have done it properly without
your info...

So, got it all set up all I have to do is shut down and install blank ssd , but I'm kind of
hesitant on what you said about ms can invalidate my win 7 at any time after I validate
win 10....
I like win 7 ... and not much use for win 10 for me except dx12 and that probably
won't really matter for another year, I'm guessing .

So, I might just keep my existing win 7 until I need win 10 .. and then just go buy it if I have to ........

Thanks again , excellent write up......
 
As I said, there's nothing at this time indicating or even implying that Microsoft will eventually do that: invalidate any and all Windows 7 Product Keys that have been used to upgrade the license to Windows 10 (I've done that for my three laptops but I don't use Windows 10, that was done so in case I sell them the next owner will at least have the option if they want Windows 10). I can't imagine that Microsoft would ever actually do such a thing considering the sheer number of OEM installs there are out there in the wild, they would more than likely not even make the attempt to do such a thing because it would cause a few million people a panic situation and become a massive nightmare for Microsoft in the process. They could theoretically just invalidate Retail class keys for licenses purchased by consumers but again, it just won't be a good idea for them to do such a thing, ever.

So, I wouldn't worry about that potential for any given level of seriousness. Do what's necessary to lock in the free upgrade to Windows 10 now before the deadline passes and then worry about things later on (or not).
 
I've dl that iso from tech bench , but

so, when I run rufus, there is an option for

create bootable disk using : msdos, freedos, iso, and dd image....
so which option do I use to move iso to a dvd ?

I pushed that iso to usb using rufus, but when I went into bios
I didn't have option to boot from usb.... booting is set to legacy bios..
is it easy as setting it to uefi to boot from the usb 2.0 ??

thanks for help..
 
With Rufus all that's necessary is run it, click the disc/drive icon next to the section that says "Create bootable disk using:" and then select the Windows 10 ISO - do NOT change anything in the drop down menu (the one beside the button that defaults to saying "FreeDOS") - this whole process is basically automagic meaning you insert the USB stick you want to use, run Rufus, make sure it's got that particular USB stick listed for Device, click the disc/drive icon, select the ISO, then click Start and wait for it to finish. There is nothing you need to alter from the working defaults for Rufus to create the USB stick, seriously.

I use the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool, have done so since almost the day it was created and never had a single issue with it over the years. I've used Rufus as well once or twice and not had problems so far but, when it runs people assume they need to alter the settings in some manner and they/you don't: select the device, select the ISO, click Start, wait till it's done, that's about it.

As for all the UEFI stuff, I don't own any UEFI hardware at this point - well I mean my current laptop technically can boot UEFI but I don't enable that, more trouble than it's worth in my opinion but I know a lot of people have more modern hardware that may offer UEFI by default and fall back to BIOS as a legacy option, can't speak on that subject at all really.
 
ok , tiberian, that's what I did, left it at default settings and rufus pushed it to the usb,
I did that right then..
As far as the usb boot , well, I'm new to booting from usb, so, when I went into the bios yesterday
after making the boot usb , I took out the usb stick first though, just to see if I could boot from usb
I guess that's why it wasn't showing up as a boot device !!

Tried it again about 30 min ago and had the usb stick in port, went to bios and of course
it was available as a boot device...... oh boy..., my bad

So, lesson learned , to have boot from usb listed in bios, at least with my mb, you need the
usb device plugged in port.
Duh to me...

Thanks for your time again....
 
I actually had the same question as you ncjoe.
I confirmed within Windows 8 (and through my BIOS) that I was definitely in Legacy/BIOS mode.

UEFI Boot a NTFS Drive
But as Tiberian said, when you load the ISO into Rufus, it will auto-set the required values. The 1511 Th2 build is 4.1GB.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top