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Windows 10 Upgrade Guide
- Thread starter OVERKILL
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
You mean using a Windows 7 product key? No, it still works fine, which is noted at the end of that article, despite the statement from Microsoft. I did one a couple of days ago.
Yeah. I just rescued an old HP from going to the scrap heap, to be my new "garage" computer, for electronic catalogs, factory manuals and such. Doesn't have to do much other than run that old factory software. It's an old business CTO model with an i3 and 6GB memory, so it should run Win 10, which I don't mind, ok.
At a former office, the owner was skimpy with the hardware budget, but about the time Win 10 was originally released, I updated it on a similar "unsupported" machine anyway and it ran fine. Snappy, even, considering the age of the hardware, and got even better after I scrounged up some more memory for it.
I'm willing to try the upgrade, but if it fails to activate, can I roll back/restore to 7? I'm more of a FruitCo guy, and don't keep up on the Windows admin stuff. Been trying to apply all the accumlated WIn 7 patches that were never applied to this machine, and it's been a comedy of errors at some points. Another reason why I wouldn't mind "freshening up" by just installing 10.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Yeah, if the upgrade fails, you just stay on 7.
To be clear, what if the 10 update process is successfully completed, but results in a copy of Win 10 that MS won't activate as the news and "official" stance says?
Is it a hassle to roll back to 7 at that point?
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
No, you have 30 days.
Personally, I'd do a fresh USB install of Windows 10 on the unit, you'll know during the install if it's going to activate or not.
... on a cheap SSD.
Unfortunately, the HP OEM key that came with the machine would not activate 10.
Reverted to 7, which was very quick, but decided to nuke the previous installation and start with a clean slate. Or as clean as the bloatware-loaded recovery image allowed.
It will still do everything I need it to do, and unlike the machine it replaced (which lacked a wireless card), it can even get online, to search for repair solutions and YT videos if need be. Fx 115ESR has a ~year of support left. Woohoo.
Did you try to enter in the Win7 key after installation? That's the only way win7 keys will work on Win10.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Well, that's surprising, I'll see what happens with the next one I do. I just did a Toshiba laptop and the OE Windows 7 key worked fine.
Interesting, I've never been able to get them to work during installation for any of the work computers, only after.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
All HPs. I haven't reimaged Lenovos and Dells in sufficient quantity to determine if those are the same. On a side note, the very few Lenovos Thinkpads I've reimaged didn't automatically activate windows upon install but oddly was able to once I went into system settings - but I've only done like 2 Lenovos in 5 years.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
It's not the end of the world if you run Win 10 unactivated as it will still work forever. There are some disadvantages in that you can't customise it but that may not be important to some people. I have had an old spare lap top on unactivated win 10 for years. One advantage is that it only downloads and installs critical updates.
Yes. Actually, tried both an in situ update, as well as a clean install from media.
Entered the key from the Control Panel for the former, and early in the install process during the latter (which gave no indication at the time it was invalid).
Unfortunately, neither was accepted. Allowed for some time for the activation process to be completed, if need be, and still no bueno. Maybe MS meant it for real this time.
A few speed bumps along the way reminded me that my former enthusiasm for this kind of thing has waned, especially when I'm not being paid for it. Can still do it, but the tolerance for the little hassles and issues that pop up has mostly been expended as I've gotten older. Not unlike crawling under the car, but at least the benefits there are more tangible, or involve greater consequences.
The result of the clean install also served as a reminder of the tentacles that the current tech industry tries to wrap around every user, by hook or by crook. Sign into your account, "personalize" your settings to "tailor" their unwanted ad pitches, or "miss out" on the "best experience," along with the telemetry data to help them "improve" the product. My understanding is that 11 goes even further down that path.
Appreciate the encouragement, but for my intended purposes for this machine, not really necessary to run the latest configuration, but I gave it a shot. 10 also seems to be heavier on the churn and disk i/o, so not having an SSD isn't optimal.
I have a "stand alone" W10 laptop that I tune my truck with. I use the SCT Advantage 3 pro racer package SW to do it with. SCT does not yet support a Win platform above 10.
LOL, good old Microsoft...never stop never stopping.
Inability to active W10, no problems there, I can accept that.
But as part of the process, which forced a link to an MS account, Windows feature spam comes as part of the package, and there is no way to opt out, either through "unsubscribe" links in the messages themselves, or subscription settings in MS account portal, which doesn't show that I'm subscribed to anything.
Based on similarquestions pleas, this has been the situation for years, and yet there is still no way out for the user.
And the only solution chat support could offer is to block the sender address ([email protected]).
I'd wager that even if I nuked the MS account, which was only set up to use Teams for a remote interview, they'd still keep coming.
Inability to active W10, no problems there, I can accept that.
But as part of the process, which forced a link to an MS account, Windows feature spam comes as part of the package, and there is no way to opt out, either through "unsubscribe" links in the messages themselves, or subscription settings in MS account portal, which doesn't show that I'm subscribed to anything.
Based on similar
And the only solution chat support could offer is to block the sender address ([email protected]).
I'd wager that even if I nuked the MS account, which was only set up to use Teams for a remote interview, they'd still keep coming.
