Free upgrade to Windows 10?

I have backed up to my external hard drive, and a memory stick, also done a mozbackup. so fingers x I wont lose anything.
 
So still havn't got the upgrade notice! Ran the win10 troublshooter app and it said that a certain update hadn't been installed.
When I checked my update history it says it has been installed !
 
Well update done, and all went well, I just had to update my graphic driver.
 
I did a clean install of Win10 on a spare ssd, I've only had to do it 6 times, it's been a really entertaining day!
It seems the problem is with my Nvidia card, even asking Win10 to search for drivers causes the PC to crash with no chance of recovery. Everything else seems to function OK, think I'll give up and stick Win7!
 
Karpersky tried to shaft me telling me that I would have to pay £93 for tech help for 10 but it would cover me for a couple of years i walked, up em
 
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Hoof said:
Karpersky tried to shaft me telling me that I would have to pay £93 for tech help for 10 but it would cover me for a couple of years i walked, up em
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Kaspersky used to be very good on support. Though I am holding off W10 I asked Eset about their W10 readiness, they took a couple of days to reply but they advised uninstalling the current version and gave me a link to the most current build of version 8 that W10 ok to he installed once W10 was running. Now AFAIK v8 is the current one so if v9 was current I can imagine there would be a charge?
 
put it on my laptop from win 8.1 and it was perfect, running lovely. I stuck it on my main pc last night and got nothing but lockups needing a reboot, this was from Win 7. So ive rolled back to 7 and am sticking with that!
 
AshleyC said:
put it on my laptop from win 8.1 and it was perfect, running lovely. I stuck it on my main pc last night and got nothing but lockups needing a reboot, this was from Win 7. So ive rolled back to 7 and am sticking with that!
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Looks like the upgrade from 7 to 10 is not very doable, maybe the upgrade was primarily for the Windows 8 blunder !
 
jonbeeza said:
Looks like the upgrade from 7 to 10 is not very doable, maybe the upgrade was primarily for the Windows 8 blunder !
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I'll remind myself that everytime my upgraded W7 machine starts and operates perfectly
Just because it hasn't worked for some people doesn't make it not doable. I know quite a number of people who have successfully upgraded from 7 to 10 and none who have had a failure
 
scorpius said:
I'll remind myself that everytime my upgraded W7 machine starts and operates perfectly
Just because it hasn't worked for some people doesn't make it not doable. I know quite a number of people who have successfully upgraded from 7 to 10 and none who have had a failure
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I said it's not very doable, not ( not doable ) But anyway, pleased that it is working for some people. If it worked on my machine I would do it, but it does not so I can't. :)
 
neil_g said:
Why aren't you installing out of interest?
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I was asked that when I recently bought a new PC. My answer was (and is) that I have problems with learning new things - had enough "fun" getting to grips with Win8 so will be sticking with that as long as possible.
 
I'll be staying with W7 don't see any reason to change and take the risk of problems and I'm not sure if some of my older programs like neat image would work with W10
If it ain't broke don't fix it :D
 
well i really like it on my laptop and would prefer it on my main pc as well. But id rather have a clean install rather than an upgrade, that could be part of the problem. I dont have time to fluff about with it now as im about to go on my hols, i will have a proper sit down and install day when im back. The only thing i miss, which could still be there, are the widgets as i liked having a big clock in the corner of the screen :)
 
I think overall windows 7 is better, why o why have they insisted on dumbing down things like control panel. Its like they have made Windows Child Edition, live tiles all need disabling as does one drive and lots of other things. Its just annoying but once all thats sorted its just windows 7 that looks different. The worst thing they ever did was trying to have a unified windows for pc, tablet and phone.
 
AshleyC said:
well i really like it on my laptop and would prefer it on my main pc as well. But id rather have a clean install rather than an upgrade, that could be part of the problem. I dont have time to fluff about with it now as im about to go on my hols, i will have a proper sit down and install day when im back. The only thing i miss, which could still be there, are the widgets as i liked having a big clock in the corner of the screen :)
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Couple of points; you will need to do an upgrade first (this allows Windows to get your existing serial number and create a new W10 one). A clean upgrade thereafter sees the W10 number and uses it to activate itself.

My Wife had the clock, notepad and calendar widgets and they came across to W10; just needed to be ' repaired'.

Happy holidays!

Anthony
 
Just wondering, if making a clean install at a later date AFTER going down the upgrade path and getting the new product key do we just download a version of Win10 from the MS site and use the new product key from the upgrade path ?
 
Frank, that is certainly what other people have reported having success with. There are a number of ways you can find out your Windows 10 product key, findable by a Google search.

It would seem, from looking at this thread, that a lot of people have had problems. I upgraded my old Dell PC to the beta preview a few months ago with no problems. Then on the 29th July I upgraded my current PC to the public release, also with no problems. Then a day or so later, I upgraded my Asus T100 convertible, again with no problems, even though it only has 32GB of storage space. In each case, the machine boots faster, runs faster, and feels more solid. And, so far, all my programs and apps run fine. In my opinion, it's well worth upgrading provided that you know how to restore if things go wrong. But I also understand if people want to wait a while. Being an Early Adopter is a little unsafe... :)
 
robj20 said:
I think overall windows 7 is better, why o why have they insisted on dumbing down things like control panel. Its like they have made Windows Child Edition, live tiles all need disabling as does one drive and lots of other things. Its just annoying but once all thats sorted its just windows 7 that looks different. The worst thing they ever did was trying to have a unified windows for pc, tablet and phone.
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(y) I am staying with the adult version :)

Besides the computer I have came with Windows 7, the spec may not be Windows 10 compatible.
 
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garryknight said:
Frank, that is certainly what other people have reported having success with. There are a number of ways you can find out your Windows 10 product key, findable by a Google search.

It would seem, from looking at this thread, that a lot of people have had problems. I upgraded my old Dell PC to the beta preview a few months ago with no problems. Then on the 29th July I upgraded my current PC to the public release, also with no problems. Then a day or so later, I upgraded my Asus T100 convertible, again with no problems, even though it only has 32GB of storage space. In each case, the machine boots faster, runs faster, and feels more solid. And, so far, all my programs and apps run fine. In my opinion, it's well worth upgrading provided that you know how to restore if things go wrong. But I also understand if people want to wait a while. Being an Early Adopter is a little unsafe... :)
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Thanks Garry, I already have the pc updated to Win 10, I also have the new product key it generated stored away, all seems to be working fine, I just wondered if at a later date my Win 10 or my pc/hdd went doolally and died would downloading a new copy from M$ and using the product key generated by the first update be sufficient?
 
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I upgraded from Win 7 pro to Win 10 pro. Ran Magic Jelly Bean to get the new licence key. I created a USB boot stick with Win 10 on it. Booted from USB stick and did a clean install of windows. It activated automatically and everything works OK. I ran Magic Jelly Bean again and it is a new key but that is fine as I did not have to enter any keys during the installation so it doesn't matter
 
Yes, Frank, that's what other people have reported success with on various forums I visit. They've upgraded to Windows 10 using the media creation tool or via Windows Update, made a note of their product key, then downloaded Windows 10 and used the product key to install it.

As the upgrade process backs up your Windows 7 or 8(.1) it makes some sense to do it that way. I know that some people wanting Windows 10 on their Asus T100 laptop/tablet devices that have limited storage space have gone this route. But all I had to do was plug in a USB drive for the installer to put its files on, do the update (which left me more storage space than I started with), open Windows Explorer, right-click my System drive and do a System Cleanup. This removed the backed up OS and the recovery partition and left me with even more space. I went from 5 GB free on my 32 GB SSD to around 18 GB.

There might be reasons other than shortage of disk space that people have upgraded then installed afresh, but at least it gives us some assurance that a fresh install should work fine. It would be nice if someone who has gone that route posted their thoughts on the process here. It seems likely that there might be some problems - drivers, for example.

Edit: Simon posted while I was still composing mine. Nice to see some input on this, Simon. I seem to recall reading that Windows 10 stores your product key in the UEFI BIOS, so it's likely that each instance of Win 10 had its own key.
 
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A couple of things I have noticed, when I looked at w10 in Curry's it seemed diff to mine , mine looks just like w7 but with apps . Also when I go to Device manager it jumps up and down, anyone else found this, and over come it. And how do I manage to get the task bar to go, its always showing on every program I have open.
 
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Task Bar: Right click on bar - select properties - select 'Auto Hide'

That's how I do it in 8.1
 
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thanks, that worked. Now to find out why the Device Manager is jumping all over the place. and why I have a bleep, its like something loading but failing to .
 
Still not had to option to install it at all. Tried to force install it last week but that went badly wrong. No idea why it just still says "We'll let you know when it's ready to install"

It has also got to the point where i may not even install and and stay with Win 7 just out of spite.
 
I've now installed windows 10 on 4 PCs (not all men) and haven't had a problem so far
 
garryknight said:
There might be reasons other than shortage of disk space that people have upgraded then installed afresh, but at least it gives us some assurance that a fresh install should work fine. It would be nice if someone who has gone that route posted their thoughts on the process here. It seems likely that there might be some problems - drivers, for example.
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An initial upgrade is required to be done at which point the key is upgraded on the licensing servers, it is then valid for around 60-days for both your original OS and Windows 10, after this time limit your previous OS license is revoked.

It also registers your key against a unique identifier for the PC, hence why upon reinstallation the activation is sometimes autonomous, even when you do not have an embedded license within UEFI.

Hope that helps, and that is the response directly from MS activation/licensing team, as I was finding out answers about enterprise activation procedures :(
 
So what happens to all those numbskulls that have hooky versions of Windows, there must be millions of them or was all that stopped years ago?
 
jonbeeza said:
I removed the file yesterday and all was fine, but this morning it had re installed itself again :confused: Will have another go !
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I had the same problem after W10 downloaded a shedload of files then couldn't install.

I partitioned my SSD into 40GB for my OS partition and re-installed W7 64 Bit and turned of all updates!

That fixed it!

And for security freaks my PC is totally secure because there is virtually anything on it that can be accessed by any malware.
.
 
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I made the mistake of upgrading to windows 10 it was fine for a week or two then threw a critical error and after a week of trying the only thing I could do was factory reset the whole laptop lost 4000 images and loads of documents
Saw my arse with it and bought a iMac yesterday so glad I did what a machine!!!!
 
I have kept putting off the upgrade to windows 10. I have kept clicking the update for a couple of days to avoid it installing. But it has installed and was going to run when I turned off the computer, I know it's not the right thing to do, but I just unplugged the computer to get rid of it. So what can I do to stop the installation of it, I am not techy minded either, so any help I will be very grateful for
 
Jango said:
I have kept putting off the upgrade to windows 10. I have kept clicking the update for a couple of days to avoid it installing. But it has installed and was going to run when I turned off the computer, I know it's not the right thing to do, but I just unplugged the computer to get rid of it. So what can I do to stop the installation of it, I am not techy minded either, so any help I will be very grateful for
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Do as the OP suggests, buy a mac, I did 3 years ago and never looked back.
 
Jango said:
I have kept putting off the upgrade to windows 10. I have kept clicking the update for a couple of days to avoid it installing. But it has installed and was going to run when I turned off the computer, I know it's not the right thing to do, but I just unplugged the computer to get rid of it. So what can I do to stop the installation of it, I am not techy minded either, so any help I will be very grateful for
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If it has installed then the only thing you can do to get rid of it is roll it back.

But first back up all your files etc to an external HDD.

If it runs fine then try it for a few days or weeks and if you get on with it then fine.

If not then do a clean re-install of Win7 and stop all updates.

If you're not very technical thats about all you can do I think.

I would also invest in an external Hard drive and keep all my important things on that - photos etc, and only turn it on to update it.

And use a good AV - I use Avast Free.
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Rolling back to Win7 from Win 10 providing update method was used to update to Win 10.

http://www.techradar.com/news/softw...wngrade-from-windows-10-to-windows-8-or-windo

I have not tested this and I'm not about to either, I'm one of the happy with new Win10 brigade.
I've not had a single problem since updating to Win 10 on desktop or notebook, everything is much nippier then before. it makes me wonder what was wrong with all these machines showing errors prior to updating Win10, or is it a case of many who didn't follow instructions properly?
 
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