From the March 2020 issue of Maximum PC magazine (still available in print!).

Given that Windows 10 is still available FOR FREE, that Windows 10 is really a very good operating system, and that pretty much any machine that runs Windows 7 has the horsepower to run Windows 10 (I've upgraded several myself, including an older machine just in the last month---all for free), there is really no reason to still be using this now unsafe operating system.

 

Here's the direct link to the Windows 10 download site. You need a valid Windows license, which you should have if you have a licensed version of Windows 7 (or 8 or 8.1, if you want to upgrade from those versions).

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

 

What if you don't have your windows license. What do you pay?

 

The retail cost for a single Windows 10 installation is about $140 at Best Buy, $130 at Amazon..

How do you know you don't have a license? Are you running Windows 7 now?

When I installed Windows 10 from the link above, I was never asked for a license number or anything like that. I assumed that was because Windows was able to detect that it was being installed on a system that had a valid Windows license.

On your computer, if you go to Control Panel and click on "System," it should tell you near the bottom of the page whether or not Windows is activated, which means that there is a valid license, but I don't see how yours couldn't be if you're running any version of Windows because Windows won't continue to operate more than a few days after you install it if you don't activate it. Below the line indicating that Windows is activated will be the Product ID number, and I think that's the license number if you want to write it down.

If you purchased a retail copy, you would type in during the installation process the license number that came in the package.

 

Just want to say thank you Jaunty for that link! I've been trying to figure out how to upgrade without having to pay another $140, I had no idea the free upgrade was still available! Very Cool!

james

 

Glad it worked!

 

I would just like to upgrade to Windows 7, lol. I keep saying I am going to get a new computer but I just keep chugging along with my Vista. I even have a laptop 7 hand me down but I never use it because I prefer the desk top. I may try to at least update it to 10.

 

Jaunty,
Thanks for the link. I was able to do the free upgrade download with no issues. Takes a while for everything to get updated but now it's smooth sail'in. I was not prompted for a product key/license but I did find it on a sticker located on the bottom of my laptop.

 

Eric,
I'm surprised your PC still works. You should try the free upgrade.

 

I can't upgrade the Vista computer. Have to replace it.

 

Thanks Jaunty, I did mine and it works great even though my Toshiba laptop is about 7 years old.

 

Why?

While more is always better in terms of processor power, hard disk space, and memory, I think pretty much any computer that came originally with Windows XP or later (which includes Windows Vista) can probably run Windows 10 well enough. If you can add memory to the computer, that's probably the single best upgrade you can make in terms of helping Windows 10 run better. A couple of years ago I upgraded a laptop to Windows 10 that came originally with Windows Vista that we bought for my son when he was in college in the late 00s. I encountered no problems, and that laptop is still usable today, 12 years or so after we bought it.

 

That is what you and others have told me in the past. I have no idea. My working on computers is like the college girl that added oil to the engine through the dipstick tube. I got this computer new in 2008

 

We had a good run with our last PC running 7pro at about nine years. Though the tower got a bit noisy near the end, I simply thought it was cooling fan noise related to dust. I blew it out regularly but still held on to it after getting a new PC this fall and the transition from old to new was pretty painless. So, when Jaunty, posted this it prompted me to try the upgrade. I dragged out the old system and gave it a try. The process was easy but I ran into problems with the download hanging up and not completing. The program never asked me for a license number. My ram was a little light at 6mb and think 8 is recomended. But that wasn't the problem, the "noisy" hard drive was at least to me, was my determination. After the second failed attempt to upgrade I made the decision to cut the cord on that tower and make it target practice.

This was my experience, but I would encourage any one to try the upgrade.

 

If you're otherwise going to just discard the Vista computer, there is no harm in attempting the upgrade. In most instances, a computer running Vista should have the horsepower to run Windows 10. You have nothing to lose by trying.

 

To those that did the upgrade, did any of your files/programs need to be saved and reloaded, or does the upgrade happen "around" everything saved on the computer? I have a commercial copy of Symantec firewall/antivirus, free, and can not lose it or I won't be able to get it back.

I personally dislike the windows 10 system (we use it at work) and prefer windows 7. I've been running it on this laptop since 2008 or 2009 and have never had a single issue and would prefer not to lose it, but may have to from a security standpoint.

 

During the install it asks if there are files you want to remove. If you opt not to remove anything it keeps everything you currently have. (At least it did on mine)

 

I bought a new Windows 10 computer and used LapLink to transfer the programs from my Windows 7 computer. Much to my surprise all my programs transferred without a hitch! I was expecting problems, but none surfaced.

 

Running WIN 8.1 requires less storage space than WIN 10. I'd try that, first. If it doesen't then take, you'll need to download BIOS-updates, so that your OS can recognise the modern software.
I'm still on WIN 7 and have even gotten 2 updates, since Microsoft abandoned support

 

I think this is all overreaction. I've updated several computers over the recent years to Windows 10, and they all had a variety of previous versions of Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8). Never once did I have a problem with storage space, and never once did I need to update the bios. What is there in the bios that matters when it comes to installing an operating system? The bios is concerned with hardware things like amount of memory, boot order, processor clock speed, things like that.

The thing to do is, just try it. If you've got a computer running Windows 7 or earlier, just go through the upgrade process. There is nothing to be afraid of. 99 times out of 100, you'll have no problem. If you're that 100th person with a problem, Windows is smart enough to reverse course and put your system back the way it was before it started the upgrade. In fact, this likely wouldn't happen because the Windows installer checks the computer you're trying to install Win 10 on to make sure the machine can handle it.

The most recent installation I did was on a Sony Viao laptop that was made in 2008 and came originally with Vista. It has about a 250 GB hard drive and is limited to 2 GB of RAM. That's not a great amount of memory for Win 10, but Win 10 did install, and, while it's not setting any speed records, it does run satisfactorily, and now this machine has a new life and is running a supported operating systsem. And the upgrade didn't cost a cent. I checked, and no bios update is available for this computer. I thought a bios upgrade might allow it to recognize more RAM, but no luck.

Installing Windows 8.1 instead of 10 will get you back into getting security updates, but Windows 8 itself will stop being supported in three years as well, so you're just putting off the inevitable. Plus, if you wait until then to try to upgrade to Win 10, the free upgrade may no longer be available.

Windows 10 is a modern, robust, well-supported, well-designed operating system that is continuously updated and will likely be the last new version of Windows that Microsoft produces. Going forward, Microsoft will just keep updating Win 10 rather than releasing a Windows 11, Windows 12, or whatever.

 

When did you get these updates? Windows 7 mainstream support ended in 2015. "Extended support," which continued security updates but no longer saw any bug fixes or feature updates, ended on January 14, 2020 or about three months ago. If you received those updates in January or before, that was still within the extended support window. I would be interested to know if you get any more updates now that January 14 has come and gone.

 

Windows 7 support ended on January 14, 2020

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...anuary-14-2020

 

I didn't keep track, as to exactly when. I'll make it a point to do so, if another one comes up. I got the latest one a couple weeks ago

 

Another worthy upgrade on slow hardware is a SSD (solid-state hard drive). When Win 10 first came out, I purchased Win10 Pro and an SSD to perform a clean install on my old PC that came w/ Vista (but had previously upgraded the motherboard and RAM). Even though the 6-core CPU on my upgraded MB smoked the old dual-core CPU of the original PC, Vista running on the mechanical HD was still SLOW. Win10 Pro on the SSD made it run like a new PC. Last fall, I went through the process of upgrading 2 Win7 laptops w/ SSDs, more RAM and Win10 with similar results: FAST and useable for a few more years. SSD prices have fallen and are now a cheap upgrade that is hard to beat bang-4-the-buck.

 

There is a danger with upgrading your only computer; if you F up, you can't figure out how to fix it. I try to always keep at least one working machine.

 

In the golden olden days prior to the release of Windows 7, there really did exist such a thing as upgrading the operating system. Microsoft has not deployed any operating system software which 'upgrades' the operating system since prior to Windows 7. Therefore, in reality there is no such thing as an operating system 'upgrade'. The installation of Windows 10 is the installation of brand new software WITHOUT the retention of ANY previous operating system software. An in-place upgrade differs only in the fact you are not reformatting the HDDs, you are not creating new user accounts & you are not creating new security tokens with an in-place upgrade. The 'key' attribute of performing an in-place upgrade is the retention of the security tokens. Security tokens are employed for every single file, folder, account, name, etc. on every single Windows operating system. If you have Windows 7, the security tokens are retained and the in-place upgrade is actually to the end-user's advantage (as opposed to reformatting and installing Windows 10).

Historically, what occurred was this (with regard to Microsoft operating systems) during the time Bill was @ Harvard until the present day. Development of an 8-bit >16-bit MS-DOS environment, development of the Windows 8-bit & Windows 16-bit graphical operating environments (i.e. Windows 1.0>2.0>3.0>NT4). While Windows 3.0 was taunted to be an Operating System, it was not an operating system. It was nothing more than a graphical operating environment which ran on MS-DOS. In fact, this was the first time MS began to realize there existed an 'issue' with future developments of an 'operating system'. With the development of the Windows operating system 'registry' (which contained the required distributed .dll libraries; dll=dynamic link libraries), the real issue raised its ugly head. The world (all software vendors) wrote 8-bit and 16-bit programs which interfaced with Windows. How could Windows accommodate these programs? Microsoft developed the WOW (subsystem) of the Windows operating system. WOW stands for Windows On Windows. Each time a Windows (supposed) operating system was installed, the WOW subsystem was also installed (in either 8-bit or 16-bit format). Either the 8-bit or the 16-bit subsystem was instantiated by the (supposed) operating system in order to make the call to the program and have the program run in Windows. Even with the development of the 32-bit Windows operating systems, Microsoft had to drag along either an 8-bit or a 16-bit subsystem in all of its (supposed) operating system renditions. This was a MAJOR kludge. It wasn't until Windows 7 was MS able to remove the WOW subsystems - freeing themselves from dragging along 8-bit, 16-bit & 32-bit archaic sub-routines into new (supposed) operating systems. Finally, with the release of Windows 7, the archaic (required) sub-routines were no longer embedded into the operating system and Windows 7 became the first true Microsoft Operating System. It was an ugly evolution and it was WOW which hindered MS's ability to development a true OS.

With that said, MS rewrote the entire Security Token software for operating systems (this began with the release of NT4, but culminated with the release of Windows 2000. Windows 3.5 and Windows NT 4 were the absolute worst of times for MS as they were then entering the Network Server market - competing against the likes of Banyan-Vine & UNIX for a share of the pie.

 

BTW, some may wonder about the likes of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Vista, Windows Millenium, Windows XP, etc. None are operating systems. All carted (dragged) along an 8-bit or 16-bit WOW environment which ran within the (supposed) operating system.

 

If you have an older program which ran spiffy on Windows XP, Windows 7, etc. and you upgraded to Windows 10 but the program no longer works - before you head off to purchase a brand new version of your program which is compatible with Windows 10, invoke the Run In Compatibility Mode option in Windows 10 (I'll put up a couple links - but you can easily find this w/ any search engine). How MS managed this feature is simple. The majority of all third-party vendor programs were written to specifically work (operate/run) on a designated platform (95,98,XP,Vista,7, etc.). Programmers write their programs (generally in 16-bit or 32-bit format) and then create (write) their .api (functions) to call the program's attributes nested w/in the operating platform. Since Windows 10 is a true operating system platform (but so was Windows 7), MS elected to maintain the WOW subsystem for backward compatibility for end-users (but it operates w/in its own environment - not w/in the context of the operating system [there are no .dll libraries loaded]) The significant difference (feature) here is this: WOW doesn't load into the registry hive as an operating system "registry key". WOW can be invoked outside the operating system. To do this, the end-user is provided the option to Run In Compatibility Mode. This will invoke the program's .api calls to instantiate the program and have it run under the Windows operating system platform for which the program was originally written. Could save you some time, frustration and money. This feature was available in previous operating platforms, but in case you missed it.....

How to Set Compatibility Mode for Apps in Windows 10
Make older apps or programs compatible with Windows 10
Run Old Software on Windows 10 with Compatibility Mode

 

FWIW
just last month I went from 8.1 to 10 after some Firefox issues (HP Pavilion 500-217C, 64bit 8GB / 1TB)
and Win 10 was much slower than the 8.1 so I went back to 8.1 -
Firefox now fixed - now zero issues (not using WE or Chrome)

ps - I paid some geek guys to straighten it out at my house = $150
also Malware Bytes Protection works great ($30/year for 2 computers)

 

How is the average person going to understand that??? I sure as hell didn't.

 

I also don't get that technical stuff. One has to do one's best. I myself, don't like repairing things of which I can't see. WINs 95, 98 and 2000 were no-brainer programs that would simply plug & play. You could also easilly find everything like uploaded images, since the option of researching your surfing history wasn't hidden away. Everything to do with those was logical. Now, it seems, Microsoft has become the new Linux and Linux has become more user-friendly than it once was When I worked at this one second hand store, they had an alcoholic running the electrical department. His brain was irreversably fried to the point where he compulsorally had to upgrade all donated computers to WIN 7, despite there still being a demand for previous versions for customers wishing to retain their still functioning and often indestructable peripheral devices.
I eventually found a computer of which I was able to run on Windows 2000, so that I could use my scanner and printer of which later programs refused to recognize and run. I only needed to order a couple installation compact disks, in order to make it happen This planned obsolescence hallmark of Microsoft led me to e-bay a brand new Dell run on Linux. What really ruffled my feathers about this blind purchase was that they installed Chrome on it, without asking me if I wanted it or not, since Google apps are spyware, as if anybody would need a Google browser whatsoever.
esides that, there isn't an ISDN socket built into it. I would have gladly paid more, to get one. Using a Telekom Speedsport, those are known to be frustrating, when having to go WLAN mode. Besides, WLAN is less secure, when a slick neighbor figures out how to see what you're doing online

 

I don't want to hijack the importance and benefit of jaunty75's thread which is the ability to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Some end-users will have issues, many will not - some will understand the process(es) some will not. It's not much different in the realm of automotive engines - users either understand milling the deck, shaving the head, boring the cylinder walls or they don't. Some won't get it - some will. The information I provided will help some and it won't help others.

 

As if there aren't already enough reasons to stop using Windows 7, this was in an email just sent out today (April 7) by my employer's IT department's Chief Information Security Officer. Note the last line. Windows 7 machines are not allowed on my employer's system. If they find one, it will be disconnected from the network. They will gladly help you upgrade.

There is another Windows critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability, which will likely be patched on April 14th, “Patch Tuesday”. Be sure automatic patching is on for your Windows computer. To check that you are up-to-date or manually apply any update, click the windows button (lower left), click on the gear, then click updates and security, click install now if patches are available.

Most importantly, Windows 7 machines, which are no longer supported by Microsoft, will not be receiving a patch for this vulnerability. If you are running Windows 7 please upgrade ASAP.

 

As an old DECie reading this thread, I sure miss VMS.

 

VMS great OS. I believe Amazon employs VMS.