Rocking the free upgrade to Windows 10

[orange]

OK, this explains EVERYTHING everyone was asking about, doing a clean install after the upgrade...here's how this works.

The KEY is not needed anymore. The information needed to acitvate is with MICROSOFT.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/micros...ivation-rules-for-windows-10/#ftag=YHFb1d24ec

 

[orange]

So, Web, if you can find the cheapest LEGIT way to license one or two Win 7 machines over the fall and I go find some compatible video cards, that will suffice and I can go from there.

 

[Web Police]

OK, this explains EVERYTHING everyone was asking about, doing a clean install after the upgrade...here's how this works.

The KEY is not needed anymore. The information needed to acitvate is with MICROSOFT.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/micros...ivation-rules-for-windows-10/#ftag=YHFb1d24ec

You need to do the uopgrade first then double check that you win 10 is activated. From there you can do a reset/clean install and the clean install will be activated. If you do the clean install first you wont have an activated win 10.

 

[BlazeES]

Skip is now your best friend.

 

[Northwinds]

What a friggin' shitshow... no way I would even try this now by myself. I don't want my hard drive wiped, I have important shit stored on it

 

[Web Police]

What a friggin' shitshow... no way I would even try this now by myself. I don't want my hard drive wiped, I have important shit stored on it

It isn't that bad. Most of the people will just upgrade. If you have a working installation you will upgrade and all your data and installed applications will still be there and working. If you are a savvy user or have messed up up you win 7 or win 8 install beyond repair then a clean install is your best bet. Since the upgrade is free MS can decide how and when to activate your win 10. The would be complications behind just letting you do a clean install without upgrading, namely it would make it harder to verify that you are eligible for the free upgrade.

You would only wipe your hard drive if you want too or had a reason too. Even if you did wipe your drive, you should still have backups of any important data and you should have your install discs for any software you have installed on the system.

 

[Web Police]

And for Tony's benefit, I figured out my first win 10 install was fine, but what happened was win 10 logged me out to the login screen, but of course like the second install I had no usb drives hence I wasn't able to hit return of click the mouse to get to the log in dialog box.

Luckily for me I decided to purge any extra user accounts and get rid of my password so on the second upgrade the machine would boot to the desktop where I was able to figure out that my usb mouse and kb were not working because of the drivers. Of course I then installed a ps2 mouse and installed the correct drivers and all was well. I am guessing the issue I encountered was not very common.

 

[BlazeES]

What a friggin' shitshow... no way I would even try this now by myself. I don't want my hard drive wiped, I have important shit stored on it

You don't need to wipe sh ! t .

Quit listening to the riff-raff and don't get all worked up about it.

 

[Northwinds]

You don't need to wipe sh ! t .

Quit listening to the riff-raff and don't get all worked up about it.

From that link

"Windows 10 goes one very large step further.
When you upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, the Windows 10 setup program checks your current activation status and reports the result to the activation servers. If you're "genuine" (that is, properly activated), the Windows activation server generates a Windows 10 license certificate (Microsoft calls it a "digital entitlement") and stores it in conjunction with your installation ID and the version you just activated (Home or Pro).
It didn't need a product key to do that activation. All it needed was the proof from the Software Licensing Manager utility that your underlying activation was legit.
You can now wipe that hard disk completely, boot from Windows 10 installation media, and install a squeaky clean copy."

The 1000s of pictures stored on my hard drive are more important then any software, that is what I am worried about

 

[orange]

BACK THEM UP. You have a DVD drive to burn DVDs? You should be able to do that. A DVD recordable has 4.7 GIGABYTES of storage available. You can back up the entire computer with a Win 7 program. Might take a good number of them if you got all your stuff on yours.

Which brings up an important question...

Why do you have everything on your computer and no backup? I save a bunch of stuff to CD at least or an external drive regularly so I can transfer it to another computer.

That explains why I have crap for Win 95 archived still...hmmmm

I may still HAVE 95 OSR2 and 98SE install discs around here...

 

[BlazeES]

Bro, you're not reading that in the proper context.
That is just saying that - as opposed to the way it was with previous versions of Windows - you can now do a clean install without having a key in hand,
as long as your main hardware hasn't changed. Microsoft will know on their end if you're legally upgraded.

Upgrading to Win 10 doesn't force you to wipe your hard drives and/or lose data.
That blurb is just explanation about a clean install option for those that like to do them, or if your hard drive crashed & burned.

And like Steve says - but I'll be more blunt about it -
DUDE ! if you have 1000's of invaluable, can't replace photos and other stuff on a hard drive - why the &^%$ haven't you backed them up/burned them to DVDs ?
Hard drives don't last forever man.

From that link

"Windows 10 goes one very large step further.
When you upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, the Windows 10 setup program checks your current activation status and reports the result to the activation servers. If you're "genuine" (that is, properly activated), the Windows activation server generates a Windows 10 license certificate (Microsoft calls it a "digital entitlement") and stores it in conjunction with your installation ID and the version you just activated (Home or Pro).
It didn't need a product key to do that activation. All it needed was the proof from the Software Licensing Manager utility that your underlying activation was legit.
You can now wipe that hard disk completely, boot from Windows 10 installation media, and install a squeaky clean copy."

The 1000s of pictures stored on my hard drive are more important then any software, that is what I am worried about

 

[Web Police]

As was said there are two ways to install win 10, you get to choose how you want to install it.

The upgrade option your personal files will be left intact and all your installed software will still be there, your desktop icons or folders will still be there. This is the option most people will use.

The second option would be what is called a clean install where just about everything on your hard drive is wiped out so when you install win 10 it is a virgin install and not hosed up by years of surfing porn on your old win 7 installation.


When you start to upgrade process or start the setup file from your upgrade dvd you will be asked which one of these options you would like to do. IMO regfardless of which option you choose you should always have your files, images ecetera backed up to DVD's, a usb hard drive, thumb drive etc.

Make sure to disconnect any usb drives, thumbdrives etc whenever you are upgrading or installing any version of windows.

 

[laatsch55]

All my porn is on my XP, guess I'm Ok then....

 

[BlazeES]

L L

All my porn is on my XP, guess I'm Ok then....

 

[NavLinear]

As was said there are two ways to install win 10, you get to choose how you want to install it.

The upgrade option your personal files will be left intact and all your installed software will still be there, your desktop icons or folders will still be there. This is the option most people will use.

The second option would be what is called a clean install where just about everything on your hard drive is wiped out so when you install win 10 it is a virgin install and not hosed up by years of surfing porn on your old win 7 installation.


When you start to upgrade process or start the setup file from your upgrade dvd you will be asked which one of these options you would like to do. IMO regfardless of which option you choose you should always have your files, images ecetera backed up to DVD's, a usb hard drive, thumb drive etc.

Make sure to disconnect any usb drives, thumbdrives etc whenever you are upgrading or installing any version of windows.

WHAT????????? Virgin install and no porn?? Oh my.

All my hot babes are backed up.

 

[Northwinds]

I never stated I was a computer wizard folks. We have a couple 500gb external hard drives that I have backed up everything on the old desktop to prior to getting this computer. Since then I have taken thousands of images, many of them are poster size. I guess I will look into another external hard drive. I don't trust burning stuff to discs because frankly, they will get lost or misplaced but perhaps I will look into that also

 

[Web Police]

Best to keep multiple backup copies. copy the images and files to a usb hd, and also burn them to dvd's, that way you should be safe. If you really want to get anal about it the backup dvd's should be kept in a fire proof safe or off site or in the clouds.

 

[orange]

WHAT????????? Virgin install and no porn?? Oh my.

All my hot babes are backed up.

You can't install a virgin and have a virgin left.

 

[BlazeES]

I never stated I was a computer wizard folks. We have a couple 500gb external hard drives that I have backed up everything on the old desktop to prior to getting this computer. Since then I have taken thousands of images, many of them are poster size. I guess I will look into another external hard drive. I don't trust burning stuff to discs because frankly, they will get lost or misplaced but perhaps I will look into that also

WD Passports are excellent external hard drives and all their Ultra models have been pricing well below $100 as of late.
Even the 2TB model ... which is a sh ! t ton of storage space.

 

[orange]

I noticed something nice yesterday, which may have something to do with a recent update.

When you click on the Windows icon bring up the Start Menu or shut down the process has been changed to simply the Power icon or the menu icon (three lines). If you click on the lines the Start Menu appears and if you click on the Power icon the menu for shutdown options comes up.

A nice, clean change.