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Win10 Upgrade--How best to do test it out? (Read 25842 times)
Dan Goodell
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Re: Win10 Upgrade--How best to do test it out?
Reply #15 - Jul 26th, 2016 at 5:33pm
 
I agree with everything Christer said.

Use the Media Creation Tool to download Win10. You'll need to use the 32/64-bit version that's consistent with your installed OS, but you'll have the option to download either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Win10.

When the MCT is launched, the first screen asks if you want to "Upgrade this PC now" or "Create installation media for another PC". I believe that's what may be getting referred to in NightOwl's reply #13, bullet c.

IAC, I would never choose "Upgrade now", I'd always opt for "Create installation media". When you select that option, you'll be offered the choice of downloading 32-bit Win10, 64-bit, or both.

You cannot upgrade a 32-bit 7/8.1 installation directly to 64-bit Win10, but you can do so in two steps: first upgrade to 32-bit Win10, then wipe the partition and do a clean install of the 64-bit version. The first step will have fingerprinted your system to register your digital entitlement to Win10, and then step two will work and be automatically activated.

To each his own, of course, but I prefer creating an iso instead of a bootable flash drive. It just offends my OCD tendencies to have a bunch of single-purpose flash drives laying around that I may never, or rarely, use again in the future.

FWIW, I feel the same way about program and hardware installation floppies, CDs and DVDs; I never keep them. I always create iso images from CDs and DVDs (and bin images from floppies), and store the images in a "Library" folder on an external hard drive. That way, everything is kept in one place and I don't need to fret over keeping track of CD/DVDs and an assortment of flash drives.

In the rare event I need the installation media again, I always have the option of recreating a floppy/CD/DVD on rewritable media--burn, use, erase.

However, program CD/DVDs can be run directly from the iso file if you have a virtual optical drive, without the need to recreate hard media. I've long used a utility called Virtual CloneDrive on all my XP/7/8.x systems, and the latest version will even work with Win10.

When you install VCD your system's "My Computer" will show an additional optical drive and associate the .iso extension with it. Then, just double-click your iso file and it will "load" in the virtual drive just like a real CD/DVD would load in a real optical drive. If you allow CDs to autorun, it will even autorun. You can install programs from a virtual CD exactly as you would from a hardware CD. The only difference is a virtual CD runs a heck of a lot faster than a real CD.

I could have burned a temporary DVD, but I used the virtual technique last weekend to upgrade two Win7 computers to Win10 (just to have them fingerprinted, before reverting back to images of Win7).
  • I installed Virtual CloneDrive in Win7;
  • copied the Win10 iso file to the system's data partition;
  • double-clicked the iso to load it into the virtual DVD drive;
  • launched setup.exe from the virtual DVD and clicked through the first couple screens;
  • left and came back when Win10 had finished installing.




edit: re reply #13 bullet d...

No, I have seen no evidence Win10 modifies the system BIOS. You can't "patch" a BIOS, you have to reflash the whole thing, and given the wide variety and proprietary nature of OEM BIOSes, that would seem an insurmountable barrier.


 
 
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Brian
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Re: Win10 Upgrade--How best to do test it out?
Reply #16 - Jul 26th, 2016 at 9:07pm
 
@
Dan Goodell

Dan Goodell wrote on Jul 26th, 2016 at 5:33pm:
It just offends my OCD tendencies to have a bunch of single-purpose flash drives laying around that I may never, or rarely, use again in the future.


I feel the same. After I create a bootable USB flash drive I image the entire drive with IFW and use the flash drive for something else. I restore the image when needed to my fastest flash drive.
 
 
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Christer
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Re: Win10 Upgrade--How best to do test it out?
Reply #17 - Jul 27th, 2016 at 3:10am
 
Dan Goodell wrote on Jul 26th, 2016 at 5:33pm:
To each his own, of course, but I prefer creating an iso instead of a bootable flash drive. It just offends my OCD tendencies to have a bunch of single-purpose flash drives laying around that I may never, or rarely, use again in the future.


Well, I don't have more than this one. I have it in my pocket until people stop asking for help upgrading to Win 10. A DVD, burnt from the ISO ... Cool ... wouldn't fit in my pocket.
 

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand
 
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NightOwl
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Re: Win10 Upgrade--How best to do test it out?
Reply #18 - Aug 1st, 2016 at 1:23am
 
To All

Whew!  Well I made it--just under the wire!

Well, not exactly.  I got my system activation on Tues., July 26th--upgrade went without a hitch--sort of--there was an issue but turns out it had nothing to do with the upgrade program--had to do with my hardware--and not talking about *compatibility* either.

Just got under the deadline for my friend--he heard what I was doing and asked if I could help him do the same with his laptop--so started his upgrade on Thurs. evening, July 28th.  Well, I now know why at least some upgrades may not have gone well.  I'll go into details later, but let me say now that the upgrade program froze for over an hour at which point I tried to cancel--and that attempt froze for another half hour before I *pulled the plug*--not literally, but used the power button held down to force a system shut down--the system was completely frozen and nothing else would work.  I'll tell you what message I got during the shut down in the next posting!

But, I restored the image I had made, started over, and changed some settings, and the upgrade was done at 10:10 pm Fri., July 29th.  So in the end *success*, for the both of us!

Now, it's time to see what Win10 is all about, and see what I think!

(See NightOwl in a corner rocking back and forth muttering *Change is good, change is good, .......)  Wink





 

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Brian
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Re: Win10 Upgrade--How best to do test it out?
Reply #19 - Aug 4th, 2016 at 4:53pm
 
Win10 1607 ISO

Based on install.wim

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO/

Based on install.esd. Via Media Creation Tool

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I've used both. No issues.





 
 
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