Robert in CA wrote:


It seems that Win 10 over Win 7 is the easiest to install and use
but won't I have to change how I do backups or will it stay the
same? I will have to re-do my backup 2TB replacement HD's which
are already formatted with Win7. So I would have to re-format them
correct?

I just leery about using Win 10, I like Win 7 Pro allot and know
nothing about Win 10 or how to use it but I guess I don't have any
choice. That was the reason for all the backups but I forgot about
support ending. Also will the download give me Win 10 professional?

Thanks,
Robert

The "Win10 over Win7" preserves your programs and user files.

The drive letters might change a bit, so it's possible the info in
the setup file for Macrium will need to be redone.

And you can plug in your clone drives and do "Win10 over Win7"
on those to bring them up to date.

When you do your OS install, only the one hard drive is
connected at a time. That's to avoid "confusion" for the
installer.

And whether you make everything in the room "Win10" is up to
you. You could leave a clone drive with Win7 on it.

The important part, is to generate a "Digital Entitlement"
using your Win7 key for the "Free Upgrade". Once you generate
the key for the machine (the very first install does this),
then any subsequent installs of Windows 10 on the same machine,
use the same key.

Drive #1 Win10 key abcde fghij...

(Clone) Drive #2 Win10 key abcde fghij...

You've got this situation already, in that you have
multiple drives that belong to the 8500, all with
Windows 7 that use the same key.

The multiple disks for the 780, all use the key that
the 780 was assigned.

And when doing Win10 over Win7, the same "key goes with machine"
will take place.

and the only tiny detail, is remembering to disable Avira or AVG,
before doing the Setup.exe off the DVD you'll be making.

And the disc you download, has to match the version of Windows 7
that is installed now. Home == Home, Professional == Professional.
The disc you download will have seven different flavors of Win10
on it, include Home and Pro. So that one disc has those two covered.
The one disc has all the x64 bit versions on it. The second
disk they offer is x86 for people who want a 32 bit OS instead.

You can check the System Control Panel on your Win7 machines
and check the details. Or use Start : Run and execute "winver"
to get some details and double check.

And if there is trouble, you can boot the Installer DVD and
run Command Prompt from it, to do various kinds of repairs.
Like, you could boot that DVD, and run "chkdsk" from Command Prompt.

But one question would be "how compatible is Windows 10". Well,
Win10 makes a royal mess of the NTFS on the C: drive,
and causes all sorts of nightmares for routine maintenance.
It damages $MFTMIRR on some partitions, and the
Win7 chkdsk can fix that, while the Win10 chkdsk won't
fix it. It takes me a lot longer to do various kinds
of setups, because of all the rules I have to remember
because "Win10 has bad table manners".

So while on the one hand, I'm "excited" about getting
something free, the setup I used to have was quite stable
and not a pain in the ass. And that's something the
old setup had going for it.

As it is, when I'm finished with this post, now I have to
go repair my Win10. Earlier today, I tried to do a Macrium backup
and it threw a new error code (it wasn't an Error 9 either). Then,
I tried to run CHKDSK on C: just in case there really was a problem
with it, but the CHKDSK button you click to access Event Viewer,
the Event Viewer plugin wouldn't load, and it still would not
load after a reboot. So now I have to come up with a plan as
to how to repair it. I will likely be doing a 1903
"install over top", just like what we've been
discussing. Grrr. More hours wasted.

Paul