Dell L502X win 10 drivers

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?

Dan wrote:
I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?

This is a hit in a Google search.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-42937119211c

The experiences are mixed. The procedures "scary",
as one person is suggesting a BIOS update to make
this work.

You would expect trouble with the graphics. One
person reported "fuzzy" graphics, which means the
resolution is not set to native resolution.

Read all the replies before making plans.

Paul

On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:22:14 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?

This is a hit in a Google search.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...8-42937119211c

The experiences are mixed. The procedures "scary",
as one person is suggesting a BIOS update to make
this work.

You would expect trouble with the graphics. One
person reported "fuzzy" graphics, which means the
resolution is not set to native resolution.

Read all the replies before making plans.

Paul


Thanks, Nvidia do a full Win 10 64 525M driver now.
But I am after other drivers.

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?

Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.

On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?

Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.


Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.


Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?

With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.


Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?

With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul


Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.

Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul


Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?

The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.

Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul


Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?

The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul


Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.
Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul

Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?
The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul


Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?

So it's some kind of restore disc ?

Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download
as an example.

Win10_1809_English_x64.iso

sources\
efi\
boot\
support\
bootmgr.efi
bootmgr
setup.exe ===
autorun.inf

*******

The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install
was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had
to define a new user account, none of my programs
were present, and so on. I didn't test that in
the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install
keeping programs and data).

The image of the recovery looks like this

boot\
EFI\
sources\
System Volume Information\
bootmgr
BOOTNXT
reagent.xml

and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs
that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade
installs (keep user programs and user data).

The Dell instructions are here, for their media.
And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except
the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en

Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc
over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files
and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point.
The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the
Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro
install activates.

But if the Dell looks like that one above without the
setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is
"Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to
that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe
program, would it behave differently or better.

Paul

On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.
Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul

Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?
The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul


Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?

So it's some kind of restore disc ?

Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download
as an example.

Win10_1809_English_x64.iso

sources\
efi\
boot\
support\
bootmgr.efi
bootmgr
setup.exe ===
autorun.inf

*******

The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install
was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had
to define a new user account, none of my programs
were present, and so on. I didn't test that in
the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install
keeping programs and data).

The image of the recovery looks like this

boot\
EFI\
sources\
System Volume Information\
bootmgr
BOOTNXT
reagent.xml

and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs
that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade
installs (keep user programs and user data).

The Dell instructions are here, for their media.
And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except
the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en

Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc
over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files
and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point.
The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the
Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro
install activates.

But if the Dell looks like that one above without the
setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is
"Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to
that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe
program, would it behave differently or better.

Paul

Cheers,

I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter
if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of
Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro.

I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion
from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend

Dan wrote:
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.
Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul
Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?
The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul

Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?
So it's some kind of restore disc ?

Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download
as an example.

Win10_1809_English_x64.iso

sources\
efi\
boot\
support\
bootmgr.efi
bootmgr
setup.exe ===
autorun.inf

*******

The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install
was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had
to define a new user account, none of my programs
were present, and so on. I didn't test that in
the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install
keeping programs and data).

The image of the recovery looks like this

boot\
EFI\
sources\
System Volume Information\
bootmgr
BOOTNXT
reagent.xml

and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs
that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade
installs (keep user programs and user data).

The Dell instructions are here, for their media.
And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except
the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en

Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc
over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files
and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point.
The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the
Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro
install activates.

But if the Dell looks like that one above without the
setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is
"Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to
that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe
program, would it behave differently or better.

Paul

Cheers,

I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter
if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of
Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro.

I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion
from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend

On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA)
has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that
license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost
every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license
key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by
all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft
media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become
unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine
family.

On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think
there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table
in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in
it for the named OS.

OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference
is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table
says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP
DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically.
Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners.

Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked".
They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What
that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the
Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version
(Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine).
Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different
OSes with them (as long as you have drivers).

The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but
people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here,
as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a
valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out.

I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft
install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working
out, you can restore from backup.

You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There
is 30 days grace, to enter the key.

The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the
key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of
their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the
battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage.

Paul

On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:22:48 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.
Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul
Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?
The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul

Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?
So it's some kind of restore disc ?

Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download
as an example.

Win10_1809_English_x64.iso

sources\
efi\
boot\
support\
bootmgr.efi
bootmgr
setup.exe ===
autorun.inf

*******

The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install
was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had
to define a new user account, none of my programs
were present, and so on. I didn't test that in
the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install
keeping programs and data).

The image of the recovery looks like this

boot\
EFI\
sources\
System Volume Information\
bootmgr
BOOTNXT
reagent.xml

and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs
that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade
installs (keep user programs and user data).

The Dell instructions are here, for their media.
And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except
the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en

Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc
over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files
and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point.
The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the
Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro
install activates.

But if the Dell looks like that one above without the
setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is
"Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to
that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe
program, would it behave differently or better.

Paul

Cheers,

I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter
if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of
Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro.

I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion
from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend

On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA)
has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that
license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost
every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license
key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by
all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft
media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become
unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine
family.

On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think
there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table
in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in
it for the named OS.

OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference
is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table
says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP
DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically.
Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners.

Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked".
They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What
that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the
Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version
(Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine).
Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different
OSes with them (as long as you have drivers).

The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but
people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here,
as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a
valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out.

I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft
install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working
out, you can restore from backup.

You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There
is 30 days grace, to enter the key.

The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the
key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of
their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the
battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage.

Paul


Hello Paul,

I have drivers for Win 8 64 from Dell and a readable COA from my
machine. So, I will try Win 8 64 driver first after installing Win 10
pro.
But first I will back up my Win 7 64 Ultimate as a full image. Just in
case things do not go well at least I will have a working laptop
again.
Do I need a microsoft account when installing Win 10?

Dan wrote:
On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:22:48 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.
Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul
Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?
The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul
Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?
So it's some kind of restore disc ?

Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download
as an example.

Win10_1809_English_x64.iso

sources\
efi\
boot\
support\
bootmgr.efi
bootmgr
setup.exe ===
autorun.inf

*******

The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install
was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had
to define a new user account, none of my programs
were present, and so on. I didn't test that in
the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install
keeping programs and data).

The image of the recovery looks like this

boot\
EFI\
sources\
System Volume Information\
bootmgr
BOOTNXT
reagent.xml

and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs
that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade
installs (keep user programs and user data).

The Dell instructions are here, for their media.
And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except
the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en

Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc
over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files
and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point.
The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the
Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro
install activates.

But if the Dell looks like that one above without the
setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is
"Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to
that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe
program, would it behave differently or better.

Paul
Cheers,

I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter
if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of
Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro.

I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion
from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend
On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA)
has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that
license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost
every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license
key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by
all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft
media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become
unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine
family.

On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think
there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table
in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in
it for the named OS.

OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference
is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table
says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP
DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically.
Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners.

Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked".
They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What
that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the
Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version
(Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine).
Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different
OSes with them (as long as you have drivers).

The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but
people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here,
as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a
valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out.

I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft
install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working
out, you can restore from backup.

You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There
is 30 days grace, to enter the key.

The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the
key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of
their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the
battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage.

Paul


Hello Paul,

I have drivers for Win 8 64 from Dell and a readable COA from my
machine. So, I will try Win 8 64 driver first after installing Win 10
pro.
But first I will back up my Win 7 64 Ultimate as a full image. Just in
case things do not go well at least I will have a working laptop
again.
Do I need a microsoft account when installing Win 10?

No, you can install with a local account, as Dan Smith

c:\users\dan smith

and apply an MSA later. It might change your login. Maybe after
the MSA, you're and the login screen makes
some mention of that. But the home directory can retain your
real name, for local purposes, making it easier.

If instead, you installed the MSA right away, the home
directory would be

c:\users\creat

which wouldn't be nearly as nice.

You have to look carefully at the small print, to find
the "local" account option. You will be prompted a second
time with regard to "look at all you are missing by not using
an MSA", and you can deny the MSA a second time and fill
out the usual local account details instead.

You might still have problems with file sharing, because
of that MSA. I have one setup, where I made a second
account, just so I'd have something to log into when doing
file sharing. Because file sharing with the MSA in the way,
was a problem.

Paul

On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 08:00:11 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Sat, 24 Nov 2018 04:22:48 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Fri, 23 Nov 2018 17:06:59 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 05:35:18 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 02:39:50 -0500, Paul
wrote:

Dan wrote:
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:34:15 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

Dan wrote:

I am looking for Dell L502X win 10 drivers 64 bit.
Dell only do Win 8.1 64 bit.
Can I install Win 10 64 pro on this laptop?
Many laptops, notebooks, and other pre-builts are designed to work with
only the OS with which they were imaged by the OEM'er. It saves them on
support costs to support only what they configured in their design.
They don't support earlier or later versions of the OS. You can only
hope that drivers that worked in image with a particular OS version they
designed will continue to work in later versions of the OS.

You could install Windows 10 on that laptop but it may not function
correctly without valid support from the hardware vendor(s). Pretty
much with the pre-builts, you are stuck with what they put on them and
what they will later support.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...-l502x/drivers

For the L502X, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8 x64 are the only versions of
Windows that Dells supports for that laptop. You could install Win10
and hope the old drivers still work, or the ones included in Win10. If
you contact Dell, their likely response would be that they do not
recommend putting Windows 10 on that product.

If you decide to move forward to Windows 10, Dell does list some BIOS
updates. Check what you have as Dell may have a later version (A12 is
the latest they list, dated 05-Mar-2014). Don't go by the "Last
Updated" datestamp. Expand each BIOS entry to see it release date.
Make damn sure the laptop's battery is fully charged before doing a BIOS
update, and that it's not so old that it doesn't retain much of a
charge. If the laptop loses power during a BIOS update, it can get
bricked (worthless, can burn the BIOS again). Make sure you install the
latest version of all the drivers from Dell's site. Do the BIOS and
driver update while you are still running Windows 8, not after you
attempt to upgrade to Windows 10. Do an upgrade to Windows 10, not a
full or OEM install, to tag along all the drivers you updated under
Windows 8. They may list more drivers than for the hardware you have
since they may produce the same model with different hardware
(pre-builts are sold based on specifications, not specific hardware).
There is a "Detect Drivers" link, so maybe they offer a client that will
scan the hardware and select the appropriate drivers to get updated. I
doubt it will offer a BIOS update. You need to be sure to have the
latest if you're going to move away from their supported images to
something they don't support.

Other than for the BIOS update, make sure to save a full image backup of
the partitions on your hard drive(s). In case the above doesn't work,
you'll need an escape route to get back to where you were (Windows 8).
You won't be able to revert to the prior BIOS version unless their
updater saves a .bin file of the current BIOS code before burning in the
new version's code.
Thanks for the detailed advice.
I have already backed up all my data, have my Win 7 64 ultimate DVD
from Dell ready and are in the progress of getting drivers for Win 8
or if available Win 10.
I have a Dell win 10 pro DVD, so I can start the upgrade to win 10
from inside Win 7?
With Windows 7 running, see if the Dell DVD has "setup.exe" on it,
as that's what Microsoft Win10 discs use. There are various ways OSes
can be installed, and an OEM OS could just be a compressed image, rather
than a Microsoft installer. Microsoft media has "setup.exe" at the
top level. (You only need to boot the DVD, if doing a clean install
and wiping everything.)

While an OS is running, you can use a DVD or mount the Win10 ISO file as a
virtual DVD and do these combinations:

Win7 SP1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win8.1 -- Win10 upgrade
Win10 -- Win10 ("repair install" is possible)

The install will create C:\Windows.old and put the new OS
in C:\Windows. Windows.old contains more than just the OS
folder, it also contains sundry Program Files materials, or
anything that was touched by migration. You don't rename the
folder to revert, and there is a control you use if needing
to revert Windows.old.

The OS installer should mention if a program isn't compatible
with the new OS and it will do something about it.

The first phase of the installation, is the "Copy files" phase.
You can remove the DVD before the computer boots the hard drive
for the second phase. The DVD doesn't have to stay in the drive.
This is also why mounting the ISO file itself from Explorer works,
as when the OS reboots for the first time, the ISO is dismounted
and won't be remounted on the second phase.

You will be asked silly questions about using a Microsoft Account
(MSA) for login. Such an account allows "syncing" and "cloud functions"
between machines in your computer room using the same account. But if
you use an MSA, the C:\users\username will be based on the first syllable
of your MSA email address. So if you were ,
your new home directory would be C:\users\bozo.

If, instead, you create a local account, you type in Dan Smith,
and the home directory will be C:\users\dan smith. You can later
associate an MSA with the Dan Smith account, but that won't
change the folder name already selected.

When the OS comes up for the final time, it will pick a time to
grab updates to the Store Apps. It might load up on backgrounds
for the lock screen, or whatever. It'll need to fetch a 140MB
Windows Defender file. The OS will also pick up the current
Patch Tuesday Cumulative. So while the "winver.exe" value might
be 17763.1 after the install finishes, you might be pestered
once again to reboot, when the Cumulative installs 17763.55
or later.

To see your activation status, you can use

slmgr /dlv

Windows.old sticks around for up to ten days, before it is
auto-deleted. If you're confident you won't need to "revert"
the OS to Win7 SP1, you can use "cleanmgr.exe", click the
system button, and there will be a remove previous OS button
in there somewhere. That will delete the Windows.old, returning
20GB of disk space perhaps. (The OS takes around 10GB when brand
new, but user installations of programs will make it bigger. As
would various patches.) The OSes since Vista, 10GB is a good
ballpark figure for how much space is needed.

There will be a hiberfile and pagefile. If you had 64GB of
RAM, the hibernation file would be 48GB. Some people with
tiny tiny SSDs hate this, and they do

powercfg /h off

to disable hibernation as well as Fast Boot. That would then
cause hiberfil.sys to be deleted immediately. If the installer
was tight for space, it would crank down the size of the
hiberfile automatically. In space constrained situations,
the installer tries to leave 3GB of space on C: and adjusts
some of these things to make it all fit.

You can adjust the pagefile size if you want, using the
System control panel.

To access Control Panels, execute "control" in the right-click
run box in the lower left corner, then when the icon is on
the task bar, right click and Pin it. This will make the control
panel available without additional fuss. Setting the control
panel display to "small icons" will bring a familiar look. Selecting
the "System" control panel, will (eventually) give you
access to the pagefile setting.

What I do, on a large RAM machine, is set the pagefile to 1GB
and make it a fixed size so it cannot grow. Win10 is pretty
good about not "spraying" the pagefile, and the lack of spraying
behavior mostly eliminates concerns about "burning" a new SSD
with pagefile accesses. Setting the pagefile to 1GB, reduces
the disk space used, rather than changing the degree of
spraying. Saved space is the main benefit of trimming it.

As long as you have a backup of the drive, a complete image
of the disk, you have nothing to worry about.

If you're using Bitlocker, or have Secure Boot or things
dependent on a TPM chip, you may want to consult "best practices"
for Bitlocker, before you begin. The above instructions are not
an attempt to describe what to do if you're doing whole disk
encryption. Apparently Bitlocker will use the disk internal
encryption features, if available. Anything involving encryption,
even EFS, you should have your "password recovery" disc or
whatever passes for a best practice for ensuring access
to files later.

Paul
Brilliant, thanks again. I have installed Windows since Win 3.11,
but Win 10 is so different.

The laptop has 8GB RAM and a sata Crucial M550 512GB SSD.

I was thinking of fresh re-installing Win 7 64 Ultimate with all the
relevant drivers and then using Dell Win 10 pro DVD as an upgrade by
starting 'setup.exe" within Windows 7 64 ultimate environment. That
way nothing gets in the way to getting a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

So if I cannot find Win 10 64 drivers, can I try using Win 8.1 64
versions?

If I upgrade bios to latest, (A12) will I be allowed to install Win 10
pro 64 since I think the Internet says I need uefi bios. Finally the
web cam, I use Skype quite a lot, according to my research, it has no
drivers for it in Win 10 pro 64?
The INF file in the driver itself, may indicate valid OS versions.

The OS can reject something that doesn't meet a signing requirement
or whatever. But I don't know if the OS has any ability to "suss"
what a driver is doing. The driver writer is usually a defensive
driver, only indicating "validity" in the INF file, for things
that have actually been tested.

There are drivers that most likely were Win8.1 era in
the system, but it's hard to say how they were made to
install. And whether the driver writer knew that the
subsystems wouldn't be changing for Win10 first release.
Some hardware companies seemed to receive little advance
notice of what was required of them.

In Win10, since the "frameserve" feature was added to the OS,
application usage of webcams has been a problem. For example,
I had trouble getting the Camera App to work with my Logitech
camera. The symptoms can vary from one day to the next. The
last time I tried, the Camera App could open the camera, but
only offered 640x480. To use your webcam in Skype, don't
forget to enable the "smartphone permissions" in the Settings
dialog. You have to allow both video and microphone access
(two sliders) for it to work. Some applications just bail, if
one slider is on, the other slider off. There is generally poor
feedback about where to look to fix a shortcoming.

Whether to use UEFI or not, you'd look in the BIOS to
see what options are present. Boxes which support UEFI+CSM
can work either in legacy or UEFI install mode. Some boxes
may only have UEFI, and the only other option is Secure
Boot or not Secure Boot. Which can make it a challenge
to install third-party OSes (or perhaps, even an older
Windows OS). UEFI is not a vanity item as such. Legacy
boot works just fine, and that's what I use on my
UEFI+CSM capable box. In the popup boot, I boot the
OS disc for some OS, in legacy mode, and do legacy
installs on the four partition MSDOS partitioned disk.

Intel promises that in a few years, there won't be any
legacy boot option at all. It will be "pure" UEFI.

I've tested UEFI, but only long enough to verify that
the UEFI on my Asus motherboard, is better than the UEFI
emulation in VirtualBox. The VirtualBox experience wasn't
a good emulation of what to expect on real hardware. The
real hardware behaved better.

Paul
Hello Paul,

just looked at the Dell Win 10 pro 64 bit DVD, it has no 'setup.exe'.

How do I run the setup (Win 10 pro 64 bit) inside Win 7 64 bit
Ultimate Windows that is already installed?
So it's some kind of restore disc ?

Using 7ZIP, I can examine the Microsoft 1809 ISO download
as an example.

Win10_1809_English_x64.iso

sources\
efi\
boot\
support\
bootmgr.efi
bootmgr
setup.exe ===
autorun.inf

*******

The only test I did on a RecoveryDisk, the install
was an OOBE (out-of-box-experience), where I had
to define a new user account, none of my programs
were present, and so on. I didn't test that in
the situation you're attempting (Upgrade install
keeping programs and data).

The image of the recovery looks like this

boot\
EFI\
sources\
System Volume Information\
bootmgr
BOOTNXT
reagent.xml

and you're right, there's no Setup.exe, and that telegraphs
that this kind of media is not intended for Repair/Upgrade
installs (keep user programs and user data).

The Dell instructions are here, for their media.
And it looks a lot like a RecoveryDisk method. Except
the Dell disc really should create a recovery partition too.

https://www.dell.com/support/article...ll-iso?lang=en

Even if you install the Microsoft Win10 Pro disc
over the Dell Win7 Ult, yes, that'll keep your files
and programs, but the OS won't be a Dell OS at that point.
The drivers won't be there. You can try typing in the
Win7 COA key if you want, and see if the Microsoft Win10 Pro
install activates.

But if the Dell looks like that one above without the
setup.exe on it, then all it'll be able to do is
"Nuke and Pave", at a guess. Only if Dell added value to
that disc and didn't just use the Microsoft RecoveryDisk.exe
program, would it behave differently or better.

Paul
Cheers,

I want to have a fresh install of Win 10 pro.

Since I have back ups of all my data and programs, it does not matter
if I 'lose' everything since all I want is a clean fresh install of
Win 10 pro. Yes it is a recovery DVD of Win 10 pro.

I think the COA is in the bios? I have downloaded the latest verion
from Dell version A12. I will run this over the weekend
On a Windows 7 computer, the Certificate Of Authenticity (COA)
has the optional Windows 7 license key on it. You can use that
license key, in the event the hard drive dies, and you lost
every bit of Dell restoration software. Normally, the license
key in the Dell OS right now, is a generic key shared by
all Dell owners. *Only* when you reinstall using Microsoft
media, and use that COA sticker key, does the key become
unique and unlike any other Dell owner of the same machine
family.

On Dell Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 computers, I don't think
there is a COA sticker on the outside. Instead, the MSDM table
in the BIOS ACPI table, has a machine-unique license key in
it for the named OS.

OSes before Win8.1/10 used the ACPI SLIC table. The difference
is, the SLIC table doesn't have a key. But the SLIC table
says "I'm a Dell". When a Dell Win7 DVD, a Vista DVD or a WinXP
DVD sees the "I'm a Dell" thing, the OS activates automatically.
Each OS would have its own generic key, seen by other owners.

Whereas, in a sense, the Win8.1 and Win10 Dells are "key locked".
They're being activated by an actual key in the BIOS chip. What
that also means, is barring any other special deals (like the
Win10 Upgrade deal), the MSDM key only works with one OS version
(Win 8.1 on a Win 8.1 era machine, Win10 with a Win10 era machine).
Whereas older machines with a SLIC, you can run three different
OSes with them (as long as you have drivers).

The Microsoft Upgrade deal, officially ended some time ago, but
people keep using the method. I have no way to test this here,
as I'd need computers that "Microsoft has never seen", plus a
valid Win7 license key to burn, to test it out.

I don't know what's going to happen when you try your Microsoft
install. Make a backup, and get to it :-) If it isn't working
out, you can restore from backup.

You don't have to enter a license key while installing. There
is 30 days grace, to enter the key.

The COA sticker isn't always readable - many people have the
key scratched off, because the sticker was on the bottom of
their laptop. Good manufacturers, they hide the COA in the
battery bay, where there is less chance of abrasion damage.

Paul


Hello Paul,

I have drivers for Win 8 64 from Dell and a readable COA from my
machine. So, I will try Win 8 64 driver first after installing Win 10
pro.
But first I will back up my Win 7 64 Ultimate as a full image. Just in
case things do not go well at least I will have a working laptop
again.
Do I need a microsoft account when installing Win 10?

No, you can install with a local account, as Dan Smith

c:\users\dan smith

and apply an MSA later. It might change your login. Maybe after
the MSA, you're and the login screen makes
some mention of that. But the home directory can retain your
real name, for local purposes, making it easier.

If instead, you installed the MSA right away, the home
directory would be

c:\users\creat

which wouldn't be nearly as nice.

You have to look carefully at the small print, to find
the "local" account option. You will be prompted a second
time with regard to "look at all you are missing by not using
an MSA", and you can deny the MSA a second time and fill
out the usual local account details instead.

You might still have problems with file sharing, because
of that MSA. I have one setup, where I made a second
account, just so I'd have something to log into when doing
file sharing. Because file sharing with the MSA in the way,
was a problem.

Paul


Thanks again.