Forumite Members › General Topics › Tech › Software Talk › W7 or W10
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Ed P.
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April 1, 2019 at 5:17 pm #32300
Hi all.
Been away for a while enjoying the comforts of the NHS. Recently I was reading an article that implied it was still possible to upgrade from W7 to W20 for FREE but there was a window of only a few weeks.
Is this really possible and if so how do I go about it?
I have four PCs running W7 and two still running XP (blame SWMBO).
It would also appear that W10 is plagued with update problems and I do not want any hassle at my age.
My plan was to go over to a basic Linux distro since I really could manage with that now if push came to shove. But if I can upgrade to W10 then it might be better to grab it whilst I can.
So perhaps I could seek out the opinions of this excellent body of experts
Should I jump and if so how do I go about it.
Its easy when you know how
April 1, 2019 at 5:26 pm #32301Best bet would be to grab a few Win 10 licenses from ebay for a few £ each. Personally I’d do every machine with a fresh install.
I don’t have any links to the reputable sellers on ebay but I’m sure that some will be along fairly soon with some.
Welcome back.
April 1, 2019 at 5:39 pm #32302The free upgrades are long gone, but cheap licences can be bought on E-Bay, I usually pay less than a fiver. They would require a complete reinstall, but so would Linux. You would need to make a boot USB in either case.
W10 update issues are over stated IMO, mostly things just trundle along quite happily. I’d say they are far less than troublesome than previous Windows. Linux can have it’s moments too.
I wonder if the XP machines might be a bit old for W10, you really need a decent dual core and 4GB of ram, but you must do something about them asap. One of the lighter Linux distros may be the answer, I like Lubuntu as it’s based on Ubuntu behind the scenes but has an interface I think you’ll find easier to get on with. Go for the 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” version as that’s the latest long term support (LTS) version, the newer ones contain new features that may not make it to the next LTS.
Don’t forget you can run the whole Linux thing from a USB stick, you don’t have to install it, so you can have a look at several distros before making your mind up. But I would stick with Ubuntu variants to start with as they are better supported by the community.
April 1, 2019 at 7:12 pm #32307The free upgrades have officially finished, but did a few late last year where I just loaded the old W7 key at setup (clean windows 10 install) and they happily auto-activated once 10 was installed and they went online. They may have shut that back door since but it was working before Christmas. Produkey will get you the existing W7 key if you don’t have the licence sticker or can’t read it.
April 2, 2019 at 10:03 am #32316It took me a long time to get into windws 10. evetually got there this year. I find it to be way beter than w7. Infact its really good once you learn how to drive it. A clean install helps alot in finding things out.
For the most part I have it trimmed back, so to speak and stop it from snooping.
April 2, 2019 at 12:28 pm #32320I don’t know the specs of your machines but if they can run W10 at a reasonable speed I would upgrade the lot ?
You will have to buy a few keys online for less than a tenner each but you will then have your PC’s all doing the same thing.
Windows updates ain’t so bad and if all your PC’s are on W10 then you can download once and spread the update over your own network from there.
Linux is OK but if you need a software package you will be forever asking “is there a Linux version?”.
April 2, 2019 at 10:20 pm #32349I bought win 10 pro this morning on the bay for £3 and a few pence installed and registered fine office 2019 pro cost more total spend £8.10 and one happy work mate.
April 3, 2019 at 2:42 pm #32373Thanks for the replies. After much searching I found the said article – in a copy of Computer Active. To be honest I read more into it than I should have. It said that there were people still doing it using the instal prog and I interpreted that as being still active -must do some more digging. Seems to be not a million miles away from what Mark did.
Dave, thanks to your guidance some many months ago I already have a USB stick loaded with Mint
I got caught on Ebay buying keys some time ago but finally got it sorted. Don’t want that again. Can anyone suggest a reputable seller? Perhaps not!
Its easy when you know how
April 3, 2019 at 3:07 pm #32376I’ve only ever had 1 issue and that was sorted within the hour by email no questions asked.
If I was buying W10 right now I’d be looking at this one
June 19, 2019 at 5:35 pm #34241Nearly 3 months down and still trying. I have a working system after a fashion. Getting used to it now (in much the same way as I got used to my back problem over 30 years. It is still there but at least I have learned to to ignore it most of the time!! In those two and a bit months I have had problems with my SSD drive, DVD writer, several pieces of software, boot-up and more. The throw away box yielded replacements which perhaps suggests they never were obsolete ion the first place. Do i like W10? Not yet but it took several months to get to like W7. Now my monitor is playing up. It takes about 5 minutes to fire up. Unfortunately I do not have a spare. It is linked to a bank of 4 PCs via a manual KVM switch. If I switch to another PC I get similar problems which suggests it is not a PC fault but the funny (not really funny) thing is that this did not start until W10 started. A Monitor is an expensive thing to buy if it turns out not to be a monitor fault. That leaved the KVM switch but if that is the problem then all 4 ports are faulty.
Any advice please
Its easy when you know how
June 19, 2019 at 10:03 pm #34250It’s hard to blame W10 for a monitor fault affecting multiple PCs going through another piece of hardware.
I’ve been buying AOC e2270Swn 21.5″ Widescreen TN LED Black Monitor (1920×1080/5ms/VGA) for £55 from Amazon for office PCs. Absolutely marvellous.
June 24, 2019 at 2:00 pm #34380Hi Dave. Thanks for the reply – reliable as usual.
On the day I looked the AOC was £69 but they had an HP on offer at £79. The reviews seemed slightly btter (if you can believe them) and HP is a good company so I went for that.
Just arrived this morning and using it now. It is certainly good enough for what I need these days.
Thanks again
Its easy when you know how
June 24, 2019 at 3:54 pm #34383Not much to choose between AOC and HP tbh OT, but I have had an HP VH240a for over a year now and am very happy with it. Been watching Women’s World Cup on it: full HD 1080p is brilliant, even lesser HD is good.
Have to look where I got this from, but I know I paid less than £135.60.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.October 8, 2019 at 3:59 pm #37261Hi. Just about getting used to W10. So much so that I have upgraded another machine.
Having read another article that suggested that upgrading W7 in situ would automatically install and activate W10 for free I gave it a go. Simples. Just make sure you have the right ISO – eg you cannot go from Home to Pro.
Also apparently it is not guaranteed. Perhaps it does not work for preloaded W7. My version was installed by me from CD which might make a difference.
Still, worth a try. I took a clone first in case things went belly up, but it worked a treat.
The next step is to try and upgrade my laptop because all machines were from a “family Edition” CD that allowed three systems but all with the same code. How does that work? Maybe it will not upgrade to W10. Only one way to find out.
Its easy when you know how
October 8, 2019 at 7:49 pm #37266You can get a licence activation code from e-bay for a couple of quid and all above board.
W10 comes out in updates and so M$ end support for older versions of W10. Also W10 is not 100% UEFI. For updates make sure any bios is set for UEFI/CSM other wise Major up dates will fail.
October 9, 2019 at 11:07 pm #37283Whilst I am currently waiting for my son to come and collect the new Win10 box I built for him, I have been playing with it. I am going to upgrade my 7 system asap now: don’t know what has been holding me back, I really like it.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.October 10, 2019 at 8:15 am #37287W10 is fully UEFI aware and that is in fact is prefered set up. If you install W10 on a system with CSM enabled and an unformatted hard disc of less than 2TB you will effectively get a BIOS set up with an MBR formatted disk. The link from Intel below gives some hints as to why you may have problems installing W10 in full UEFI/GPT mode.
October 10, 2019 at 8:29 am #37288Hmm. The link I wanted to post will not paste from the clipboard for some reason so above is a less detailed link, sorry 🤨
October 10, 2019 at 3:32 pm #37296Thanks for the input.
I am a luddite who strongly believes in the old maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” which is why I still use Office 97. I don’t understand UEFI although I have tried several times to get to grips with it. Maybe one day I will be forced to convert but at the moment I am totally BIOS orientated. By the time I am forced to change, I might be like Monty Python’s parrot. So it works at the moment so I won’t fix it. Anyway, some of my kit is so old it probably doesn’t support UEFI.
The point of this posting was simply to try and dispel (patially at least) some misconceptions about getting W10 for free. I have tried obtaining activation codes for free from various sources but just get “code already in use” so I have given upon that.
I suppose (if I was really keen) I could try re-installing W7 under UEFI and then upgrading, but that would be a right PITA.
Anyway, the point still stands. You can be able to upgrade to W10 for free if you are lucky..
Its easy when you know how
October 10, 2019 at 4:05 pm #37301I use Macrium Reflect to carry out backups, clone a disk and restore when moving to 10 from 7. This is what Macrium Help says:
” UEFI supports hard disks with either master boot record (MBR) or the newer GUID Partition Table (GPT) system. GPT is a newer standard that supports disks larger than 2TiB and allows for more than four primary partitions per disk.
As UEFI and GPT are increasingly widespread, older images of MBR disks often need restoring to replacement UEFI / GPT systems. ”
Then there is this:
” Rescue media created on Windows 7 and later is dual boot, meaning it boots in both MBR and UEFI mode. Boot your rescue media in UEFI mode. Consult your Motherboard user manual for information on how to do this. ”
I would think that similar programmes such as Easeus, would have the same features. So it isn’t that much of a problem OT: as I said earlier, I moved my son’s PC to 10 from 7 and have been playing with it since he has been too busy to call for it. I have the ISO on a USB stick and I intend to upgrade mine to 10 asap. I also had Office 97 Pro and Publisher, left from my last work as a self-employed Designer and Printer. I had to change when the disc became corrupted and I moved to Open Office, which does everything I need and is free. The fact is that Windows 7 is a dead duck by January and I would rather change now than wait, especially as I can upgrade from 7 with no problems. and no fee. As it gets closer to January 2020, the Scam Vultures will be gathering over the corpse of 7 with fake Win 10 Keys and fake discs.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out. -
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