End Of Windows 7 Support?

Frank99

I have 2 laptops one with windows 8.1 and the other with Windows 7 and of course the message of no more windows 7 support has emerged.
I am looking to upgrade the windows 7 laptop to 10 but what is the best way of doing this, buying a disc or dowloading off the ms website, i heard that i might lose windows media player as it is not included with windows 10 but i don't know how true this is.:o

A_Lert

You can download Windows 10 from Microsoft using the "Media Creation Tool". The tool can be slow and finicky so plan on it taking an hour or so, even with superfast broadband.


In my experience a Windows 7 product key will activate Windows 10. If you don't have the sticker on your PC or it's worn out, there are programs that can get the product key from your installed Windows 7/8.1.


If that key doesn't work, you'll have to pay for a new Windows 10 license.


Windows 10 has new music and video playing apps, Groove for music and Movies for video files. If you don't like them you can download something else, but I don't think "classic" Windows Media Player works on Win10. (I use VLC because it plays just about anything).



As ever, make and check backups before doing stuff.

Frank99

Brilliant, i'll try this over the weekend, i ignored the old 2016 update reminders.

grumpycrab

I've helped a couple of people to go from 7 -> 10 this week. My notes...
upgrading takes bloody ages; best to clean install; best to clean install to an ssd. Oh and is everything backed up? And repeat that last sentence.

Seen issues with... upgrade process failed; upgrade process lost "pictures" folder -a bit weird that one- documents ok. You have backed up?

The upgrade process on a mechanical drive is painfully slow; it should work but best to do overnight.

So best to clean install to ssd; make note of programs you will need to reinstall and also windows 7 key BUT also run gatherosstate.... (step 4 here)
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-first.html

EveryWhere

Frank99 wrote: »

Brilliant, i'll try this over the weekend, i ignored the old 2016 update reminders.

Solid state drives as aforementioned, bring old and slow laptops up to date.
So the advice would be to swap the old and slow storage method within, for a new, much faster storage drive and then install Windows 10 to it. They start from £16.

Can take as little as five minutes to swap the drives. But we need to know the brand names and model numbers to be sure.

cherry76

Frank99 wrote: »

I have 2 laptops one with windows 8.1 and the other with Windows 7 and of course the message of no more windows 7 support has emerged.
I am looking to upgrade the windows 7 laptop to 10 but what is the best way of doing this, buying a disc or dowloading off the ms website, i heard that i might lose windows media player as it is not included with windows 10 but i don't know how true this is.:o

I am new to windows 10. I am using Irfanview to view photos and vlc for videos, the defaults ones do not work. I can also open windows media player for video, apps installed by dell are no good.

Neil_Jones

cherry76 wrote: »

I am new to windows 10. I am using Irfanview to view photos and vlc for videos, the defaults ones do not work. I can also open windows media player for video, apps installed by dell are no good.

Those are not issues with Windows 10, those are issues with your media.

movilogo

If you are having an up to date anti-virus, continuing with Windows 7 is not a big problem in near future.

AndyPix

movilogo wrote: »

If you are having an up to date anti-virus, continuing with Windows 7 is not a big problem in near future.

^^ Absolute rubbish - please ignore this terrible advice.


Anti-virus solutions are of no use whatsoever against the kind of issues that an out of date operating system leads to ..


Wether you end up having 'big problems' or not is another matter - but any anti-virus that you have installed will not be part of the equation