Oh come on. Do you have to turn a really useful thread into an argument?

Let's wind back and not get our wires crossed, I am just wanting to make sure the OP is not in a grey area.

The OP (tazwhoever) originally had Vista on the machine and upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium. At some point it would not let him upgrade to Windows 10 due to unsuitable hardware.

I went back through the thread and apologies if I missed it or it's from a different thread where does it mention that this particular bios allows different OS versions to be installed. It's good practice to update the bios to the latest available version and will solve some issues like RAM compatibility.

Whether the one hosted on Mega has any additional tweaks it is not obvious. Whether it has
tweaks to allow embedded SLP to activate other versions of Windows is not clear on this thread.

Given the OP's machine came with Vista then there may not be reinstallation discs available with drivers that are suitable for Windows 7. The Dell download site does not have drivers later than Vista but they may well be obtainable elsewhere i.e. Intel or via Windows Update

So if a Dell OEM disk for Windows 7 Pro, works on the machine due to a modified bios and correctly activates still does not make it a legal copy. The bios does not make it legal, Dell will not have paid additional funds to MS for this particular machine.

A quick Google and the upgrade cost from 7 Home Premium to Pro was around $90 so it is not a free upgrade.

Apologies if too long a post or too MS Policey but I cannot see how else you can legally do it.

No and I had hoped I would not do.

However I feel that it is right to point out just because you can install the OS from a disk and a bios update may well be modified to allow that software to be activated does not make it legal to do so.

Would a person doing so get caught, highly unlikely, but that does not make it right either.

You really should do the work yourself. Simply from the standpoint that you will understand how things work and not have to hand it over to a repairman every time something simple goes wrong.
PCs were designed to be modular. That is, user upgradeable. Everything just slots into place. There is no complicated wiring etc. You can literally slot the RAM in and swap the HDD to SSD in five minutes.
Forget about cloning the HDD. Why take old rubbish into the new house? Just transfer what you need after the Windows 7 installation.
As soon as you install Windows 7, I can show you how to back up the Windows 7 activation and clean install Windows 10.

Best to put certain characters on ignore. They are only cluttering the thread with long winded and pedantic posts and continued arguments. Almost every post filled with scaremongering.

This is a website dedicated to saving money, not wasting it unnecessarily.

For example, the machine that he has recommended to you can be purchased for between £50 to £85 with a mechanical hard drive(HDD). The addition of a 120 GB SSD costs £25.
Therefore you can have the same machine, same spec for between £75 to £110.
Yet he claims it is good value at £250.It doesn't even write to DVD.
Example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/HP-8200-Elite-500GB-Intel-Core-i5-2nd-Gen-3-1GHz-4GB-Desktop-XY146ET/129653539

He doesn't care about you. he cares about his ego.

Since when did the forums allow the discussion of unlicensed software. It's not your issue it's the OPs risk to take. I am pointing out the legality of it, nothing you have done gives you a licence for Windows 7 Pro.

I did not say it was good value, I said for the same money you could get. Yes you can cheaper but then you have to add the bits the warranty, RAM, the SSD, reinstall the OS etc. somebody has to pay for that or do you work for free...

Drivers are here

It's simply not worth paying someone else to do the work, on a ten year old machine.

Then you might as well buy a better spec, as the labour charge would make the upgrade path unattractive.

Random example; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/very-fast-Dell-OptiPlex-7010-Desktop-Intel-Core-i5-4GB-RAM-120GB-SSD-Win-10-Pro/263640800495 £103
Slightly better than the machine suggested by CM, but almost £150 less.

OS will will be fully activated and registered with Microsoft using my upgrade guide, as per the DELL/Microsoft Royalty OEM agreement.
No need to get involved in spurious arguments about it.

Yep looks a reasonable machine I am sure if OP shops round a bit more he could find some good deals, with 12 months warranty etc. You don't have to spend much to get a reasonable machine all ready to go.

Yes and as I said it would be fully activated and registered because at the end of the day it uses one of Dell's volume licence key. However this is the important it does not make it legal, something you fail to grasp. Dell only paid an OEM cost for his original machine not an additional licence. Hence my statement the risk of getting caught is very low, but you are not correctly licensed. Save money by all means but do it properly. It's the same as you sharing a multiple activation key with him no different to that.

Macrium Reflect is free cloning software that is excellent.
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

And... I'm still puzzled by the idea that a BIOS update gives access to a free upgrade to Win7 Pro... :-/

The thread is much easier to peruse once you know how to use the Ignore function.

So..one can pick up a machine with as SSD already fitted for mere £65, here; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-OPTIPLEX-7010-Intel-i3-3240-3-4Ghz-4Gb-RAM-120Gb-SSD-HDMI-TOWER/123114423819

Which is why it's a waste of money paying someone to upgrade your machine. You can do it yourself and even buy the kids the machine above and still be within a £100 spend.

There is nothing to stop the OP from upgrading to Windows 10 Home as you say MS encourage it.

The cost of upgrading from Windows 10 Home to 10 Professional is still around $100 or so depending on the country.

Its not a free upgrade by manipulating an OEM version...

Suggest EveryWhere if he is ignoring me or not has a read here of this

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-microsoft-wont-tell-you-about-windows-7-licensing/

Even the bit about 32 vs 64bit

You still don't get it though or don't care one of the two. You are the one that seems adamant on suggesting scoring of points and defending your position.

Let me playback what you have said, feel free to disagree or probably ignore:-

What you are stating is, that this machine and infact all Dell machines that were licensed under Dells Royalty OEM for Windows 7 Home Premium can simply do a clean install of a fresh copy of Windows 7 Professional from Dell discs with a bios "fix" and no additional cost, all courtesy of Dell licence agreement with Microsoft. The costs are covered by Dell's agreement, and MS is not going to care that it is missing out on licence costs.

Except they are not, the correct legal way as mentioned several times on the Dell website is to buy an upgrade key which is not particularly cheap and use that. No need to reinstall the OS if just changing from HP to Pro.

You method is bending and breaking the rules end of.

Is there much benefit in updating a basic pc, from home to pro?
For me it would for W10 to W10 pro, the PC is used for internet, basic office type work, youtube etc.
Cant see that i would use the additional features of the Pro however is supposed to have less bloatware,,, so should run quicker?

Thanks

Yesterday it was a Dell latest version of the bios modified cracked to allow installs, hosted on a file sharing site.

At the point of sale Dell themselves charge an extra £46.80 for an upgrade from Win 10 Home to Win 10 Pro. The guidance on various websites including MS, Dell and HP requires buying a product key even for OEM machines.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12384/windows-10-upgrading-home-to-pro

What is your method of upgrade, do you use a new key?

Are you running a desktop or laptop.

Bloatware normally comes from the manufacturer of the machine adding additional software that you may or may not need. If you do a clean install of an OS you do not get this bloatware. Upgrading to Pro via the upgrade path will not get rid of any though.

For a laptop it gives you Bitlocker encryption which encrypts your hard drive so if it is removed from your machine then you cannot access the files normally with out the encryption key. Most other functions are useful if you have multiple machines joined to a domain.

The bios file that Everywhere linked to earlier, is a modified bios file hosted on the anonymous file sharing site Mega.

Dell use unique filenames in their bios files that correspond to the version of the bios. New version, new file name.

The latest version of the bios on Dell's website shares the same filename as the mega one, however the file is very much different in binary content. Therefore it has been modified, with the right tools this is not hard.

This is no different to using a crack or other exploit to manipulate the licensing OEM or otherwise.

If this didn't matter we could all buy our machines with the lowest version of Windows from any given vendor and upgrade when we felt like it at no additional cost. No need for vendors\MS to charge money for an upgrade to Pro\Ultimate etc.

They may well be making large profits from this but that is their business model, and we might be trying to save money here but skirting round the issue and hiding behind an OEM royalty agreement is not an excuse.

Thanks,

Could you kindly let me know which SSD drive and Ram 4GB/8GB I could buy from Amazon. I don't shop from eBay.

Hi
If you go to the crucial website, they have a program you can download onto your pc, This will tell you correct type of memory to buy and the SSD .
http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/upgrades?cm_re=uk-top-nav-_-uk-flyout-upgrades-_-uk-upgrades-home

You can then buy from their, our google for the same items.
Just purchased this today
https://www.mymemory.co.uk/integral-120gb-p-series-5-sata-iii-2-5-ssd-drive-560mb-s.html

I updated my own pc yesterday from 8.1 to 10, with the free microsoft update offer, which is still going on despite it says it finished... keys are in bios.

Yep that SSD is a good price from MyMemory it is ten pounds more on Amazon at the moment.

Just make sure you have the exact model of your PC as a couple in the S range only have 2 memory slots. A visual check by opening the PC (you can check out how dusty it is) will confirm you have 4 memory slots.

Based on figures is SSD 120GB same as HDD 320GB? So should I go for SSD 240GB?

With extra Ram, do I just slot the Ram in the slots and that's it? Meaning it is plug and play?

Thanks

Your existing HDD has just under 3 times as much space as the 120GB SSD. You can buy a bigger SSD if you want but at more money. As the suggested upgrade route is to ultimately keep the old HDD you can save money by buying a small SSD.

That way Windows is installed on the much quicker SSD and any large documents, movies, music etc can be stored on the bigger hard drive.

You can check how much space you are using by pressing the Windows and E key together. Under there it should show how much space you are using note your 320GB drive will probably be reported as around 298GB or so total size in Windows.



Re the RAM yes, so long as you have slots free you just plug it in, hence visually double checking first before ordering. They have notches so will only plug one way round. When you start the the PC it will detect the RAM as will Windows and you can check everything is working. You can do this before you start the disk swap.