Upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 on a fresh or nearly fresh install, bypassing Updates.
As the title states, I wanted to know if there was a way I could go either straight from a fresh install of Windows 7 or Windows 7 SP1 to Windows 10 using an upgrade. This would ultimately be to save time and bypass all or as many updates as possible for Windows 7, which as anyone here would know, typically takes several hours or more to complete on the average machine. Essentially, is there a specific update or series of updates I can download, while skipping as many as possible, to be able to go straight to 10? Barring that, is there some form of workaround to ensure the software entitlement goes through for a valid Windows 10 key from the Windows 7 key, since one cannot simply install 10 using a 7 or 8 key. I've bypassed updates in the case of Windows 8 in the past on multiple occasions using a drive created via the media creation tool, but I had not tried 7 until now. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
rindi
Just download the windows 10 iso, extract it's contents to a location on your PC, then run the setup.exe. Don't enter any key when asked.
As rindi notes above, yes you can. Be sure the drivers are up to date before you try upgrading and remove (uninstall) any Vendor software as it is often not compatible with Windows 10.
Installing win10 on a non-updated windows 7 machine is certainly not a scenario MS is testing, and several of the last windows 7 uodates have included fixes to improve the upgrade experience. I'd never recommend or do what you are proposing.
But then again, I don't see the need. Just like downloading a ton if updates just to upgrade is a waste of time, so is taking the time to ibstalla "fresh" copy of win7 in the first place. Any machine that has been in production should already he somewhat patched up. And a new machine can just be installed with win10 clean, bypassing win7 altogether. Win10 will accept win7 keys for purposes of the free upgrade offer.
But then again, I don't see the need. Just like downloading a ton if updates just to upgrade is a waste of time, so is taking the time to ibstalla "fresh" copy of win7 in the first place. Any machine that has been in production should already he somewhat patched up. And a new machine can just be installed with win10 clean, bypassing win7 altogether. Win10 will accept win7 keys for purposes of the free upgrade offer.
I did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro on a partially updated Windows 7 Pro machine (SP1 and some updates) and the result was excellent. I installed new software after. But I did need to get rid of vendor crud and update drivers.
I've upgraded fresh installs of Windows 7 SP1 without updates several times, and it worked fine.
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Just for clarification, I didn't say updates were "needed," I just said that several have been released that improve the upgrade experience and I wouldn't upgrade a win7 machine without updates first. The "I've done it several times and nothing has gone wrong" is purely anecdotal. For example, someone may have upgraded their machine that runs Kaspersky Antivirus and it upgraded just fine, but if you run Symantec...whoops....you broke your machine. Why? Because an update in August fixed an issue in win7 that caused the upgrade process to break under that specific circumstance.
Now a "clean" win7 machine wouldn't have this issue. But again, why upgrade at all in that case? Why not just install win10 clean? The reason anybody would choose to *upgrade* is because they have apps and/or data they want to keep, and in that situation, any app compat issues *could* break the upgrade process and I seriously doubt anybody here on EE (myself included!) has tested all the variety of apps and combinations to say "it is always safe." Updating the win7 machine you want to upgrade makes for a safer upgrade experience, pure and simple, because Microsoft *does* get data from failed upgrades and can therefore provide fixes to preempt more failures. That's a massive sample-set that nobody here can claim to replicate (again myself included) so I don't mean that as an insult to any of the experts that have chimed in. It is just a reality of the millions of possible app combinations on any given win7 machine.
Now a "clean" win7 machine wouldn't have this issue. But again, why upgrade at all in that case? Why not just install win10 clean? The reason anybody would choose to *upgrade* is because they have apps and/or data they want to keep, and in that situation, any app compat issues *could* break the upgrade process and I seriously doubt anybody here on EE (myself included!) has tested all the variety of apps and combinations to say "it is always safe." Updating the win7 machine you want to upgrade makes for a safer upgrade experience, pure and simple, because Microsoft *does* get data from failed upgrades and can therefore provide fixes to preempt more failures. That's a massive sample-set that nobody here can claim to replicate (again myself included) so I don't mean that as an insult to any of the experts that have chimed in. It is just a reality of the millions of possible app combinations on any given win7 machine.
The main reason for upgrading is if you don't have the key for the OS, for example if it is a manufacturer's OEM pre-installation recovered from the recovery partition or media you made. Those systems don't need you to enter a key for activation, and the key on the sticker of the PC doesn't match up with the key of the installed system.
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Thank you for all of your feed back, rindi and John Hurst suggestions sound like the best options, and rindi's last post on why some one would want to upgrade is correct in my case. I have not had an opportunity to try the suggestions yet. The computer in question was a Dell Inspiron 15r M5110 which had not been tested by Dell for Windows 10. I had to install all of the updates previous to KB3035583 before I was able to upgrade. The laptop was performing like s%#t and the USB 3.0 drivers wouldn't work so I rolled it back to Win 7.
I own a small computer repair business so This is something that I do on a regular basis. I was hoping to find either a way to download and slipstream a set of updates or download a kb that would let me start the upgrade , installing just KB3035583 has not worked for me either.
" a specific update or series of updates I can download, while skipping as many as possible, to be able to go straight to 10? Barring that, is there some form of workaround to ensure the software entitlement goes through for a valid Windows 10 key from the Windows 7 key, since one cannot simply install 10 using a 7 or 8 "
I own a small computer repair business so This is something that I do on a regular basis. I was hoping to find either a way to download and slipstream a set of updates or download a kb that would let me start the upgrade , installing just KB3035583 has not worked for me either.
" a specific update or series of updates I can download, while skipping as many as possible, to be able to go straight to 10? Barring that, is there some form of workaround to ensure the software entitlement goes through for a valid Windows 10 key from the Windows 7 key, since one cannot simply install 10 using a 7 or 8 "
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ASKER
In the future I shall try to simply use the Windows 7 key for the Windows 10 installation. Attempting to "Upgrade" using media created by the media creation tool from Windows 7 SP1 without updates would consistently fail for us, and in some cases, the option would not allow us to proceed at all - I remember a number of forum posts, and even tweets from Microsoft officials themselves, indicating that keys for 7/8 could not be used for a fresh 10 install at all, and had to be done through the in-OS upgrade method, though this was early on in the first few months of the Win10 launch. I wasn't aware that this had changed, so thank you.