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BlinkrFlag for United States of America

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Installing Windows 10 to upgrade Windows 7

I have 3 PC's running Windows 7 Pro that need to be updated to Windows 10 Pro. I have tried to do this by downloading Win10 from MS site & installing it. But have ended up with many problems. The free upgrade of Win10 doesn't seem to be working anymore & since I'm installing this on an office that needs everything legal, I plan to purchase Win10 from a vendor & install it.

My question is that since I have trouble with trying to upgrade with the free upgrade, will I have the same issues with legal copies of Win10?
Is there anything I need to do with the Win7 already on the machines to be able to upgrade to Win10?

Thanks for any help!
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Nolan Mason
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If your PCs have a Win7 COA sticker, you can install a fresh copy of Win10 using that.  I've done it many times.

Regarding the upgrade, are you saying you're having trouble getting it to install or that you're having performance issues after the upgrade?
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Daniel Pineault

The free upgrade has long past.  You need to purchase valid licenses.

Check the minimum requirements, but it should be pretty straightforward once you have valid keys.
Just use the WIndows 10 Media Creation Tool.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Under "Create Windows 10 installation media" click the Download Tool Now button.  It will give you the option to either create installation media or upgrade the PC you're running the tool on.

If you don't want to go the upgrade route, you can install a fresh copy of Win10 using the COA from a Win7 sticker.  To do this, create a bootable flash drive with the Media Creation Tool.
Download Windows 10 ISO via Windows Media Creation tool and start the upgrade from running Windows 7. Your keys will be used automatically (did at least in my case).
"But have ended up with many problems."
Without knowing what these were it's difficult to advise you.
It could be anything from needing to completely wipe your machine and do a fresh install rather than an upgrade or a need to update your system BIOS. It's possible your hardware just isn't able to run Win 10.
There's really not enough information in your question to do anything other than guess at a solution for you.
SOLUTION
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Daniel Pineault

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Thanks for all of the responses. When I said I had all sorts of problems, it had to do with the Win7 not being accepted & Win10 not being activated. After posting a message on EE about not getting Win10 activated, someone reminded me that if this company was ever audited & it was determine the Win10 installs were not legal, it would create a major problem for this company.

Now I'm am going to purchase legal copies of Win10 to install on these machines to avoid this problem. I was mainly concerned that that doing an upgrade to Win10 from Win7, I may run into some snags. I don't want to do a fresh install as I would have reinstall quite a few programs & data. If someone can tell me how I can do a fresh install & get the programs back on the PC with the data, then a fresh install would be worth considering.
i suggest to update all drivers and Bios on the win 7 pc's before upgrading
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ASKER

Thanks for all of the help from everyone.

I tried the free install/upgrade & it did work. I just finished updating it. In the activation info window, it did tell me that "Windows is activated with a digital license".  But I didn't want to do this for my client without purchasing a license for each PC. As was noted in these responses, if he is ever audited or MS changes their minds about these free installs, he could be in trouble, & I obviously don't want that.