Win 10 Inquiry

[Pezzy]

Hi all.

I'll tell you where I'm at, and then where I'd like to be.....and hopefully you'll give me some good info & advice on how to go about it!! ;-)

Almost a year ago (somewhere around end of July/ beginning of August, 2015), I took advantage of the in-place upgrade to Windows 10. At the time, I had Windows 8.1 Home edition.

After the in-place upgrade, my system was acting funky; one thing I especially noticed was that my CPU was maxing out and causing the cooler fan to speed up to cool it down. I could actually hear the fan's noise from its high revs!!

I've heard it said that when you just upgrade your OS, you upgrade all your problems, too

So, I got a-hold of a download from Microsoft of the Win 10 OS that was bootable and put it on a USB drive and installed the system from scratch. Things were basically better after that.

Basically......

For those of you who have been using the Microsoft OS's ever since Windows 95, you probably know that every time they release their next OS, there are always a few bugs to work out; sometimes a Service Pack is released (I don't think Windows 10 has had a Service Pack yet, has it?!?!).

I've posted on this forum before about Windows 10. Some people have no issues with the Edge browser; I, however, notice herky-jerky movement with it, and also almost no response when trying to close it when clicking on the red-colored "X" in the top right-hand corner (it takes multiple clicks with my mouse before it will finally close).

Mouse right-click pop-up menu can be slow to respond; sometimes simple programs are slow to launch when clicking on them. Prior to this when I had Win 7 & 8, I didn't see these "slow response" problems.

I may not have the "latest" & "greatest" hardware, but it's still some good stuff:
- Asus Sabertooth X79 Motherboard
- 8GB Corsair Vengeance Memory/ RAM
- Samsung 250GB Solid State Drive
- Intel Core i7 3820 Processor 3.6Ghz
- EVGA nVidia Graphics card, GeForce GTX 770

OK....here's where I'd like to go:

I want to do another clean install of Windows 10. I mentioned up above that prior to this I had Windows 8.1 Home edition when I did the in-place upgrade, so, the Windows 10 version I've got is also the Home edition (even the downloaded/ bootable version I put on the USB drive is, of course, the Home Edition).

Then something occurred to me.

Back when I had Windows 7, I had the Professional edition.

From something I either read or heard, if you took advantage of the in-place upgrade of your Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, your Windows 10 would be the same edition that your previous OS was: Home or Professional. Then Microsoft's servers took a "snapshot" of your hardware, so then this was why you did not need to enter a license key upon a subsequent installation of the OS.

Since my previous OS was Win 8 Home when I did the in-place upgrade, my Win 10 is also the Home edition.

But since I've got a Windows 7 Professional installation file here - along with its license key - is there a way for me to download a bootable copy of Windows 10 Professional (to put on a USB drive), and then "prove" that I have a Professional copy of Windows 7 Pro when installing Win 10 Pro?

Thanks for any help & info.
Pez

 

[carnageX]

I've posted on this forum before about Windows 10. Some people have no issues with the Edge browser; I, however, notice herky-jerky movement with it, and also almost no response when trying to close it when clicking on the red-colored "X" in the top right-hand corner (it takes multiple clicks with my mouse before it will finally close).

Mouse right-click pop-up menu can be slow to respond; sometimes simple programs are slow to launch when clicking on them. Prior to this when I had Win 7 & 8, I didn't see these "slow response" problems.

In the few times I've used Edge, closing did seem a bit slow; I assume it's doing something in the background and just takes a bit to finish / end those before closing the actual browser.

From something I either read or heard, if you took advantage of the in-place upgrade of your Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, your Windows 10 would be the same edition that your previous OS was: Home or Professional. Then Microsoft's servers took a "snapshot" of your hardware, so then this was why you did not need to enter a license key upon a subsequent installation of the OS.

Correct.

Since my previous OS was Win 8 Home when I did the in-place upgrade, my Win 10 is also the Home edition.

But since I've got a Windows 7 Professional installation file here - along with its license key - is there a way for me to download a bootable copy of Windows 10 Professional (to put on a USB drive), and then "prove" that I have a Professional copy of Windows 7 Pro when installing Win 10 Pro?

Thanks for any help & info.
Pez

If you use the latest ISO from Microsoft for Win10 (anything after 10240, actually), it allows you to enter in a License Key that will also take in a Win7 / Win8.1 license key and validate against that.

 

[Yami]

If you use the latest ISO from Microsoft for Win10 (anything after 10240, actually), it allows you to enter in a License Key that will also take in a Win7 / Win8.1 license key and validate against that.

Wait, really? That'll save me a ton of hassle.

 

[carnageX]

Wait, really? That'll save me a ton of hassle.

Yep, that was one of the additions to the Threshold 2 update back in like November. They added that functionality to the installer.

 

[Pezzy]

Hi carnageX (& Yami); thanks for the replies.

And Yami: sounds like you were surprised at part of carnageX's answer, eh?

And carnageX: I meant to get back to the board here and reply back sooner, but got caught up in some stuff!!

Anyway, so yes, from what you're describing, it sounds like I can do what I wanted to do (do a clean install of Windows 10 Professional and use a previous Windows 7 Professional license key that I have).

Here's a link that I found for a download of a bootable version of a Windows 10 install:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Looks legit, right? It leads to a Microsoft site I went to the part of that web page where it says, "Need to create a USB, DVD or ISO?", and clicked the link to "Download Tool Now". Then, if you expand the plus + sign next to "Using the media creation tool", there's a further expansion plus + sign for "Perform a clean installation using a USB or DVD".

Under this section, at Step 9, it says: "On the Enter the product key to activate Windows page, enter your product key. The product key should be in a purchase confirmation email if you bought Windows 10. It looks like this: PRODUCT KEY: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX." So.....is this the part where I can enter my previous Windows 7 professional license key?

Thanks for your input & help,
Pez

 

[carnageX]

Under this section, at Step 9, it says: "On the Enter the product key to activate Windows page, enter your product key. The product key should be in a purchase confirmation email if you bought Windows 10. It looks like this: PRODUCT KEY: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX." So.....is this the part where I can enter my previous Windows 7 professional license key?

Thanks for your input & help,
Pez

Correct. If that doesn't work, you can also skip that part, and then activate once Windows is installed:
Activation in Windows 10 - Windows Help

Expand the "Activating Windows 10 (Version 1511 or higher) using a Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 product key" link at the bottom of the page for details.

 

[Pezzy]

Oh yeah, carnageX, I meant to ask this too:

When you install a Windows operating system on a hard drive that already has an existing Windows operating system on it, a "Windows.old" folder will get created which you can later find in the root of your "C" drive after the new installation is finished.

This could be even if you're installing the same Windows OS on top of the same existing one (say, for instance, a fresh install of Windows 10 on top of a previous installation of Windows 10); or, say, Windows 10 on top of Windows 7.

Anyway, I'll be changing my boot order in the BIOS to have my system boot from the USB drive (where I'll have Windows 10 Professional). So, even though I'll be doing a fresh install from scratch.....what's the certain step or thing that I need to do to make certain that the "Windows.old" folder does not get created?

I know I could always delete it later with Disk Cleanup, but I'd rather it not get created in the first place

Thanks for any info,
Pez

 

[carnageX]

Well it shouldn't get created if you do a true fresh install (either on an empty drive or formatted drive). If you install the OS on top of another OS the Windows.old folder will always get created.