Windows 10: Best path for Windows 7 upgrade to 10, from old hardrive to Vista PC?

Hey guys!

I have a bit of an odd situation on my hands! Long story short, I have an old Windows Vista PC desktop that currently runs my wonderful soundcard that I use to convert and edit some audio. It's been down for a few years due to a graphics card problem, but I'm looking to do a few cheap upgrades to get it up and running again. One of these upgrades includes an OS update to W10!

My sister's old laptop was running Windows 7, but the laptop eventually burned out and she purchased a new one. I saved the HD, and presumably the copy of W7 on it. I was hoping to upgrade this copy to Windows 10, then transfer it to the Vista PC (both are 32 bit) and physically upgrade the Vista PC from there. Just looking for the best upgrade path!

I'm not sure if I should try to boot the old laptop drive, upgrade that drive to 10, use a key searcher to find the key, deauthorize it, then install it clean on the Vista PC, or what the best method is.

Just looking for a few thoughts and some advice. Thanks for reading!

:)

 

Forced hardware change, Do I need to format windows 10 off crashed hardrive to use on new computer?

Hoping some lovely person can help me.

I had a power cut on my street this week which cursed my hardrive and sent my motherboard on its dying path, so ive had to replace both.

I had windows 7 pro that I upgraded to 10 with the free digital upgrade offer, for some strange reason activating windows 7 on my new hardrive my 7 product key has been blocked by microsoft, is it because it is on my old hardrive and activated on there?
I know for a fact it isnt a OEM key so should be able to transfer to another computer, and its a real genuine key as I was able to upgrade to 10 from it. but both Windows support people I talked to said my key has been pirated , but they werent of much help
anyway not understanding the windows 10 free upgrade I had.

my windows 10 digital license is linked to my microsoft account with the anniversary update, so could I install Windows 10 from a iso cd (using the Microsoft Windows 10 downloader) and use the troubleshoot activate "ive changed hardware'" method and avoid
windows 7 all together? but should I wipe my old hardrive before doing that?

Sorry for long paragraph thought id give as much info as possible, really dont want to have to buy a new windows license when I have 10 attached to my account already.

 

Can't boot from USB drive to installed Windows 10

Before you deal with the BIOS problem you should work out what this Best Buy upgrade is. If it is free then it will not work because the free upgrade path applies to Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines only.

 

First - the Windows 7 on the old laptop is probably an OEM version so it would violate the license agreement to use that to upgrade your PC to Windows 10 with.

Do all the upgrades on your computer, except for new hard drive.

Only if the Windows 7 was a retail version - I would put that hard drive in your computer and boot from it. Let it settle down with installing new drivers and everything. You can use showkey plus to get the Windows 7 product key. If the Windows 7 stayed activated , upgrade the installed Windows 7 to Windows 10 and get that activated. That will save the license for your computer for Windows 10 on Microsoft activation servers and then you can clean install Windows 10 on your computer.

 

You could also clean-install Windows 7 using the key from the old laptop, activate it and then either upgrade to 10 or generate the activation token as described here. You can then format and clean-install Windows 10 and use the activation token to activate. You can then connect the old disk to a USB enclosure or SATA to USB adapter to take any files you may want.

 

Awesome, thanks for the help guys!
I'm currently messing around with the old hard drive now to see what I can even do with it. The laptop was recycled long ago, so this is all that's left. Worse comes to worse I just end up buying an external enclosure and have a spare external hard drive laying around! Thanks again for the help