Windows 10: Keeping W 8 through PC warrantee and beyond.

Ok, thanks.
I will take my time to read and reread all that has been said here, study up on Macrium Reflect and go from there.
Does the system image back up have to go on a HD?
Will a USB work the same or do I need to go through the extra step of creating an ISO?
Not sure I understand the ISO part all that well.

 

An ISO is a DVD-ROM image. It can be mounted directly on a virtual DVD-ROM drive, or burn to a DVD disk. Yes, you can use a USB disk or even a USB flash drive as soon as your image fits there (Macrium Reflect should tell you how much space it will need). I don't know for Macrium Reflect, but other programs even allow you to burn some DVD disks which you can use to restore your computer. This is rather risky though as anything happens to one of them, the whole backup is useless.

 

Yes and my new Zenbook lacks an optical DVD drive anyway.

 

It's a matter of how much space you have used on your hard drive and how much storage you have on the device you are saving the image to. The image from Macrium Reflect will be one file that has the entire contents of your hard drive on it. It will be about 80 to 90% as big as all the used space on your hard drive. To me it is totally worth it to spend $80 for a 750gb or 1tb hard drive - and it's a lot faster too. When you have the image, you can also use Macrium Reflect to mount that image file as a drive letter and you can pull individual files and folders from it, if you don't want to restore the whole thing.

This is in reference to making the Windows 10 install USB. The Media Creation Tool will give you two options to start with - Upgrade this PC now - or make installation media for another PC. The second option can be used on the same computer at a later time, it doesn't have to be for a different computer.

The upgrade this PC now option will do just that - it will down load Windows 10 and start the upgrade.

The second option first lets you choose which version of Windows 10 you want. Choose the same version that your Windows 8.1 is, probably 64 bit Home. Then it asks you if you want to make a USB flash drive or if you want to save the ISO file for later. Both have their advantages - just make the USB flash drive is the easiest, and that is what I recommend for you. The ISO file is more versatile in that you can mount it, make a DVD from it, make a USB from it and have the ability to run the upgrade in a much faster way than the USB - but make the USB directly from the Media Creation Tool and you can use that USB to do the upgrade and have it later too.

 

OK, thanks, Navy.
You have been a great help.
I have 150GB empty space but prefer to keep the DL outside.
Does doing it the way you recommend "for me"; direct to USB or external SSD mean I still have to install by July 2016?

 

Yes, to take advantage of the free upgrade, you must install before deadline.

 

There are a couple of ways you can approach this. Before you do anything you should backup what you don't want to lose, to external media. Just in case something goes wrong. Image your current setup if you want. Then do the free upgrade and make sure your Windows 10 is activated. That will store your digital entitlement to Windows 10 on the activation server. Once that is done you can clean install Windows 10 anytime you want, even after the one year free offer is over. You've already took them up on it. Then use the rollback option to go back to Windows 8.1 if you want. You have 30 days to do it. If you like Windows 10 don't bother. Anytime you want you can clean install Windows 8.1 with install media from here, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...-refresh-media. That install media will read and use the OEM embedded product code, and activate online with it. This will give you a nice clean install minus all the OEM junk that came preinstalled. I did it on my ASUS laptop. I'm running Windows 10 on it now though.

 

Thanks to you too, alphanumeric.
Lots of good stuff for me now.

 

Back again...
If there is room, can I put two (Macrium) images, a W7 and an 8.1, on the same SSD?

 

Yes. They are just regular files like any other file.

 

Great.
Thanks again for the speedy reply.

 

Now you're gonna curse me.
I just read that before using Macrium I need to have a separate USB drive to create a restoration (rescue) drive.

True?

http://www.howtogeek.com/223139/how-...to-windows-10/

 

Not exactly. You don't need a rescue disk in order to make the image. You will need the rescue disk if your computer becomes unable to boot from the hard drive and you want to restore an image.

There is a way to add the Macrium Reflect Free rescue ISO to a Windows 10 Installation USB - but it's a little bit complicated. There is an option in Macrium Reflect Free to save a rescue ISO file instead of burning a DVD/CD. Then you copy the ISO file to the Windows 10 Installation USB. Then you use EasyBCD to open the BCD store on the USB drive and add a boot menu item pointing to the ISO file. It will defrag the ISO file and add the menu item to boot from the ISO. Now you have a dual boot USB drive - Windows Setup or Macrium Reflect Free.

My "go to" USB drive is triple boot: Windows Setup, Macrium Reflect Free ISO, and MiniTool Partition Wizard Free ISO.

The easy way is to create a separate bootable USB or DVD with Macrium Reflect Free, though.