Windows 10: TH2 pulled, what is the best method to upgrade to 10?

Hey all,

So I have a Lenovo x230 laptop sitting here that has W7 Professional installed on it. I just grabbed an 850EVO SSD 250GB for it and I'm guessing I will have to clone W7 to the SSD to activate my W7 Pro license since it will deactivate once I swap out the HDD's?

My question is, whats the best way to upgrade to W10 TH1 10586 without putting tons of writes on the SSD for no reason by cloning, upgrading and so forth and wasting valuable time in the process.

Can I use my W7 Pro key and install W10 TH1 from a bootable USB stick and just have W10 activated like that or do I have to clone W7 then upgrade to 10240 then finally 10586? I would rather just upgrade all the way.

I never had a chance to download the media creation tool and the only ISO I have on my drive is the official 10240 ISO. I never used the media creation tool from MS because I felt more comfortable with RUFUS instead. Should I just wait until we get more answers from MS and they change their page or should I go looking for a "copy" of the TH1 iso on the web? Trying to figure out the best options, thanks.

:)

 

what's the best method to upgrade 60 win-7 to win-10 company devices?

hello.

I have a lot of company computers that are part of our domain, all are purchased and licensed (individually by purchase) computers and want to upgrade them from windows 7 pro - to windows 10 over the next couple of weeks. ideally, i'd like to be able to
download the appropriate windows 10 image, and share it out on my network somewhere and point the machines to them or possible use multiple USB drives, or DVD's with the data files on them. although all the machines are licensed directly via purchase, and
they are 'asking' for windows 10 upgrades - I don't necessarily have all the ms workstation license keys (some aren't on the computers) - and don't want to have to worry about fumbling around looking for the keys - after/during the upgrade process.

anybody else have this predicament going on?

thanks,

 

what's the best method to upgrade 60 win-7 to win-10 company devices?

You can download a single Windows 10 image and use that to upgrade all the PCs. You do not need to download for each computer.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209 use the option to upgrade another computer.

Provided the computers are fully activated you do not need a key. At the point where it askes for one use the I do not have a key option to continue the install and it will activate automatically after setup completes as long as they are connected to the
internet.

Normally this would be a IT Pro issue but upgrading one is the same process and doing a hundred if you are not using the deployment tools which would be the "preferred" option

Deploy and update Windows 10

 

This is what I would do:

1. Use this Media Creation Tool:
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...eationTool.exe

to create a Windows 10 build 10586 USB.

2. Use Showkey Plus from this forum to detect installed Windows 7 product key and write it down.

3. Copy gatherosstate.exe from the sources folder of the USB to the desktop running Windows 7 on the HDD. Run it as administrator. Copy the resulting genuineticket.xml to a safe place - the same Windows 10 USB should be OK.

3. Install the SSD, remove the HDD, boot from the USB, clean install Windows 10 Pro to the USB. Skip entering the product key during install.

4. Attempt to activate Windows 10 with the Windows 7 Product Key.

5. If step #4 fails - copy the saved genuineticket.xml file to the proper folder on the SSD and reboot. That should activate Windows 10.

See here:
Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums

 

Instead of:

3. Install the SSD, remove the HDD, boot from the USB, clean install Windows 10 Pro to the USB. Skip entering the product key during install.

If you have a retail key, or one from the COA sticker on the machine, you can try:

3. Install the SSD, remove the HDD, boot from the USB, clean install Windows 10 Pro to the USB. Enter the Windows 7 product key during install the first time when asked for a product key.

If the installation proceeds, the key has been accepted, and activation should be automatic. If not, skip, and try the other routes suggessted.

 

That's gatherosstate.exe, right?

 

yes, thank you for the correction!

 

About a week ago, I downloaded the ISO before it was pulled. I uploaded it to Google Drive. Here it is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwt...BoX2Q3RzA/view. You can download it, mount it, then run setup.exe

 

What's with the setup screen logo and texts. Never seen that before! Is this a home-brew version? (no accusations intended!)

Cheers

 

*Eek *sarc

 

What do you mean?

I found the logo and attached it

 

It starts the initial stage in "text" mode (no pictures) but after restart you should see a circle gradually becoming blue as setup progresses.

 

As I mentioned in my post, no offense intended!

 

Just asked what the install screen was about. But if I offended you I apologize, this was never the intention at my side!

Cheers

 

Thanks for the links. Although when I downloaded the media creation tool, I received an error message stating that this is not a valid Win32 application. Is this something Microsoft has done already in their removal process? Thanks for the links.

Yes, I have the Windows 7 Pro sticker on the bottom of the laptop. OK, I guess then I will make a bootable USB .ISO of W10 PRO and remove the HDD and install the SSD and see if it will accept my W7 PRO key during install. If the key doesn't take I will skip and try to activate it after W10 installs and see if it will take the key then. Thanks.

Appreciate the download link.