Windows 10: Upgrade Win7 to Win10 Before or After Migration to New System Build

I have a system with an i7-3930k and Win7 retail license. I will be building a new i7-6700k system and will be reusing the SSD, HDD, graphics card and my Windows license. I ultimately want the new system to be Win10.

Should I do the OS upgrade first, or build the new system first and migrate my settings under Windows 7, then do the OS upgrade?

:)

 

Windows10 update file move issue

All,

I updated from Win7 to Win10 via the MS website upgrade link. It seems that the system came back up after the upgrade, and appeared to be usable before the file migration was completed from windows.old to the new profiles. During this time, I
moved the files from /windows.old/users/username/pictures, /documents, and /desktop to the /users/username directories. After it rebooted again, all of my files are gone. I think it must have completed the migration
of my files after I did the move, which means it migrated an empty directory over top of the files that I had moved. Any suggestions for recovering these? Is there a reliable undelete method?

Thanks for any help!

 

How do I migrate a Windows 7 User to a Windows 10 clean install

When I installed Win7, I moved my users folder to a different partition using

mklink /J U:/Users C:/Users

Before I did my Win10 free upgrade, I reversed the process so that my actual Users folders were untouched. (NOTE: this was required because the Win10 free upgrade kept giving me errors with the windows junction in place) Then I
reversed the upgrade and did a clean Win10 install in a new partition so I could dual boot. Everything works fine at the moment, but the Win10 install points to a generic C:\Users folder

I would like to migrate my Win7 Users data/folder to Win10
in a different partition, but I am not sure how to best accomplish this goal.

• simple 'mklink /J C:/Users U:/Users'? (same as Win7?)
• relocate the Users/Documents folder to point to the same location in Win7?
• is there an official migration utilitiy?
• other approach?

Do I have to add the SAME Win7 users to Win10 before doing so?

 

Activate Windows 7 on the new system first and then upgrade that to Windows 10. If you upgrade to Windows 10 on the old system, when you replace the motherboard, Windows 10 will deactivate itself when it detects the new motherboard and you would likely have to put a Windows 7 install on it temporarily to regain activation.

 

Thanks for the response. Follow up question...If I can activate the Windows 7 retail license on the new mother board, couldn't I do the same with the Windows 10 license if upgraded on the old hardware? Is the Windows 10 license more restrictive?

 

No.

The free upgrade is more restrictive. Microsoft did not offer to upgrade you Windows 7 license to a Windows 10 license for free. They offered to upgrade DEVICES already running Windows 7/8/8.1 to 10 for free.

In the fine print at the bottom of the webpage:
How to Upgrade to Windows 10 - Microsoft