Windows 10: What is the best upgrade path for 8.1 to 10 pro

Except for the first time! But since terich50 has already seen to the initial upgrade he should be all set to as far as the next clean install goes! *Smile It's getting past that first big stumbling block that trips people up and onto the nice clean install to follow that counts!

 

It's been there since Day 1, I think.

In Settings, on the Activation page, if you're running Win 10 Home there should be a Go To Store button which will let you buy Win 10 Pro.

 

That's the full retail version. $199US.

I haven't seen any upgrade (only) version, which I'd hope to be at a lower price.

When the Win 8 Pro pre-release upgrade off ($40US) was in place, I bought a few. Too bad that I've used them all up.

 

The version in the Store if you click Go To Store from Windows 10 Home should be the Home to Pro upgrade, which should be cheaper than that.
(I tried it just now and it said 'The Server Stumbled' but I'm sure I've done it before. I think it was £99 in the UK.)

 

Inspired me to look. I don't see a home to pro upgrade for sale.

Also looked at the UK store. Nothing found. For £99 (incl. VAT) you can get the retail home version. (That's about $155US, vs $119 from the MS US store.)

I have no emotional attachment to my belief that no Win 10 home to pro upgrade is currently for sale. In fact, I'd be pleased to find that I'm in error.

I also see no Win 8 home to pro available at Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, and More - Newegg.com. If it's off the retail market, you may have to trust to luck on eBay. (I doubt that I could trust a SW purchase on eBay.)

 

Don't know if you saw my post in another thread, but when I follow the "Go to Store" link, I'm offered home to Pro at $99.99.

 

I upgraded from 8.1 using the Media Creation Tool. My PC is running just as well as it was with 8.1, maybe even better. I have no plans to do a clean install because I see no need to. I certainly don't want to have to reinstall all my programs and then reinstate my personal files from backups. There's just no need to waste all that time and wind up in the exact same place.

 

Could you copy that link into this thread?

The post referred to Brink's tutorial. Maybe I searched the wrong one, but I didn't find a "go to store" link.

 

Get the Pro Pack from Microsoft to upgrade from 9.1 Home to 8.1 Pro. No real installation required, the pro pack just unlocks some features and leaves you with Pro. This is what I did when I got my Lenovo K450 desktop last year.

See here: Add features - Microsoft Windows

You'll lose Media Center when you upgrade to Windows 10 but that's most a who cares.

 

I just upgraded a 7 Home Premium 32bit laptop to the 64bit 10 Home edition and nothing appeared at all in Settings and the Apps section saw letter all scrambled up! And that's with a laptop that's hardly seen any use. A clean install of Windows on a second drive that saw the first upgrade on the main build here wouldn't allow the regular softwares to go on not even the latest with support for 10.

"Never Say Never" on a clean install until you have run it for a bit! Things may seem to be going well at first until something goobers on you! *Eek You won't be smiling then when finding out that a clean install will then become a necessary.. Plus we are presently running the 10240 build released on the 29th while tthe 10525 build just made an appearance suggesting MS is using the free upgrade at the moment a large beta test without us knowing about it! It's too much like 7 saw the RC which ran very well but still wasn't the final finished product!

 

I forgot about the "Pro Pack". Looks like the least expensive officially supported way of going from Home to Pro.

 

It's been running perfectly since the 29th when it came out and through all the updates that have come since. I have/had 350 GB of files and programs installed and everything carried over fine. The only program I had to reinstall was Chrome which somehow got it's updating mechanism damaged. I have a load of games including World of Warcraft, LOTRO, Rift, a collection of games on Steam, Origin, Uplay, and GoG and they all carried over without a hitch. My Office 2007 programs are also working and updating perfectly. There is no reason to even think about doing a clean install.

I see 10240 as the actual release and 10525 as a beta from which things will be cherry picked to be eventually sent to 10240 users in the form of updates. Any subsequent builds sent to insiders will be treated the same way. We will most likely not ever see an entire new build unless this mysterious SR1 update actually happens and changes the build number. The upgrade is in no way a beta test and the build number may not ever even change. The users of 10240 are the install base. The insiders receiving the test builds are the guinea pigs and are a small minority of Windows 10 users.

 

For me Media Creation tool was the Best option. I was not able to Download Updates in Windows 8.1 to see the Windows 10 Upgrade notification. But Thankfully the Tool helped me to Upgrade to windows 10 without much hassle.

 

It's definitely there - I just looked and for £99.99 there is an entry called "Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro", using the Go To Store link from the Activation page on my machine running Windows 10 Home. I don't know how to paste the store link though?

 

Not eveyone will see a bad turn of events but you still would want to be prepared just in case. While things are running good this is actually the best possible time to see to a full system image backup or just be prepared to see a full install if the occasion comes up. Any other problems with the upgrade there might take a little longer since things seemed to have gone better for you.

On upgrading a 7 laptop the Start button wasn't even seen on the initial upgrade install. The Settings screen was nothing but a blank screen. And when going to right click on anything all you saw was a thin verical line for the right click menu. Something didn't go on fully this time using a dvd burned with the Media Creation tool. The second was a full clean install that saw immediate results however and is now being replaced from the 32bit upgrade over 7 HP x86 to the 64bit 10 Home following the first clean to verify the upgrade had been activated since you couldn't see anything in System!