Question regarding windows key and upgrading

[winkawak]

Im trying to figure out a way to keep all my programs and installed games(non game distribution like steam or origin...etc) upgrading to windows 10 from windows 7. I have multiple HDD containing installed games and a SSD containing my os and installed programs. Heres my questions

 

1.If i was going to unplug all my other HDD containing my installed games while leaving my OS and programs SSD plugged in will it work? Or do i need to have all drives plugged in for windows upgrade?

 

2.Lets say i can have the non os hdd unplugged while upgrading my os and lets say during windows upgrading process like the media creation tool didnt keep my all my installed programs. If i had a clone copy of my ssd containing OS and installed programs can i just unplug the updated windows on the plugged in ssd and plug in the clone ssd thats containing my windows 7 before upgrade. Will it still work? or the key has been changed i can no longer use it again?

 

hope i explain it well and its not too confusing

 

[Founders]

5 minutes ago, winkawak said:

1.If i was going to unplug all my other HDD containing my installed games while leaving my OS and programs SSD plugged in will it work? Or do i need to have all drives plugged in for windows upgrade?

You would have to leave all of your drives plugged in. If you have the ability to consolidate anything before hand and either clone or image the drives it would be best, just in case something goes wrong during the upgrade, which it could.

 

6 minutes ago, winkawak said:

2.Lets say i can have the non os hdd unplugged while upgrading my os and lets say during windows upgrading process like the media creation tool didnt keep my all my installed programs. If i had a clone copy of my ssd containing OS and installed programs can i just unplug the updated windows on the plugged in ssd and plug in the clone ssd thats containing my windows 7 before upgrade. Will it still work? or the key has been changed i can no longer use it again?

Yes, cloning or imaging your primary drive before hand is a good idea in case anything were to go wrong. Did you originally purchase a Windows 7 Key by itself, or did it come pre-installed on you PC? Either way I believe Microsoft is still allowing people to upgrade for free. 

 

Before you do anything:

Most people will recommend a fresh installation of Windows when upgrading, I share the same sentiment but an upgrade without a fresh install is possible if you go slow and ask questions. This should get you started if you want to move forward with the upgrade, rather then the fresh install. 

 

• You would need to off load as much as you can off of your primary drive to get to below 500GB of used storage, basically anything that isn't the OS and program installations.
• After this you would need to image the drive, not clone it, you can use a program like Acronis to do this. Save the image to a different drive. (this will be your backup and it will be used to image the new SSD)
• Download the Windows 10 installation media here. 
• Use Acronis (look for the create rescue media tool, have a flash drive handy and then boot from it) to restore the image you created previously to your new drive. 
• If the new drive restored successfully you should be able to boot off it into Windows 7.
• Use the Windows 10 installation media to upgrade to Windows 10 on your new drive. (if it's successful it will boot and your files and programs will still be there)
• There's one more major step, you'll need to convert from MBR to GPT to take full advantage of UEFI, follow this tutorial. 
• You will need to reinstall certain programs and some drivers depending on how well Windows 10 aggregates during the upgrade. 

Again, generally it's recommended to do a clean install, especially upgrading from one OS to the other. But swapping out storage devices, upgrading OS's and converting them from MBR to GPT is perfectly doable provided you have the time and patience to do it. 

 

Best of luck,

Founders

[winkawak]

1 hour ago, Founders said:

You would have to leave all of your drives plugged in. If you have the ability to consolidate anything before hand and either clone or image the drives it would be best, just in case something goes wrong during the upgrade, which it could.

At my other thread i was told it could be unplugged as long as os drive is plugged in. May i ask why the upgrade requires other hdd be plugged in? I have over 4tb of installed games thats not from game distributor software like steam or origin..etc Its all installed like a program.

 

Yes, cloning or imaging your primary drive before hand is a good idea in case anything were to go wrong. Did you originally purchase a Windows 7 Key by itself, or did it come pre-installed on you PC? Either way I believe Microsoft is still allowing people to upgrade for free. 

Its a purchased key when i built my pc. So i was to have a clone of my os ssd after my windows upgrade. Will i still be able to run windows 7 in my clone drive?

Before you do anything:

Most people will recommend a fresh installation of Windows when upgrading, I share the same sentiment but an upgrade without a fresh install is possible if you go slow and ask questions. This should get you started if you want to move forward with the upgrade, rather then the fresh install. 

 

• You would need to off load as much as you can off of your primary drive to get to below 500GB of used storage, basically anything that isn't the OS and program installations.
• After this you would need to image the drive, not clone it, you can use a program like Acronis to do this. Save the image to a different drive. (this will be your backup and it will be used to image the new SSD)
• Download the Windows 10 installation media here. 
• Use Acronis (look for the create rescue media tool, have a flash drive handy and then boot from it) to restore the image you created previously to your new drive. 
• If the new drive restored successfully you should be able to boot off it into Windows 7.
• Use the Windows 10 installation media to upgrade to Windows 10 on your new drive. (if it's successful it will boot and your files and programs will still be there)
• There's one more major step, you'll need to convert from MBR to GPT to take full advantage of UEFI, follow this tutorial. 
• You will need to reinstall certain programs and some drivers depending on how well Windows 10 aggregates during the upgrade. 

Again, generally it's recommended to do a clean install, especially upgrading from one OS to the other. But swapping out storage devices, upgrading OS's and converting them from MBR to GPT is perfectly doable provided you have the time and patience to do it. 

Why image over clone may i ask?

Best of luck,

Founders

 

[Donut417]

 

16 hours ago, winkawak said:

m trying to figure out a way to keep all my programs and installed games(non game distribution like steam or origin...etc) upgrading to windows 10 from windows 7. I have multiple HDD containing installed games and a SSD containing my os and installed programs.

Your looking at doing an inplace upgrade. Good luck with that, because you got maybe a 50/50 chance of it working properly. In my case my Windows 7 install was only a month old when I first upgraded to Windows 10. After the upgrade Windows was broken. It was still usable but a few features did not work at all. 

 

This is why its always suggested to backup your data. Do a fresh install rather than an inplace upgrade. And reinstall all of your software and copy over the data you backed up. This is also why Im glad that I use steam. Because with steam, you can have your library on a secondary disk and you can unplug that disk during installation of Windows and plug it up after Window is installed. Install steam and point to the game libarary and not have to download you games again. 

 

16 hours ago, winkawak said:

.If i was going to unplug all my other HDD containing my installed games while leaving my OS and programs SSD plugged in will it work? Or do i need to have all drives plugged in for windows upgrade?

Depends. Like I stated above Steam will easily allow this. But some software is not as nice. When you install software it puts entreies in to the Windows Regisrty. So I would say if the drive was not plugged in, then there is a possibility that the software may not work. HOWEVER, I have found that some sofware doesnt care. Mainly games. For instance Ive installed games off of GOG on a second drive and have been able to reinstall Windows and have the game work just fine. 

 

 

[winkawak]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

 

Your looking at doing an inplace upgrade. Good luck with that, because you got maybe a 50/50 chance of it working properly. In my case my Windows 7 install was only a month old when I first upgraded to Windows 10. After the upgrade Windows was broken. It was still usable but a few features did not work at all. 

 

This is why its always suggested to backup your data. Do a fresh install rather than an inplace upgrade. And reinstall all of your software and copy over the data you backed up. This is also why Im glad that I use steam. Because with steam, you can have your library on a secondary disk and you can unplug that disk during installation of Windows and plug it up after Window is installed. Install steam and point to the game libarary and not have to download you games again. 

 

Depends. Like I stated above Steam will easily allow this. But some software is not as nice. When you install software it puts entreies in to the Windows Regisrty. So I would say if the drive was not plugged in, then there is a possibility that the software may not work. HOWEVER, I have found that some sofware doesnt care. Mainly games. For instance Ive installed games off of GOG on a second drive and have been able to reinstall Windows and have the game work just fine. 

 

 

Such pain in the butt. I wish i can reinstall all my games but its impossible when its over 4tb. This might be a expensive solution but i think i should clone all my drive as a backup in case my programs and games dont get fully transfer over to windows 10. If not all programs or games are transferred after the windows 10 in place upgrade i can unplugged all current drives and just plug in my clone drives and it will be like i never updated. Am i correct?

[Donut417]

22 hours ago, winkawak said:

If not all programs or games are transferred after the windows 10 in place upgrade i can unplugged all current drives and just plug in my clone drives and it will be like i never updated. Am i correct?

Depends. If your using the key from your current version of Windows, that key is converted to a Windows 10 key during an upgrade I think. So your old OS, might not be activated after this. Though there is so much MS hasnt really stated when it comes to upgrading the key and shit. If your buying a Windows 10 key, then there should be no issue, but comes January Windows 7 is dead. 

 

22 hours ago, winkawak said:

games but its impossible when its over 4tb.

Are they all stand alone or are some steam? With steam is fucking easy as hell to backup your games. Litterally just copy the steam apps folder to another drive. 

[winkawak]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Depends. If your using the key from your current version of Windows, that key is converted to a Windows 10 key during an upgrade I think. So your old OS, might not be activated after this. Though there is so much MS hasnt really stated when it comes to upgrading the key and shit. If your buying a Windows 10 key, then there should be no issue, but comes January Windows 7 is dead. 

 

Are they all stand alone or are some steam? With steam is fucking easy as hell to backup your games. Litterally just copy the steam apps folder to another drive. 

all standalone, so i guess my best bet right now is to image all my drive. Use media creation tool to do a in place upgrade while trying to keep all programs. If it fails i heard you have 30 days to revert back to previous windows. And from there i can just image back all my hdd in case things dont work out.