So Windows 7 is out of support after January 14th. If you're still running it, it really is time to move on.
Personally I know I should upgrade eventually but just can't be arsed. I have too much stuff in this computer, and I don't believe for a goddamn instant that directly upgrading instead of doing a full wipe and reinstall wouldn't cause issues (not to mention I'm not really looking forward to having to use a windows XP/7 virtualbox to run the variety of amateur-coded doujin shmups in my collection that literally don't work unless I use applocale, which far as I can tell does not exist on 10), and honestly I lost the 7 disc like three or four years ago so if things cock up reinstalling 7 would not be feasible. So overall it's enough of a bother that I just keep putting it off.
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
If you don't remember the key for 7, you can recover it with ProduKey. But if your concern is just that you don't have the media, I mean... there are ways to get around that.
So Windows 7 is out of support after January 14th. If you're still running it, it really is time to move on.
Personally I know I should upgrade eventually but just can't be arsed. I have too much stuff in this computer, and I don't believe for a goddamn instant that directly upgrading instead of doing a full wipe and reinstall wouldn't cause issues (not to mention I'm not really looking forward to having to use a windows XP/7 virtualbox to run the variety of amateur-coded doujin shmups in my collection that literally don't work unless I use applocale, which far as I can tell does not exist on 10), and honestly I lost the 7 disc like three or four years ago so if things cock up reinstalling 7 would not be feasible. So overall it's enough of a bother that I just keep putting it off.
Yeah, there's a limit to that. Speaking from firsthand experience the Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 upgrade is more "seamless" (defined by "less likely to be fucked up with out-of-date or bugged user profile data, or something else") than Windows 7 to Windows 10. To no one's surprise.
On top of that, were you to do that you could, for the sake of thoroughness, perform and in-place repair installation (the process has like four other names that sound vaguely similar). Basically, Windows 10 (and to a lesser extent Windows 8.1) are modular enough that the OS can actually "replace" itself, or most of itself, with an updated installation without affecting anything else on the same boot drive (or the rest of your PC), which is a handy way to fix stupid glitches and certain kinds of registry errors, etc.. Windows 7 is not. Likewise, the in-OS apps (via the Windows Store) reinstall themselves and load their settings from your profile, though coming from Windows 7, that's a non-issue for you. It's not fast, but it's remarkably capable of fixing a wide variety of weird issues....provide they're actually something wrong with the OS.
However, it's not going to take the place of a "fresh" Windows 10 on a formatted partition. The best Windows 7 repair job in the world wouldn't take the place of a fresh installation of the same. It's just possible to kind of do that in Windows 10 due to the modular design and separation of some Windows functions from the core OS files, or something.
So, no great solution. I have a long list of old visual novels, doujinshi games and apps, etc., installed under Windows 8.1. But installed on a separate drive, by and large the vast majority of them kept working under Windows 10 (even though at least a few are XP/7 era), and they were not actually affected by the upgrade process years ago.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Unless they changed something, if the W10 upgrade is still free, then you don't need the media. Just a valid key.
It's not officially free. You can still do it, but it may deactivate at some point in the future.
Also keep in mind now that we're five years out, there's some hardware that came on Win 7 machines that doesn't have any software support anymore. In particular, keep an eye out for nForce chipsets and other on board Nvidia hardware, there's almost no support anymore. Also older AMD cards are a bitch to get running sometimes
Unless they changed something, if the W10 upgrade is still free, then you don't need the media. Just a valid key.
It's not officially free. You can still do it, but it may deactivate at some point in the future.
Also keep in mind now that we're five years out, there's some hardware that came on Win 7 machines that doesn't have any software support anymore. In particular, keep an eye out for nForce chipsets and other on board Nvidia hardware, there's almost no support anymore. Also older AMD cards are a bitch to get running sometimes
Weird peripherals can be an issue to. Things like touchpad drivers for laptops.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Unless they changed something, if the W10 upgrade is still free, then you don't need the media. Just a valid key.
It's not officially free. You can still do it, but it may deactivate at some point in the future.
Also keep in mind now that we're five years out, there's some hardware that came on Win 7 machines that doesn't have any software support anymore. In particular, keep an eye out for nForce chipsets and other on board Nvidia hardware, there's almost no support anymore. Also older AMD cards are a bitch to get running sometimes
Weird peripherals can be an issue to. Things like touchpad drivers for laptops.
Unless they changed something, if the W10 upgrade is still free, then you don't need the media. Just a valid key.
It's not officially free. You can still do it, but it may deactivate at some point in the future.
Also keep in mind now that we're five years out, there's some hardware that came on Win 7 machines that doesn't have any software support anymore. In particular, keep an eye out for nForce chipsets and other on board Nvidia hardware, there's almost no support anymore. Also older AMD cards are a bitch to get running sometimes
There has never, not once, ever, ever been any indication that Microsoft will deactivate any Windows 10 install that comes from a Windows 7 key.
They never turned off the program that allowed Windows 7 and 8.x keys to activate Windows 10. If they were going to, they would have long ago, and there is no way in hell with Win7 coming out of support that they would ever deactivate an install that comes from a Win7 key.
I'm in a quandary now. I've still got to upgrade my mum's laptop from 7 to 10. I doubt I'll have time before the 14th, which is bad enough.
But you guys have reminded me about potential driver issues. It's an old Dell Latitude, I forget which exact model, ex-corporate thing she got used.
So now I'm thinking, that's a hell of a choice - insecure OS, or potentially breaking fairly vital features.
A new machine isn't on the cards for several reasons.
It really depends on exactly how old. especially on latitude lines Dell is really good about driver support. If you had the model number you could look it up at support.dell.com.
we have a few dell machines here in the office that were originally bought with Windows 7 on them, and they currently run 10 just fine.
Windows 10 licensing is weird, my dad wanted me to get an 2015-ish acer laptop up and running again. I didn't have any original backup discs and the recovery partition wouldn't work. So I used that registry/powershell trick to get its windows 10 product key and did a full wipe and reinstall from a usb.
When I went to the settings -> activation to see where to put the product key it said windows 10 was already activated with a digital license.
Windows 10 licensing is weird, my dad wanted me to get an 2015-ish acer laptop up and running again. I didn't have any original backup discs and the recovery partition wouldn't work. So I used that registry/powershell trick to get its windows 10 product key and did a full wipe and reinstall from a usb.
When I went to the settings -> activation to see where to put the product key it said windows 10 was already activated with a digital license.
Windows takes a hardware fingerprint of the system and hits that against their license registry. If a pc has a fingerprint associated with a valid license it will activate itself without any interaction with the user. Additionally, if the computer has a UEFI bios, license data is written into a dedicated section of the bios that windows checks automatically.
Well, mum's computer is now running Windows 10. Just did an in-place upgrade, didn't wipe it and start fresh, but I can always do that if it plays up. Wifi and touchpad and everything else is working fine. Went very smooth, just took a while (Dell Latitude E4300, Core 2 Duo P9400 @ 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM and a spinning platter drive that I assume is 5400rpm; not a speed demon).
Cheers for the encouraging noises, guys, that helped me feel okay about doing it. Took a few hours all told (including backing up the hard drive first, not that there's much on it), but I wasn't watching it the whole time. Ultimately was pretty painless.
@Jazz keep an eye out for cheap SSDs, or give her one of your older ones down the line. You can do a 1-for-1 clone using Macrium Reflect, with no issues. I've used it on my personal system to great effect. It may seem silly adding gear to a rig that old, but something as simple as more RAM and an SSD can easily give it an extra few years of life.
Jazz keep an eye out for cheap SSDs, or give her one of your older ones down the line. You can do a 1-for-1 clone using Macrium Reflect, with no issues. I've used it on my personal system to great effect. It may seem silly adding gear to a rig that old, but something as simple as more RAM and an SSD can easily give it an extra few years of life.
@Mugsley The SSD idea has occurred. I don't have a spare, but one suitable for this machine is not expensive. Haven't looked into expanding the RAM, though.
Frankly the bigger issue right now is mum's health. Let me just say, it is incredibly weird finally making the dreaded Facebook post letting everyone know about my mum's very recent incurable cancer diagnosis at the exact same time as I'm upgrading the OS on her laptop. Priority one with the machine was making sure she could still just use it with some degree of safety since she does her banking and stuff on it. So long as it works, it's good enough right now.
I'm just glad the upgrade went off without a hitch. Easiest OS upgrade I've done since the DOS days.
Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
So, the 2 January 14th updates that were installed yesterday got only specifically mention the .NET Framework fixes. I assume all the other fixes were included as well (I'd hope they were)
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
So, the 2 January 14th updates that were installed yesterday got only specifically mention the .NET Framework fixes. I assume all the other fixes were included as well (I'd hope they were)
you shouuld have seen a "cumulative update" and a .NET update. the cumulative update includes all the security fixes for the month.
Anyone else have any issues with KB4534297 (the Jan 14 2020 rollup) causing Windows Server 2012 Standard R2 to blue screen? I can apply every system update up to it and not have any problems. If I install it via Windows Update, it errors out and reverts after a reboot. If I install it manually, it boots me into system repair from which I cannot recover. I'm forced to use an older snapshot of the virtual machine and try all over again.
Anyone else have any issues with KB4534297 (the Jan 14 2020 rollup) causing Windows Server 2012 Standard R2 to blue screen? I can apply every system update up to it and not have any problems. If I install it via Windows Update, it errors out and reverts after a reboot. If I install it manually, it boots me into system repair from which I cannot recover. I'm forced to use an older snapshot of the virtual machine and try all over again.
Thoughts?
That might be a better question for the sysadmin thread. We do more consumer stuff here. I haven't tested the update on any 2012 R2 boxes yet but apparently I need to.
Anyone else have any issues with KB4534297 (the Jan 14 2020 rollup) causing Windows Server 2012 Standard R2 to blue screen? I can apply every system update up to it and not have any problems. If I install it via Windows Update, it errors out and reverts after a reboot. If I install it manually, it boots me into system repair from which I cannot recover. I'm forced to use an older snapshot of the virtual machine and try all over again.
Thoughts?
That might be a better question for the sysadmin thread. We do more consumer stuff here. I haven't tested the update on any 2012 R2 boxes yet but apparently I need to.
I cross posted there too, but thanks!
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited January 2020
So, I'm asked to check that my dad's desktop PC is up to speed with security updates. For some reason, even though his Windows 10 is supposed to be auto-updating, there's patches available, so I do those. Then, it wants to update to version 1903. I vaguely remembered there being issues when it was first released, but figured it's been more than six months and it's probably been sorted out, so I go ahead and start it.
It's now been a full day, and it's been stuck at 91% during the reboot phase for at least half that time. I've looked around elsewhere and it seems that if need be you can power down a hung machine and windows 10 will revert itself the next time you power it up, so I figure I'll give it till tomorrow to try that. God willing, it'll sort itself between now and then, or that will get me back to the desktop screen and I can figure out what to do from there. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask if anyone here has any particular advice for this kind of thing?
Ok so I am having a bit of an issue. I did the free upgrade from Window 7 Ultimate to Windows 10. Only thing is now I am having some issues come about with some of my peripherals. My usb network adapter as well as my usb keyboard and mouse will simply cut out. The issue seems even more prevalent with the network adapter (Netgear WNA3100) where it will be connected just fine, but it will have the stream service stop, then the icon at the taskbar will change saying that it is not connected. The act of removing the adapter and re-inserting it changes that and has it reconnect. But it is frankly getting really irritating. Any ideas what could be the issue? I have downloaded the most up to date device drivers for the adapter. It sometimes does this often or sometimes it doesn't do it for longer spans of time, so not very predictable.
RightfulSin on
"If nothing is impossible, than would it not be impossible to find something that you could not do?" - Me
So, I'm asked to check that my dad's desktop PC is up to speed with security updates. For some reason, even though his Windows 10 is supposed to be auto-updating, there's patches available, so I do those. Then, it wants to update to version 1903. I vaguely remembered there being issues when it was first released, but figured it's been more than six months and it's probably been sorted out, so I go ahead and start it.
It's now been a full day, and it's been stuck at 91% during the reboot phase for at least half that time. I've looked around elsewhere and it seems that if need be you can power down a hung machine and windows 10 will revert itself the next time you power it up, so I figure I'll give it till tomorrow to try that. God willing, it'll sort itself between now and then, or that will get me back to the desktop screen and I can figure out what to do from there. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask if anyone here has any particular advice for this kind of thing?
I've seen machines get stuck every once in a while, but it's pretty rare. hard booting it should revert it back. I'd try updating using the media creation tool next. you don't actually have to create a USB drive, it has an option to just update the computer in place. And on the plus side it'll end up right at 1909, which is the most current version.
Ok so I am having a bit of an issue. I did the free upgrade from Window 7 Ultimate to Windows 10. Only thing is now I am having some issues come about with some of my peripherals. My usb network adapter as well as my usb keyboard and mouse will simply cut out. The issue seems even more prevalent with the network adapter (Netgear WNA3100) where it will be connected just fine, but it will have the stream service stop, then the icon at the taskbar will change saying that it is not connected. The act of removing the adapter and re-inserting it changes that and has it reconnect. But it is frankly getting really irritating. Any ideas what could be the issue? I have downloaded the most up to date device drivers for the adapter. It sometimes does this often or sometimes it doesn't do it for longer spans of time, so not very predictable.
Have you installed or checked for Win10 drivers for those devices? Also check for updated or Win10 specific drivers for your motherboard; for the USB ports.
To work around this problem, remove all external media, such as USB devices, SD cards, and UFS cards, from your computer. Then, restart installation of the Windows 10, version 1903 feature update. The update should now proceed normally.
If you are using installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) to install Windows 10, copy the files on the installation media to your local drive, and then start the installation from the local drive.
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
My hilarious anecdote is that 1903 would tell me my system didn't meet minimum specs because the CPU would throttle down when idle (and so when Windows checked, it saw a CPU <1.5 GHz). This was with a 4770k.
My hilarious anecdote is that 1903 would tell me my system didn't meet minimum specs because the CPU would throttle down when idle (and so when Windows checked, it saw a CPU <1.5 GHz). This was with a 4770k.
So I had to use the manual update executable.
That's a weird one because pretty much every laptop on the planet will throttle down big time when idle. the i5-8250U on my XPS13 literally runs at 800mhz when it's sitting at the desktop.
Windows 10 licensing is weird, my dad wanted me to get an 2015-ish acer laptop up and running again. I didn't have any original backup discs and the recovery partition wouldn't work. So I used that registry/powershell trick to get its windows 10 product key and did a full wipe and reinstall from a usb.
When I went to the settings -> activation to see where to put the product key it said windows 10 was already activated with a digital license.
Yep, I was sure microsoft was going to laugh at my old windows 7 OEM key after I upgraded all the things in my computer. All that I have read said it wouldn't work. But it took my key and activated windows 10. Maybe they laxed up on it because of win7 retirement. Or perhaps it will deactivate when they figure out what's going on. Or maybe when I contacted support last summer to ask about how upgrades would work with my windows key the support person snuck an activation onto my account.
Microsoft literally does not care. They just want people off of 7 onto 10. they have never turned off the 7 to 10 free upgrade, and basically so long as you have a valid Windows 7 key you can activate Windows 10. Windows license sales to individuals for upgrades are not a significant enough portion of their revenue for this to matter to them, and the benefits of getting people off of 7 outweigh any potential lost revenue.
No one needs to worry about this. If you have a valid windows 7 key, you can upgrade to 10.
Yep, they do not care. They do not care about individuals with their own Windows licenses, because there are so few of us. Hell, they'll even let you use Windows 10 for free even if you don't have a key - there are some little restrictions like wallpaper but they basically don't bug you about activation from what I've read.
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Personally I know I should upgrade eventually but just can't be arsed. I have too much stuff in this computer, and I don't believe for a goddamn instant that directly upgrading instead of doing a full wipe and reinstall wouldn't cause issues (not to mention I'm not really looking forward to having to use a windows XP/7 virtualbox to run the variety of amateur-coded doujin shmups in my collection that literally don't work unless I use applocale, which far as I can tell does not exist on 10), and honestly I lost the 7 disc like three or four years ago so if things cock up reinstalling 7 would not be feasible. So overall it's enough of a bother that I just keep putting it off.
Yeah, there's a limit to that. Speaking from firsthand experience the Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 upgrade is more "seamless" (defined by "less likely to be fucked up with out-of-date or bugged user profile data, or something else") than Windows 7 to Windows 10. To no one's surprise.
On top of that, were you to do that you could, for the sake of thoroughness, perform and in-place repair installation (the process has like four other names that sound vaguely similar). Basically, Windows 10 (and to a lesser extent Windows 8.1) are modular enough that the OS can actually "replace" itself, or most of itself, with an updated installation without affecting anything else on the same boot drive (or the rest of your PC), which is a handy way to fix stupid glitches and certain kinds of registry errors, etc.. Windows 7 is not. Likewise, the in-OS apps (via the Windows Store) reinstall themselves and load their settings from your profile, though coming from Windows 7, that's a non-issue for you. It's not fast, but it's remarkably capable of fixing a wide variety of weird issues....provide they're actually something wrong with the OS.
However, it's not going to take the place of a "fresh" Windows 10 on a formatted partition. The best Windows 7 repair job in the world wouldn't take the place of a fresh installation of the same. It's just possible to kind of do that in Windows 10 due to the modular design and separation of some Windows functions from the core OS files, or something.
So, no great solution. I have a long list of old visual novels, doujinshi games and apps, etc., installed under Windows 8.1. But installed on a separate drive, by and large the vast majority of them kept working under Windows 10 (even though at least a few are XP/7 era), and they were not actually affected by the upgrade process years ago.
It's not officially free. You can still do it, but it may deactivate at some point in the future.
Also keep in mind now that we're five years out, there's some hardware that came on Win 7 machines that doesn't have any software support anymore. In particular, keep an eye out for nForce chipsets and other on board Nvidia hardware, there's almost no support anymore. Also older AMD cards are a bitch to get running sometimes
Weird peripherals can be an issue to. Things like touchpad drivers for laptops.
WiFi boards are upgrade killers.
There has never, not once, ever, ever been any indication that Microsoft will deactivate any Windows 10 install that comes from a Windows 7 key.
They never turned off the program that allowed Windows 7 and 8.x keys to activate Windows 10. If they were going to, they would have long ago, and there is no way in hell with Win7 coming out of support that they would ever deactivate an install that comes from a Win7 key.
But you guys have reminded me about potential driver issues. It's an old Dell Latitude, I forget which exact model, ex-corporate thing she got used.
So now I'm thinking, that's a hell of a choice - insecure OS, or potentially breaking fairly vital features.
A new machine isn't on the cards for several reasons.
Steam | XBL
If she only needs Chrome you could try cloudready: it’s a version of ChromeOS free for individual use.
She never used Chrome; I started her off on Firefox when she started and she's stayed on it since.
I'll look at that, though, thanks. Options are good.
Steam | XBL
I recently picked up one for my youngest for $60. I tossed a SSD in it and it works great.
You have to do some homework to figure out specific model numbers but it's not impossible.
It really depends on exactly how old. especially on latitude lines Dell is really good about driver support. If you had the model number you could look it up at support.dell.com.
we have a few dell machines here in the office that were originally bought with Windows 7 on them, and they currently run 10 just fine.
When I went to the settings -> activation to see where to put the product key it said windows 10 was already activated with a digital license.
Windows takes a hardware fingerprint of the system and hits that against their license registry. If a pc has a fingerprint associated with a valid license it will activate itself without any interaction with the user. Additionally, if the computer has a UEFI bios, license data is written into a dedicated section of the bios that windows checks automatically.
Cheers for the encouraging noises, guys, that helped me feel okay about doing it. Took a few hours all told (including backing up the hard drive first, not that there's much on it), but I wasn't watching it the whole time. Ultimately was pretty painless.
Steam | XBL
@Mugsley The SSD idea has occurred. I don't have a spare, but one suitable for this machine is not expensive. Haven't looked into expanding the RAM, though.
Frankly the bigger issue right now is mum's health. Let me just say, it is incredibly weird finally making the dreaded Facebook post letting everyone know about my mum's very recent incurable cancer diagnosis at the exact same time as I'm upgrading the OS on her laptop. Priority one with the machine was making sure she could still just use it with some degree of safety since she does her banking and stuff on it. So long as it works, it's good enough right now.
I'm just glad the upgrade went off without a hitch. Easiest OS upgrade I've done since the DOS days.
Steam | XBL
you shouuld have seen a "cumulative update" and a .NET update. the cumulative update includes all the security fixes for the month.
Thoughts?
That might be a better question for the sysadmin thread. We do more consumer stuff here. I haven't tested the update on any 2012 R2 boxes yet but apparently I need to.
I cross posted there too, but thanks!
It's now been a full day, and it's been stuck at 91% during the reboot phase for at least half that time. I've looked around elsewhere and it seems that if need be you can power down a hung machine and windows 10 will revert itself the next time you power it up, so I figure I'll give it till tomorrow to try that. God willing, it'll sort itself between now and then, or that will get me back to the desktop screen and I can figure out what to do from there. But I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask if anyone here has any particular advice for this kind of thing?
If you look at the contacts on the adapter, do they look dirty or worn?
I've seen machines get stuck every once in a while, but it's pretty rare. hard booting it should revert it back. I'd try updating using the media creation tool next. you don't actually have to create a USB drive, it has an option to just update the computer in place. And on the plus side it'll end up right at 1909, which is the most current version.
Have you installed or checked for Win10 drivers for those devices? Also check for updated or Win10 specific drivers for your motherboard; for the USB ports.
After doing some digging, the only one applicable to me was that I had a flash drive inserted into a USB port. It was caused by drive reassignment during the update. Workaround:
So I had to use the manual update executable.
That's a weird one because pretty much every laptop on the planet will throttle down big time when idle. the i5-8250U on my XPS13 literally runs at 800mhz when it's sitting at the desktop.
Steam | XBL
I forgot she was still on Win7. Guess I get to go over and upgrade her at some point.
Yep, I was sure microsoft was going to laugh at my old windows 7 OEM key after I upgraded all the things in my computer. All that I have read said it wouldn't work. But it took my key and activated windows 10. Maybe they laxed up on it because of win7 retirement. Or perhaps it will deactivate when they figure out what's going on. Or maybe when I contacted support last summer to ask about how upgrades would work with my windows key the support person snuck an activation onto my account.
No one needs to worry about this. If you have a valid windows 7 key, you can upgrade to 10.
They give a crap about enterprise use and OEMs.