What is the best upgrade path for 8.1 to 10 pro

Well if you buy 7 Pro a bit cheaper and still being sold at some places like an upgrade set bought last year for $65 and then be sure to get SP1 if not already a 7 SP1 dvd set you can upgrade directly to 10 Pro.. First split the drive in two for a second primary to put 7 on and upgrade the quick 7 install to see 10 Pro activated and then nuke that primary to regrow the first and go for the clean install of Pro.

I just one 7 laptop upgraded from the 32bit 7 to the 64bit Home edition by first running into what I expected might happen but with different results on the OEM machine being no Start button and nothing on the Settings screen at all! The Apps wouldn't open either. No worry however when instead of an upgrade to repair a fast clean install of the 32bit 10 Home saw 10 activated and I knew I was ready to go for the 64bit clean install running nicely. For my own two builds one 7 Ulltimate and the other 7 Pro the upgrade to clean install finally after the first upgrade all went well.

One thing I noticed was that Windows Media Player is in the Home as well as Pro edition while supposedly you had to download WMP separately for the 8 Home edition. MS put it back in 10 I see! So the Home edition isn't actually too much.

bobkn said:

Are you thinking of Windows Media Center?

That was an extra in Windows 8. (Free for a while, later $10US.) It's absent in 10, although MS gives a free download of DVD player software if Media Center was installed during the upgrade.

I guess some people will still be dissatisfied. I never used it, but supposedly Media Center could be used with TV tuner cards to watch television on the PC. (Not something I've wanted.)

Windows Media Player not Media Center! I know what the Media Center is and never bothered with it. In even in 7 I noticed that video captures after a certain date would no longer play normally when you opened any Mpeg II file and see no vertical control but the picture squashed down to a horizontal line. I ended up only being able to use the capture card's own playback feature.

As for the Media Center and watching by way of a tuner card that was a requirement you had to get a paid subscription somewhat the way Netflix operates now online for movie rentals. During the initial upgrade and then upgrade to repair installs here I found something else new however apparently only seen with an upgrade and no longer once you perform a clean install where then it becomes a $15 option! There's a report about this I came across when looking on the present clean install and no longer seeing it under Windows Accessories along with WMP. Tech: How to play DVDs for free in Windows 10

The "Windows DVD Player" is also known as the KB8081704 update that now isn't seen on the clean install. You can download WMP at any time since that was never an issue except the codecs for video and dvd playback were taken out for W8 if you went with the Home edition. The upgrade from 7 is what saw the WDPlayer update I lost when deciding to see to the clean install anyways regardless of the upgrade repair install apparently cleaning up the initial mess!

Here's the Q&A for that. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/i...=1438117403084

Even if you didn't find it included 7 was the last to see dvd and video playback support. With the upgrade to 10 not for clean installs the new Windows DVD Player is included with downloads or you have to pay the $15 price tag following any clean install to get that dvd player. You can see the direction MS is going as far as selling things separately compared what they had been including in Windows.