upgrade questions

You can expand the C: drive back to fill the empty space, but for reasons you have seen I recommend using MiniTool Partition Wizard for that. You can also create an NTFS partition in the empty space you created and assign it a drive letter and you will have storage space that way.

The way that we recommend "trying" Windows 10 without violating the EULA requires an external hard drive or network storage location. We recommend you create an image of your existing hard drive using a program such as Macrium Reflect Free. The image will be about 80-90% in size of the used space on your hard drive. The free space does not get backed up because there is nothing there - unless you tell it to back up sector by sector. Then you upgrade your existing installation to Windows 10. If you don't like it, then you restore the image you made, erasing Windows 10 in the process of restoring.

If you want to see your Windows product keys, run showkeyplus from this forum:
Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

Here is MiniTool Partition Wizard:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Here is Macrium Reflect Free:
Macrium Reflect Free

NavyLCDR said:

What WHS is saying is that it violates the End Users License Agreement (EULA) for you to have two installed and activated copies of Windows unless you have two separate licenses for Windows. When you upgrade from one version of Windows (Windows 7) to another version of WIndows (Windows 10), you still only have one license. You do not gain a second license for free. You can have EITHER Windows 7 OR Windows 10 installed and activated with your one license but NOT both.

We assumed you had purchased a second license for Windows in order to run the second version that you want to install.

Win 10 ISO burned to DVD with IMGBurn; backup on removable drive; 2nd partition NTSF formatted; product key extracted.
Rebooted using DVD to install Win 10. 2 problems: stops accepting product characters after 1st 4 groups entered; asks to restart and remove DVD - keeps restarting at same point and ends at Pro or Home question. I'm trying to install on the Win 7 partition. I'm not asked which partition.

jalea148 said:

I'm trying to install on the Win 7 partition. I'm not asked which partition.

Are you trying to upgrade the Windows 7 on that partition? If so, then you run setup.exe from the DVD with the DVD inserted in Windows 7, just like if you were copying files from it. You only boot from the DVD if you are doing a clean install.

Yes, dual booting Windows 10 with the version of Windows you should be upgrading from will violate your EULA, but Microsoft seems to be tolerant of these sort of violations at present. I think Microsoft wants as many users to be running Windows 10 NOW as possible, and is prepared to bend its own rules to get digital entitlement on as many machines as it can! I doubt this will continue for long past the end of the free upgrade period, after the end of July 2016, but who knows?

For instance, I don't hear of people losing activation on their OEM installed system or their Windows 10 dual boots yet. It takes some undefined time for the activation servers to flag up a notification in the license of a machine that is in violation of the license terms.

Here's a question - Is your Windows 7 Ultimate a retail upgrade or full version that you bought, or is it OEM installed by Dell - on the PC when you bought it? If a full version, then you can dual boot without any violation whatsoever.

You can open an admin command prompt and run slmgr -dlv to see the result - either: RETAIL CHANNEL or OEM SLP CHANNEL?

If you want to take this small risk (that you may, at some future date, be flagged as having an invalid license), to avoid problems with the DVD optical drive during installation, Jalea, copy the files from the DVD to a folder (call it Win_10_Setup, or something else meaningful to you) on your Windows 7 partition.

Remove the DVD and boot into Windows 7 as normal.

All the stuff below can be found here:

Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup
Windows 10 - Dual Boot with Windows 7 or Windows 8 - Windows 10 Forums[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup

step 4 of this tutorial applies

Open the Win_10_Setup\sources\ folder and find GatherOSState.exe. Copy this file to your desktop and run it. It will create a file called GenuineTicket.XML on your desktop. Copy this to a safe place as a backup, then run setup.exe from the same sources folder, selecting the new partition you have created for the installation.
Don't enter a product key - select "I don't have a product key" on that screen, and finish the installation.
After installation has completed, and you are on the first desktop of Windows 10, follow the first tutorial above to register the GenuineTicket.xml to activate the PC. Activation follows rebooting fairly quickly (immediately!) in most cases, but Shawn states it may take a second reboot in the tutorial.

If you get on OK with Windows 10, then consider ("you must"!) removing or upgrading your Windows 7 installation rather sooner than later, or remove the Windows 10 if you or your PC is not ready for it yet. Dell, like other OEMs may not provide full laptop support for upgrades of Windows 7 to 10.

If you register with the Insider program, and use your MS account to sign into Windows 10, then I'm not sure if the EULA is relaxed (in enforcement terms) even more - it certainly was for Insiders registered pre-July 29, 2015 - as you are effectively an unpaid beta-tester for Microsoft - but the terms of engagement are fuzzy.

Fafhrd said:

Here's a question - Is your Windows 7 Ultimate a retail upgrade or full version that you bought, or is it OEM installed by Dell - on the PC when you bought it? If a full version, then you can dual boot without any violation whatsoever.

OEM or Full Version does not matter. 1 license = 1 installed and activated instance of Windows. PERIOD. If a person has 1 retail license for Windows 7 they still have ONE license, not two. If they are running 1 full retail licensed Windows 7 and 1 Windows 10 as an upgrade from that Windows 7, 1+1 still equals 2. The upgrade to Windows 10 does not result in the granting of an additional license. The Windows 7 license is used as the license to run Windows 10. And the retail license for Windows 7 still says it can only be installed on one device at a time.

Nonsense.

If there was an OEM license for Windows 7 installed on the machine at the time it was purchased, and a full retail license has subsequently been purchased and installed, then there are 2 licenses.

Under these circumstances, either or both may be upgraded to Windows 10, or clean installed in their respective place with the relevant edition.

Without knowledge of the actual situation, I cannot say whether this is the case or not here.

Fafhrd said:

Nonsense.

If there was an OEM license for Windows 7 installed on the machine at the time it was purchased, and a full retail license has subsequently been purchased and installed, then there are 2 licenses.

Under these circumstances, either or both may be upgraded to Windows 10, or clean installed in their respective place with the relevant edition.

Without knowledge of the actual situation, I cannot say whether this is the case or not here.

I apologize, I misread your original statement:

Here's a question - Is your Windows 7 Ultimate a retail upgrade or full version that you bought, or is it OEM installed by Dell - on the PC when you bought it? If a full version, then you can dual boot without any violation whatsoever.

You are correct. A computer that came with Windows 7 Home or Starter OEM license and was then upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate with an upgrade license can legally only run 1 copy of Windows and that 1 copy of Windows can be Starter, Home, Ultimate, or Pro, Windows 7 or Windows 10 - but no combinations of any of them or more than 1 of any of them.

A computer that came with Windows 7 Home or Starter OEM license and was then upgraded with a full Windows 7 Ultimate license, not an upgrade, can run 2 copies of Windows - 1 Home and 1 Pro (but still not legally entitled to the combination of Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10 Pro together).

A computer that came with Windows 7 Home or Starter OEM license and was then upgraded with a full Windows 7 Ultimate license, not an upgrade, can run 2 copies of Windows - 1 Home and 1 Pro (but still not legally entitled to the combination of Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10 Pro together).

Absolutely.

NavyLCDR said:

I apologize, I misread your original statement:



You are correct. A computer that came with Windows 7 Home or Starter OEM license and was then upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate with an upgrade license can legally only run 1 copy of Windows and that 1 copy of Windows can be Starter, Home, Ultimate, or Pro, Windows 7 or Windows 10 - but no combinations of any of them or more than 1 of any of them.

A computer that came with Windows 7 Home or Starter OEM license and was then upgraded with a full Windows 7 Ultimate license, not an upgrade, can run 2 copies of Windows - 1 Home and 1 Pro (but still not legally entitled to the combination of Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10 Pro together).

New problem ---
Started installation inside Win 7 2 1/2 hours ago . Says Getting Updates ... 0%. Seems excessive

jalea148 said:

New problem ---
Started installation inside Win 7 2 1/2 hours ago . Says Getting Updates ... 0%. Seems excessive

You've stalled.

If you had outstanding stalled Windows Updates for 7 they may cause the Windows 10 updates phase to block.
solutions:

Windows Update - Reset - Windows 7 Help Forums

then allow Windows 7 to update completely up-to-date - may take hours

You may wish to avoid the delay:

To install:
clean boot with MSCONFIG

Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup - Windows 7 Help Forums

Open services.msc, and stop WUSUASERV and disable it,

Disable WIFI, and unplug any ethernet cables, and any removable CD or DVD or USB storage, printer, scanner camera etc. - all except keyboard and pointing device.

Start the install from the sources folder copied onto your hard disk, as noted in step 4, and do not allow to install updates - these can be done post-installation.

Should be much faster now.



Install Windows 10