I would also mention Zinstall, which for me worked very well. Even recommended in a different thread on the forum.
I think they are more expensive, but they really do the job well.

See video in...

You could also use Dropbox, or Microsoft's OneDrive for this kind of share.
They are quite useful for copying some files between two computers.
OneDrive is even built into Windows 10.

If you don't have Windows.old on your C: drive, try going through the various folders under C:\Users.
Look for the one that has more data than others - that could be a clue that your files are there...

You can do this kind of stuff using Zinstall.

Here is their tutorial for transferring programs and files to a new computer, which worked fine for me in the past.
Though if I'm not mistaken,...

As NavyLCDR wrote, If you have a Windows 8 key, you can use it to activate Windows 10 for free.
If you have Windows 8 installed already, you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free.

If you do not have...

3rd party tutorial from that thread:
Windows 10 Easy Transfer tutorial

Glad to help!

If you are looking to transfer your files only (like pictures/documents), then I'd get a USB drive and be done with it. Tip: an external drive is faster than a USB thumb drive, and higher capacity,...

You can also use disk2vhd, which is a dead simple image backup tool, free (provided by Microsoft, so it's somewhere in between Windows backup and 3rd party tools).
Takes a full image, which you can...

Are you by any chance doing remote access to that PC?
Sometimes a black screen is an indication of that.

On the black screen, do you see icons? Mouse cursor? Or completely black without anything...

Zinstall (mentioned a few posts above) have a tool that transfers programs, too. They have a demo video on the Win10 upgrade tutorial page. It's more expensive, though.

Just to make sure - have you tried running it as Administrator?

Also, you've mentioned XP Mode. A vanilla XP Mode machine actually should have IE6 installed as default. Is that the case? And you...

I meant that you won't be able to turn updates OFF on Windows 10 consumer editions.
See here:
http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/15/windows-10-home-and-pro-automatic-updates-could-become-mandatory/ ...

Exactly. Plus, it was announced that consumer versions no longer allow to disable mandatory updates from happening automatically. So if we put 2 and 2 together...

I meant that usually MS targets the holiday season buying frenzy with their releases. Both Windows 7 and Windows 8 were released in October, so that the laptop you buy during holidays has the new OS....

Zinstall guys already offer their "Easy Transfer" to Windows 10, as well as their full migration tools, because of course they do :)
Even have a "Windows Easy Transfer" tutorial.

The catch? It's...

It's very different compared to how this usually worked.
RTM two weeks before GA means that OEMs can only start preloading Win10 when people already have it as an official release.
Then again,...