Upgrading from 7 and hardware change

flamer · 23 Jan 2018

Hi experts,

Please give me some advice on the best upgrade path for my system

Currently running win7 on an AMD CPU/Gigabyte motherboard.
I have Win7 installed on an SSD which is of course the boot device, and my user profiles are mapped to a second HDD where most of my applications and files are stored.

I have purchased a new Intel CPU and Gigabyte Motherboard. From my reading, it seems a re-install will be required since win7 needs to update drivers etc.

So I thought I might as well upgrade to win10 while I am at it.

Should I upgrade now to Win10, (does win10 upgrade path support multiple HDD's? ie will it break my system) and then repair install win10 after the hardware is changed? Will I keep everything by doing so?

I know I should just clean install win10 after changing the hardware, but my secondary drive is 4TB and 90% used with a lot of applications installed which will take me a very long time to re-install them all as the registry strings will be lost.

TIA

dalchina · 23 Jan 2018

Hi, a few points that occur briefly:

1. the best - most robust- structure for Win 10 is EFI with GPT formatted disks. Your Win 7 build will be legacy BIOS.
Consider what you want to run with into the future.
2. A clean install is most likely to give the most reliable outcome, however there are, as you know, other ways to get from A to B.
3. You could consider using a 3rd party solution so you can
- clean install Win 10
- transfer automatically your installed progams (with most of them registered correctly).

Laplink PCMover is great at doing this, albeit there's a one-time license fee.

4. Before making any change, make sure you have a current disk image (we constantly urge people to use disk imaging routinely). E.g. Macrium Reflect (free). This protects you in the event of disaster.

Also, given a disk image, there is (or was) a cheaper Laplink option which is also more convenient which makes use of that disk image.

5. When you install Win 10, you of course get a whole new set of drivers. It may be that trying to run Win 7 on your new hardware is not fully supported.

6. If your start menu is deeply nested (3+ folders deep) then no win 10 style menu will express it properly. This is significant as you say you have many programs installed. What happens is that the lower folders are not shown in the start menu, and the shortcuts simply listed in alpha order. Think 'Help Help Help Help' - where each one is from a different program.

The solution:
a. was/is Classic Shell start menu (free)- which is still great, but now no longer developed
b. one of the other 3rd party menus, but don't choose Win 10 emulation (same problem).

7. Officially the free upgrade period is over. However some have still reported success.

Hope that gives you a few more ideas and I'm sure others will add further significant comments.