New
#1
Should I Upgrade
I have a custom built server like pc that has tons of unique hardware, top of the line ati radeon graphics card 2 years ago, pci card to add 2 extra sata ports to the 8 on the motherboard, 8 internal hard drives, two SSD, one fast one for windows 7 and one from program files, then some for backups and large video libraries. some are spanned together. I have a hauppage tuner card, 2250 model I think, its the one with dual tuners and its internal. I know windows media center will be gone im pretty much off of it, but I like the hauppage software to be able to record from old vhs tapes etc. it also has two added usb3 cards for more usb3 ports, just so much hardware I cant even think about it all, everything works perfectly in windows 7 and I have had to disable automatic updates and remove the gwx important kb update to prevent it from trying and failing to download.
Im pretty much on plex for media serving now and im pretty sure its windows 10 compatible, but I know my Norton ghost 15, very important is not. im pretty much leaning to leaving auto updates off and leaving this pc on windows 7, MSE virus protection still updates with windows update disabled, and I know after an operating system gets old the patches start to overwhelm the system. this pc is mainly a server, and occasionally used to play games and steam, sometimes its used for torrents, I balance my bank account with the last version of Microsoft money before they killed it, it does work on windows 8.1 I know because my surface pro 3 will run it.
I just upgraded the surface to 10 manually with the installer tool since the auto update kept failing on it also, im pleased with the experience on the surface, but I think I will loose access to needed devices on my server machine and wont see any real performance increase besides bootup time, but this is moot since the system runs 24/7.
what are everyones thoughts. I have the surface tablet that I reserved the free upgrade and downloaded it, I assume this means I can now reinstall it at any time by restoring to factory 8.1 and upgrading to 10 if worst case scenario happens. I also have a family pack windows 7 home for 3 systems, all the same license key, and one upgrade to win 7 ultimate. I would like to atleast make sure I can upgrade these in the future to windows 10 but have no other systems to install them on besides the master server and I don't want to touch it. anyway to have my license keys added to the approved windows 10 list without actually upgrading a machine with the key on it? I don't want to have to pay a fortune later down the road if I completely redo the server (something I am not ready to do now)
also is there a way to install windows 10 dual boot without corrupting windows 7 main system? I am very familiar with dual boot and reserving extra space on a drive to accommodate it, I assume I would have to dual boot with one of my windows 7 home keys and then upgrade it to 10, but I am afraid I may corrupt everything on my windows 7 partition. I guess my last ditch resort would be to disconnect all 8 drives and hang an extra in and go through the update on it, and see if it works for all my hardware, I assume this will make no changes in my motherboard bios that would prevent me from going back, and maybe this way my windows 10 key is reserved at least for my home license upgraded to ultimate so I can get windows 10 pro. I really wish now I would have kept my dummy machine instead of selling it for 200 bucks, it was a decent dell.
anyways any comments appreciated:)