Comparing Win10 installation to Win7?

enxio27 said:

A couple of specific questions (in addition to the request for comparisons):

1. Any reason I can't use an SSD as a boot drive?

Answer - Windows 10 works just as well on SSD drives and any HDD drive.

2. Are all four Win10 partitions required (Recovery, System, MSR, Primary)? Can I at least get by without the Recovery partition?

Answer - In simple terms yes - Windows Will create them during installation. Some will argue not all are needed, but now we're getting into complicated areas. In simple let Windows manage itself terms - let Windows create the partitions. It's not going to cost a lot of storage space - less than 800 meg.

3. Any way to keep Win10 (or the license) from irrevocably locking itself to that specific hardware?

Answer - In simple terms, provided the OS license isn't an OEM license, you can upgrade your hardware without having the license locked to a specific piece of hardware/system. The exception - OEM licenses which are tied to the specific machine.

Understand if you use a Microsoft Account, your license will be digitally assigned to that account. That means anytime you upgrade your machine and log into it with your Microsoft Account, the OS will be activated.

4. Any other "gotchas" I need to be aware of?

Answer - Make sure both your software and hardware is supported by Windows 10. And be aware you may need to upgrade some of your hardware for Windows 10.

Hope I answered your questions

A couple of tutorials...

• Upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 for Free
• Clean Install Windows 10

2. Are all four Win10 partitions required (Recovery, System, MSR, Primary)? Can I at least get by without the Recovery partition?

For a UEFI system, yes, you could delete the Recovery partition. It's maybe 500Mb- varies a bit.

What do you get if you keep it?
- Advanced startup options e.g. boot to command prompt, boot to Safe Mode...
- Automatic repair

Bear in mind that if you delete it, you will get another created on any upgrade procedure (feature update- probably going to be annually- has generally been 6 monthly - or an in-place upgrade repair install).

I've also never dealt with an SSD before.

The main functional difference you will note is the boot time - say 12-13s to the lock screen from a cold boot.

Otherwise only very disk-intensive operations such as disk imaging will be perceptibly much faster.

Drivers
Occasionally an older machine will require you to use an older- not 'latest' driver. Initially simply see how it goes with what Win 10 provides. If that works- worry no more. Make sure your BIOS is as up to date as is available.

Planning ahead:
I urge you to consider ways to place your personal data on a separate disk or partition.
Why? O/S maintenance and recovery then does not affect it.

The continual development of Win 10 means every so often MS botches something up with updates. The 6 monthly or annual feature update is a new O/S.

As early as you can after having installed Win 10, start routinely using disk imaging - e.g. Macrium Reflect (free) to large enough external storage.

This is both a full backup and a means of recovery should your disk become corrupt, unbootable or fail.

Appearance and Win 7

You may find using Win 10's start menu much more restrictive.
Open Shell (free) is used by many here. With this very customisable program you can have a Win 7 look-alike menu and a lot more, with full support of drag 'n drop.Win 10 does not have the same flexibility to allow you to modify its appearance, but some things are possible. In the Customisation section you will find some examples of skins and themes used.

E.g. I've used this sort of appearance through Win 8 and numerous builds of Win 10:

Unless you are hard up for storage space there's absolutely no reason to delete any partitions Windows creates on install. This is just one of those "this is what I would do" opinions based on no real facts.

BTW I've been building systems for quite some time, including 5 Windows 10 builds, the last one last year, and not one of them did I remove the Windows 10 created partitions.



And yes, it's better to use UEFI with Windows 10; especially if you've fairly recent hardware. Recent being within the last 5 years (as a guide).

Good luck.

The one thing I'll add is when mentioning OEM also include System Builder, usually same restrictions but available from different suppliers for use by lower-volume assemblers such as Custom shops.

As already asked, edit your profile with ALL your hardware Specs. It will help us to help you.

- If you have a Win 7 retail (not OEM) license you can use the Win 7 license to install Win 10 on the new build (Win 7 HB & HP = Win 10 Home, Win 7 Pro & Ultimate= Win 10 Pro). If you bought a Win 10 Retail license you can transfer to another computer (it won't be locked).
- Instead of using a DVD, use a USB flash drive (8G min).
Steps to do:
- Install 7zip 32bits to use on a 32bits computer or 7zip 64bits to use on a 64bits computer.
- Format a USB drive (8G min) as Fat32
- With 7 zip extract all files and folders to root (\) of the USB drive (8G min) formatted as Fat32.
- Open a cmd window as administrator and type:
diskpart
list volume (take note of the number of the USB drive)
select volume n (replace n with the number of the USB drive from above)
active
exit (to exit diskpart)
exit (to exit cmd)

Now your USB drive can boot as Legacy or UEFI.

- Set your BIOS properly. For now, disable Fast boot and Secure boot.
- If your new build has a UEFI BIOS you should install Win 10 as UEFI-GPT on the SSD. To do so, make sure you boot the Win 10 installation drive as UEFI, not Legacy.
- Do a Clean Install deleting all partitions on the SSD and then proceed.
- My advice is to keep all partitions created during installation.
- If you have a small SSD (120G), you can move C:\Users (SSD) to D:\Users (HDD). It is a way to have Windows and programs in the fast SSD and have all your data on a big (and slow) HDD. I can guide you on this as I've done it in many computers as it's a way to have the speed of a SSD and the space of a HDD at low cost.

To tweak Win 10 (make it look like win 7), disable some telemetry and more, read What programs / apps to use to tweak Win 10