Can't keep settings and apps when upgrading from Windows 8.1 Pro to 10

I think the question says it all. I'm trying to upgrade a friend's PC running Windows 8.1 Pro to Windows 10, using the Media Creation Tool. I've tried both the 'Upgrade this PC now' and 'Create installation media' options. I've also tried with a downloaded ISO from an earlier version (1909) of Windows 10. In every case it goes all right until I get to the 'Choose what to keep' window, where the 'Keep personal files and apps' option is greyed out and a message at the bottom of the window states 'Your files, apps and settings can't be kept because you're installing an edition of Windows that's different from the one you're currently using.' That last message really doesn't make sense in the context where I have chosen 'Upgrade this PC now'.

Following various suggestions I found, I've disabled and removed an anti-virus. I installed all available upgrades. Makes no difference.

For what it's worth, when I try 'Get more features with a new edition of Windows' from the System page in the Control Panel I get a window that says 'You can't add features to this edition of Windows'.

Losing apps and settings really isn't an option. Does this mean my friend is stuck with Windows 8.1 or can anyone suggest a way around this?

dalchina said:

Hi, could be..a mismatch in the base language. Is a language pack installed?

The machine in question uses the default (English US) language. I generally install the English Australia language pack as that is where I live. But the problem happened even when I ran the media creation tool on the same PC I was upgrading.

On which PC was the media creation tool run?

The older ISOs were downloaded on different, though comparable (ie same architecture, same generation CPU) PCs. But I did also try both 'Upgrade this PC now' and 'Create installation media' options on the machine I was trying to upgrade.

Please post the result of:

slmgr /dlv

Thank you for all the suggestions. I think I've tried them all but unfortunately am no closer to a solution. I gotta be honest, I'm pretty much done wasting time on this. But I'll still be very grateful if someone can figure it out.

This can also occur when there is a configuration problem e.g. the default installation path has been changed.

I'm not sure how I would know if this has happened. Can you help?

You may get something more by running setupdiag.exe (free from MS- Google) which attempts to analyse the upgrade logs.

Nothing in there, which isn't surprising since not wanting to lose settings or apps, I didn't actually attempt an upgrade.

1) Open administrative command prompt (ACP) and type or copy and paste:
2) sfc /scannow
3) dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
4) dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
5) sfc /scannow

I won't post the whole output here except to say that there was an error which was repaired and now everything runs showing no errors. I was quite hopeful when I saw that, but it still made no difference to my experience upgrading to W10.

slmgr /dlv

See the attached screenshot image. Not knowing what information is revealed in those codes I've blurred some of them. But please let me know if there is enough there to tell me something...

Your "friends" Windows 8 Pro is likely activated with an illegitimate program used to activate pirated copies of Windows. Since it is volume licensed, if it is legitimate, then the Windows 8 will need to be upgraded by the corporation's IT department that it is being licensed from, which I highly doubt is the case.

But that is why there is no option to save settings, programs and files.

I immediately suspected a volume license activation scheme, and thus the request for the license information with the simple command slmgr /dlv.

OK thanks for the quick reply.

NavyLCDR said:

Your "friends" Windows 8 Pro is likely activated with an illegitimate program used to activate pirated copies of Windows. Since it is volume licensed, if it is legitimate, then the Windows 8 will need to be upgraded by the corporation's IT department that it is being licensed from, which I highly doubt is the case.

I suppose that is possible but I do kind of doubt it. I will try to find out though.

Out of interest, can you explain or provide a reference of what "volume licensed" means?