Upgrading from Win7 to Win10 - on a dual-boot laptop

This is probably an unfair question to ask in this forum. But given the depth of expertise, someone might have advice to offer!

I have recently done successful clean installs and activations of Win 10 with the help of Shawn Brink's tutorials and advice from other forum members.

I also have a laptop which has Win 7 Pro installed, along with Linux Mint in a dual boot setup. Both in Legacy/BIOS mode. I am using what seems to be a less-typical option for dual-booting. The normal [Linux] approach is to have the Linux bootloader "GRUB" take over from, and replace, the Windows boot manager in the MBR, and boot either OS. The hazard with this is that any Windows upgrade which affects the Windows boot manager will fail, and perhaps also affect the GRUB - potentially rendering both systems unbootable.

But there is another way. A clever program called EasyBCD can be installed in Windows. It modifies the Windows bootloader so that it can "see" the Linux OS on a separate partition and offer the option to boot into it. It works well.

I would now like to upgrade the Win7 to Win10. In theory, it seems that I can do an in-place upgrade (I've read the tutorial...). This is supposed to preserve all existing files, apps and settings in Win7 and move them onward to the Win 10 install. The main exception seems to be third-party AV programs, which need to be removed from Win7 and then reinstalled in Win10 after the upgrade.

Now here is my question. Will an in-place upgrade of Win 7 keep, and transfer, my EasyBCD program and settings - and the changes it has made to the Windows bootloader to enable dual boot with Linux - to Win 10?

The simple answer may be I won't know till I try, and the upgrade process will, or should, alert me - before it runs - if EasyBCD (like AV programs) won't play nicely. But I'd be curious to know if anyone else who dual-boots in this way has successfully run the Win7 to Win10 upgrade.

I have posted in the EasyBCD forum as well, but it's not very busy.....

I would do a drive image and save it on an external drive. Better be safe than sorry.

With EasyBCD, I would remove the Linux option before doing an in place upgrade.
Once win10 is installed and running, run EasyBCD and add the Linux option.

Megahertz said:

I would do a drive image and save it on an external drive. Better be safe than sorry.

With EasyBCD, I would remove the Linux option before doing an in place upgrade.
Once win10 is installed and running, run EasyBCD and add the Linux option.

Thanks, Megahertz. I had intended to make a drive image before any changes.... just forgot to mention it!
Your advice is in line with my thinking. Make the Win7 to Win10 upgrade as simple as possible by removing Linux from the system (after all, it's very easy to reinstate Linux - and EasyBCD - after the upgrade).

Would it be wise not only to uninstall/remove Linux Mint, but also to delete the partitions it occupies? It occurs to me that the Windows upgrade process might run better if doesn't have to take account of any unidentified or empty partitions on the hard drive. Again, I can easily sort out and recreate partitions for a Linux reinstall once Win 10 is successfully in place.

If you have more than 30G free on the C: drive I think you don't need to uninstall Mint.

Re-install Mint only when all is fine after clean installing Windows 10.
Upgrading could cause problems, which you will have to spend much time fixing.

Ghot said:

Side note: An In-Place Upgrade is really for upgrading from one version of Windows 10 to a newer version of Windows 10. It also works to repair a Windows 10 installation.
To go from Windows 7 to Windows 10... a "clean install" is really the best method.

Sorry Ghot,
I've done twice Win 7 to win 10 running In-Place Upgrade (running setup.exe from running windows),. No problems at all.

I do agree that a Clean install is the best option.

On October 15, 2015, I clean installed Windows 7 and immediately upgraded it to Windows 10.