Restore reverted In-place Upgrade from 8.1 to 10

I had done an in-place upgrade to Windows 10 back when I just bought my laptop back in 2015. I did it because it was a limited time free upgrade and I would be able to revert to 8.1 if I didn't like it. Well now that 8.1 isn't being supported, I'm having issues and wanted to re-upgrade to Windows 10 so that I might also do an in-place upgrade from there.

I have the Media Creation Tool and the ISO (two actually of different sizes) from that time but my search for help online found that these can still be downloaded. My online searches also say that I must have a Windows license.

1) Are these downloads more current than the ones I stored?
2) The license I had was acceptable before. Does it expire? Do I need to find it somewhere?
3) Will an in-place upgrade damage programs already installed?
4) Can a full back-up be done wirelessly before I try?
5) I even forgot how to use the ISO so any advice would be helpful.

Sorry to hear you're having problems. There are several points to clarify.

'Re-upgrading' (from 8.1) is neither useful nor meaningful. Now you're on Win 10, forget about Win 8.1 - unless you really want to reinstall it and continue with 8.1.

Note too, in passing, that the free upgrade route to Win 10 has been entirely blocked by MS now.

) Are these downloads more current than the ones I stored?
The MS media creation tool always downloads a recent version of the current major build. That typically does not include the last 2 or 3 updates.

2) The license I had was acceptable before. Does it expire? Do I need to find it somewhere?
Your Win 10 license and activation rights are held digitally on MS's activation servers against a hash of a form of the hardware id of your PC excluding disk and RAM.

If you change other items than those you will invalidate your license acquired by upgrade.

3) Will an in-place upgrade damage programs already installed?

Hundreds of times has it been said - especially by me- and in the tutorial- no.

It's the same mechanism as any major build upgrade and carries the same risk as that.

4) Can a full back-up be done wirelessly before I try?

Wirelessly?

You may have noticed how the regular use of 3rd party disk imaging is endlessly recommended on this forum.
I hope you've taken that advice and are using it regularly.
E.g. Macrium Reflect (free v8 still available); Aomei Backupper etc etc
- just search the forum - Youtube videos available.

Large enough external disk needed for image file sets.

5) I even forgot how to use the ISO so any advice would be helpful.
There's a tutorial for an in-place upgrade repair in the searchable Tutorials section.

I've posted 4 line simple instructions on how to start that scores of times, as have a few others.

More:
Note that you can clean install Win 10 as many times as you wish - activation should be automatic.

You can also attempt to repair your Win 10 installation - depending on what's wrong.
One basic option is an in-place upgrade repair install.
But without knowing what problems you have, it's not possible to make a suggestion.

I'm sorry I've clearly misunderstood your situation.. and all that is now going to be too complicated for me to take apart.

I'll wish you good luck. Perhaps someone else can help as I don't want to spend further time that is irrelevant to you.

Except for this
5)
To start an in-place upgrade (or repair install)
Many many times I've posted this: (just search tenforums)
a. rt click iso file
b. click Mount
c. open new drive letter created
d. double click setup

You can also
a. Extract files from an iso file
b. use it to create a bootable disk (e..g with suitable instructions for Rufus (free)) - see applicable tutorial.

And more.. depends what you want to use it for.

andytampa said:

I fear I may never get an answer now. My experience is that once someone tries, people following will assume it's answered and move on.

not necessarily...be strong

andytampa said:

I fear I may never get an answer now. My experience is that once someone tries, people following will assume it's answered and move on.

I'll give it a go....

My understanding is that your laptop came with Windows 8.1. You then took the free upgrade to Windows 10, this would have got you a digital licence for Windows 10 stored on Microsoft's activation servers and linked to the hardware ID of the laptop. You then reverted to Windows 8.1 because you were unhappy with 10. You now want to upgrade to Windows 10 again now that 8.1 has reached end of support.

Your PC has a digital licence for Windows 10, stored on the MS activation servers. That means an upgrade to Windows 10 or a clean install of the same edition of Windows 10 as you had before (Home or Pro) will activate automatically from your PC's existing digital licence as soon as it can contact the activation servers.

For an upgrade, run the Media Creation Tool to make an ISO for the current Windows 10. I would get a new copy of the MCT rather than using an old one you may have.

There are two different Media Creation tool, one for Windows 10, the other for Windows 11. Get the Windows 10 MCT here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

See this tutorial: Download Windows 10 ISO File

Run the MCT and make an ISO. Double-click on the ISO to mount it as a virtual drive, then run the Setup you'll find there to start the upgrade.

See this tutorial for more details: Upgrade to Windows 10

andytampa said:

I was doing the reputation response when I fat-fingered it and sent it before I could finish it. I can't find a way to edit it. Is there one?

No you can't edit the rep. But I can see that your comment was written: "Very to the point answer. That remaining question being off-topid"