What is my upgrade path from dual boot back to single boot


  1. Posts : 2
    Windows 7 / 10 dual boot
       #1

    What is my upgrade path from dual boot back to single boot


    My laptop has dual boot - Windows 7 and Windows 10. My Win7 environment is my main working environment with lots of programs installed and important files. I installed the Win10 environnment just to play around with 10 during the technical preview. Now, I would like to disable the 10 environment and upgrade the 7 to 10. Am I able to do this, or have I already "used up" my one upgrade on this computer's Windows license?

    I notice that in Windows 7 I have not received the icon in the notification area that invites me to upgrade to 10. This makes me think I might have used up my chance to upgrade.

    My end goal is to have a single Windows 10 environment. Note that the reason I want to upgrade my 7 environment to 10 is because I don't want to have to re-install all of my programs and files into the current 10 environment.

    Thanks.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 18,421
    Windows 11 Pro
       #2

    You can use the Media Creation Tool to start the upgrade from the Windows 7 OS. You can either just run the "Upgrade this PC now" option, or save the ISO file, use a program in Windows 7 to mount the Windows 10 ISO (or extract it), and then run setup.exe from it inside Windows 7.

    If it was my PC, what I would do is use Macrium Reflect Free to image my current Windows 7 install to a file on the existing Windows 10 partition - and if you don't want that Windows 10 installation any longer, just reformat that partition before saving the image file to it. Then I would upgrade the Windows 7 to Windows 10. You already have the extra partition, might as well use it to back up your Windows 7 in case something goes wrong.

    After you run the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, it will probably leave the dual boot setup in the BCD store and you will have to manually delete the undesired Windows 10 entry using one of several different programs/commands available.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 2
    Windows 7 / 10 dual boot
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks Navy for the guidance. Based on your answer I should not have any license issues, I'm assuming.

    Good suggestion about the image backup. I already do image backups to an external drive (using Acronis 2014), so I have a way to recover if something goes wrong.

    Thank you again.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 18,421
    Windows 11 Pro
       #4

    If the Windows 7 is activated now, and you upgrade to the matching Windows 10 version, you should not have a license/activation issue. Do you have the Windows 7 product key written down/available? If not you will want to get it using showkey from this forum.
      My Computer


 

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