Friends just wondering what the collective wisdom is at this point of time [10/13/15] re: rolling back to Windows 7 on a fairly sensitive RAID 1 system and it is not going to perform well on Windows 10 [for that and other reasons].
How have these gone so far and are there any undocumented steps I should take to help ensure against data loss [other than the obvious: backup] ??
thanks
if you want a reliable option, you have to backup. If it works, great, if not use your backup.
System image created with 3rd party software such as Macrium Reflect (free for home use) of the old OS before upgrading is the best insurance you can have.
the backup is a given.
my question was more along the lines of how much trouble to expect.
but if it is going to blow up, Macrium image is not of much value - wash/rinse/repeat win10....
if detonation occurs, I'm having to rebuild windows 7 from 'scratch' - wouldn't dare trust a clone of 7-to-10
I must vehemently disagree as I am sure a lot of us do. You pop in the Macrium Relfect Free rescue disc, boot the computer from that, select the image of Windows 7/8/8.1 that you made prior to the upgrade and let it restore the entire hard drive - partitions and boot sectors/files and all. Takes about 4 mouse clicks to have a full restore done. And the Macrium Reflect image is good for the life of the medium it is saved to - well past the 30 days reversion period in Windows 10.
As far as how much trouble to expect - it either works or it doesn't. Not much room for in betweens. Most people haven't had any problems but a few have.
the user made no backup prior to "clicking the link" that MS has done so well marketing.
i'm seeing a lot of these.
I should be grateful for the bizness...
To make sure you won't have any issues upgrading to Windows 10, first backup all your data, or even better clone your installation on another disk or file with Macrium Reflect, Acronis True Image, Clonezilla or whatever suits you best. Then update all your drivers. Uninstall or completely disable your antivirus so it won't interfere with the upgrade process. If it tries to do anything, it can make it fail! So disable it or uninstall it. Also disable or uninstall any old application or driver that could not be compatible with Windows 10. Disconnect all your external devices such as printer, scanner, webcam, USB hard disk ect. Make sure you run msconfig and disable any useless non-Microsoft service and application on startup. You can enable them again after upgrading to Windows 10. To make extra sure the upgrade won't fail because of a faulty DVD-ROM, you can copy all files to a folder in your hard disk and start setup from there. Also disable sleep and any other power feature. You can enable them after the upgrade.
Now you are 99.99% sure installation will succeed, go for it. If it is a notebook make sure it is connected to the mains power, don't rely on battery! After successful upgrade to Windows 10, search for any driver that is Windows 10 only (usually chipset and graphics) and update it again. If the driver you used before the update to Windows 10 was common for 10 and older windows versions, it should be preserved and shouldn't need to reinstall it. Just have a look at Device Manager to make sure. Now you can reinstall and enable any application you disabled before.
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