Keeping W 8 through PC warrantee and beyond.

Oh, I missed that tiny little detail... So to make sure he can upgrade any time he must clone the disk to a second disk and do the upgrade at least once so his key is registered in Microsoft server. Then he can wipe the second disk, keep using Windows 7 and upgrade any time handy. Alternatively he can do the upgrade just before the deadline. As for warranty there is no excuse that it is not covered because you upgraded to Windows 10! Of course it is, no matter what manufacturer want us to believe! Software never affects hardware, so even if you decided to format your computer and install Linux it is still under warranty! If this is the only reason you hesitate to upgrade, go ahead do it! If they tell you any excuse you can threaten to refer them to Customers Institute (or whatever is called) and they will happily help you. Besides the upgrade is encouraged by all manufacturers and by Microsoft, so why not do it? I have heard before this silly excuse. Manufacturers try to reduce their support cases by discouraging customers to change the preinstalled operating system. But they are obliged to support it as long as it is under warranty, no matter what operating system the user chooses to install. So don't sweat! Go ahead! Do the upgrade.

spapakons said:

Oh, I missed that tiny little detail...So don't sweat! Go ahead! Do the upgrade.

Thanks.

Hawgwash said:

Thanks everyone.
NavyLCDR, are you saying that anything I do, including the routine described by spapakons, I will still need to move fro 8 to 10 before July 2016 to get 10 free? In other words, no way to save free 10 for future install?

You will have to do an upgrade before July 2016 to get it for free. But you do not have to stay on Windows 10. When you do the upgrade to Windows 10, your computer's ID is stored on MS servers so that you can go back to Windows 10 any time later for free, even after July 2016.

The easiest, and most risky way to do that is to do the upgrade to Windows 10, make sure it is activated, then just use the revert back to previous OS option to go back to Windows 8.1.

The safer way is to create an actual system backup image using a program like Macrium Reflect Free, then do the upgrade, then revert back. If the revert back fails, you have the system image that you can restore. You will need a second hard drive, either internal or external, to hold your system image backup.

NavyLCDR said:

You will have to do an upgrade before July 2016 to get it for free. But you do not have to stay on Windows 10. When you do the upgrade to Windows 10, your computer's ID is stored on MS servers so that you can go back to Windows 10 any time later for free, even after July 2016.

The easiest, and most risky way to do that is to do the upgrade to Windows 10, make sure it is activated, then just use the revert back to previous OS option to go back to Windows 8.1.

The safer way is to create an actual system backup image using a program like Macrium Reflect Free, then do the upgrade, then revert back. If the revert back fails, you have the system image that you can restore. You will need a second hard drive, either internal or external, to hold your system image backup.

Ok, thanks.
I will take my time to read and reread all that has been said here, study up on Macrium Reflect and go from there.
Does the system image back up have to go on a HD?
Will a USB work the same or do I need to go through the extra step of creating an ISO?
Not sure I understand the ISO part all that well.

An ISO is a DVD-ROM image. It can be mounted directly on a virtual DVD-ROM drive, or burn to a DVD disk. Yes, you can use a USB disk or even a USB flash drive as soon as your image fits there (Macrium Reflect should tell you how much space it will need). I don't know for Macrium Reflect, but other programs even allow you to burn some DVD disks which you can use to restore your computer. This is rather risky though as anything happens to one of them, the whole backup is useless.

spapakons said:

An ISO is a DVD-ROM image. It can be mounted directly on a virtual DVD-ROM drive, or burn to a DVD disk. Yes, you can use a USB disk or even a USB flash drive as soon as your image fits there (Macrium Reflect should tell you how much space it will need). I don't know for Macrium Reflect, but other programs even allow you to burn some DVD disks which you can use to restore your computer. This is rather risky though as anything happens to one of them, the whole backup is useless.

Yes and my new Zenbook lacks an optical DVD drive anyway.

Hawgwash said:

Does the system image back up have to go on a HD?

It's a matter of how much space you have used on your hard drive and how much storage you have on the device you are saving the image to. The image from Macrium Reflect will be one file that has the entire contents of your hard drive on it. It will be about 80 to 90% as big as all the used space on your hard drive. To me it is totally worth it to spend $80 for a 750gb or 1tb hard drive - and it's a lot faster too. When you have the image, you can also use Macrium Reflect to mount that image file as a drive letter and you can pull individual files and folders from it, if you don't want to restore the whole thing.

Hawgwash said:

Will a USB work the same or do I need to go through the extra step of creating an ISO?
Not sure I understand the ISO part all that well.

This is in reference to making the Windows 10 install USB. The Media Creation Tool will give you two options to start with - Upgrade this PC now - or make installation media for another PC. The second option can be used on the same computer at a later time, it doesn't have to be for a different computer.

The upgrade this PC now option will do just that - it will down load Windows 10 and start the upgrade.

The second option first lets you choose which version of Windows 10 you want. Choose the same version that your Windows 8.1 is, probably 64 bit Home. Then it asks you if you want to make a USB flash drive or if you want to save the ISO file for later. Both have their advantages - just make the USB flash drive is the easiest, and that is what I recommend for you. The ISO file is more versatile in that you can mount it, make a DVD from it, make a USB from it and have the ability to run the upgrade in a much faster way than the USB - but make the USB directly from the Media Creation Tool and you can use that USB to do the upgrade and have it later too.

OK, thanks, Navy.
You have been a great help.
I have 150GB empty space but prefer to keep the DL outside.
Does doing it the way you recommend "for me"; direct to USB or external SSD mean I still have to install by July 2016?

Yes, to take advantage of the free upgrade, you must install before deadline.