upgrade

[guncrasher]

need to upgrade my trusted win7.  any advise if win10 or 11 or whatever it's the new one?

I would hate to reinstall all my stuff. actually only have ah2 on my main drive.

can it be up graded?  or is a new install needed?  thanks in advance.


semp

[Bopgun]

Microsoft may allow you to upgrade from 7 to 10 still. I’ll take a look in a day or so

[Brooke]

I have Windows 10 and, on some newer machines I built, Windows 11.  11 seems fine and runs AH fine.

I prefer fresh installs, but yes they are huge pain the arse to do.

All stems from the moronic registry system used in Windows.  Otherwise, you'd be able to do fresh install of OS without having to reinstall all software.

[Bizman]

Yes, you can still upgrade your existing system from 7 to 10 and it most often goes without a hitch. Just go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and click the Download Now button under Create Installation Media. Downloading the tool only takes seconds and running it gives you the options to either create a USB stick (even for an entirely different computer) or update the very machine as is your preference. For some reason AMD based low level computers have often failed upgrading but as yours is a gamer I suppose there'll be no big issues. And in any case, a failing upgrade rolls back to the start so nothing lost.

If you're going to upgrade the hardware as well, you can create an installation stick for either 10 or 11 with your current system and use the license code of your current Win7. Home for Home, Pro for Pro, obviously.

Creating a local user account instead of a Microsoft account has become very difficult in the latest Win11 especially with the Home version so you may even want to first upgrade to 10 and then upgrade that to 11. That said, a fresh install of the Home version of either 10 or 11 requires some fiddling to avoid the MS account but the tricks are easy. Not going to provide a 101 for each option at this point...

There used to be an option to upgrade even old (pre-2018) and incompatible systems directly to 11 by adding a line or two in the Registry but I've read that it doesn't work any more.

[guncrasher]

Yes, you can still upgrade your existing system from 7 to 10 and it most often goes without a hitch. Just go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and click the Download Now button under Create Installation Media. Downloading the tool only takes seconds and running it gives you the options to either create a USB stick (even for an entirely different computer) or update the very machine as is your preference. For some reason AMD based low level computers have often failed upgrading but as yours is a gamer I suppose there'll be no big issues. And in any case, a failing upgrade rolls back to the start so nothing lost.

If you're going to upgrade the hardware as well, you can create an installation stick for either 10 or 11 with your current system and use the license code of your current Win7. Home for Home, Pro for Pro, obviously.

Creating a local user account instead of a Microsoft account has become very difficult in the latest Win11 especially with the Home version so you may even want to first upgrade to 10 and then upgrade that to 11. That said, a fresh install of the Home version of either 10 or 11 requires some fiddling to avoid the MS account but the tricks are easy. Not going to provide a 101 for each option at this point...

There used to be an option to upgrade even old (pre-2018) and incompatible systems directly to 11 by adding a line or two in the Registry but I've read that it doesn't work any more.

i get an error that it's not a valid win32 installation.

semp

[Bizman]

Does it give any other error code? Like 0x8007001F?

That sounds familiar and if it's what I think it is there's a FixIt by Microsoft but I can't find it right now.

[guncrasher]

when i run the other program it gives me ox80072f8f - 0x20000 (windows creation tool 22h2)

windows 10uupgrade9252.exe gives me a error is not a valid win32 application.



semp

[Bizman]

Alright, think I found the fix I was talking about: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-fix-error-code-0x80072f8f-0x20000/03cfb234-209e-4d2d-ab6e-9c7bda2266f4

Reboot just in case and run the Media Creation Tool.

[guncrasher]

seems to be working downloading win10 at the moment.

I am so grateful for your help.  thank you.


semp

[guncrasher]

well it didn't work hit another error. tried fixing but nothing.

finally I tried a clean install, was so sure it wasn't gonna work that I didn't back up my days.

oh well at least I got win 10 now

again thanks for your help

[Bizman]

Clean install is always the best. And there's been cases when that has been the only option after having tried everything else.

There's tons of advice in the Internet about upgrading from 7 to 10 and most of them share the common jargon: Install all updates, uninstall obsolete programs and apps, update drivers, run chkdsk and sfc /scannow etc. etc. - actually tasks you should have been doing regularly anyway. The TPM EasyFix is something that is rarely mentioned, similar to my pet peeve of pressing Shift while shutting down Windows.

One last thing: Check if there's a Bios/Uefi update for your motherboard! Sometimes an older Bios prevents upgrading and although a clean install may work, you may encounter problems later.