To upgrade from Windows 7/8 to Windows 10 there is a very small list of must-haves and a few recommended items (which we’ll cover in the next section Pre-Upgrade Housekeeping). Let’s take a look at what you need before proceeding and then highlight some best practices.
An Activated Copy of Windows
The most important thing is that your current version of Windows is properly activated. Although Microsoft alluded to the idea that Windows 10 would be a sweeping upgrade that would even install on pirated and/or unactivated copies of Windows that plan never came to fruition and you most certainly need an activated copy under the current deployment model.
To check if your copy of Windows 8 is activated, press Windows Key + W to pull up the Setting search and type in “activated” to access the “See if Windows Is Activated” menu. Alternatively, you can look under Control Panel -> System to see the status of the machine.
To check if your copy of Windows 7 is activated you can click on Start Button, right click on “Computer”, and select properties. The resulting status menu will show if your copy of Windows is activated.
The Appropriate Windows 10 Update Tool
Although the Windows 10 update tool is pretty straight forward you need the right version for your hardware. The first step is determining if you are running a 32-bit machine or a 64-bit machine. While you can read about the nuances of of each in our article HTG Explains: What’s The Difference Between 32-bit and 64-Bit Windows 7 you can check what version of Windows you are currently running by simply looking in the same place in both Windows 7 and Windows 8 that we highlighted in the previous section on checking your Windows activation. The same panel/menu that tells you if your computer is activated also tells you your “System type”.
In Windows 7 it will simply tell you that it is a 64-bit or 32-bit operating system but in Windows 8 it will actually (and helpfully) both tell you if you’re running Windows 32-bit or Windows 64-bit as well as what the actual architecture of the underlying hardware is and if it supports 64-bit computing. (e.g. you have Windows 8 32-bit installed but the hardware actually supports 64-bit). There’s a huge catch here though: you can’t upgrade an installation of Windows from 32-bit to 64-bit even if the hardware supports it; you have to do a clean install.
With that in mind, whatever bit-version of Windows you are running on your about-to-be-upgraded machine that is the version of the download tool you need to download if you wish to do an in-place upgrade and not a clean wipe.
You can find the download tool here. Select the correct version, 32 or 64-bit, to match your current Windows installation.
Running the Upgrade Installer
When you’re ready to upgrade run the installer tool, labeled MediaCreationTool, to get started.
You’ll first be prompted to upgrade the PC or create installation media for another PC. Select “Upgrade this PC now” to begin the upgrade process and click “Next”. This begins the download process which is a long or short affair dependent entirely upon your Internet connection speed. We zoomed to 100 percent in a matter of minutes on a speedy cable connection, but if you’re on a slow connection you might be watching the meter for some time.
When it finally finishes downloading and unpacking the installation media you’ll be prompted to accept the terms of the license agreement. Click “Accept” and the installer will do a final update check before kicking you over to the final confirmation page.
By default the installer will select the largest “what to keep” selection it can. If you want to make changes to what it is keeping click the small “Change what to keep” link as seen in the screenshot above. You’ll be prompted to select to select which kind of installation you want.
Here in this section you’ll select to keep personal files and apps, personal files only, or nothing at all and your apps, files, and settings will be deleted.