Windows 7 Directly to Windows 10 Creators Update: Heck, Yeah

Yes, we're talking going from Windows 7 straight to Windows 10 Creators Update in one step. Did it all day Sunday during my last Computer Clinic at the church including clean installs and inline upgrades.

1. Install and activate Windows 7. Don't even bother with Windows Update. Stay connected to the internet.

2. Install and run Virtual CloneDrive (www.elby.ch/en/products/v...).

3. Park a Windows 10 Creators Update ISO on the desktop. Download it from
(www.microsoft.com/en-us/s...).
Hint: to bypass the tedious Media Creation Tool, use Google Chrome with a mobile device emulator extension. Or visit the site on a Mac or Linux machine and save the ISO on an external drive.

4. Right-click the ISO file and mount it as a virtual DVD. Run setup.exe and click the button for downloading updates later (by now Windows 7 is trying to download its first batch of updates in the background). Pick what you want to keep or toss and let 'er rip. Windows 10 will activate with a digital license (you can replace just about every component except the system board and reinstall Windows 10 without entering a product key).

If you're upgrading factory-installed Windows 7 and have no plans to ever roll the machine back to new out-of-box state, use Disk Management in Windows 7 to wipe out the recovery partition and then extend the C: volume to recover the newly freed space. Then proceed with the Windows 10 installation. On an inline upgrade, Windows 10 will take 450 to 500MB from the end of the C: partition to make its system partition. If you don't remove the recovery partition first, the system partition will block you from extending the C: partition and you might not be able to remove the recovery partition and get back its usable space. I don't know if a partition management utility can fix that.

If you try to do a clean install of Windows 10 from a USB device like a bootable flash drive or external DVD drive, the installation may hang, stall or BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) when Windows 10 tries to install USB 3.0 drivers (said the voice of experience), especially on system boards without native USB 3.0 support. This method lessens the likelihood because you're not using USB. You can clean install with Windows 7 media because the USB 3.0 drivers are usually installed by Windows Update.


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Post# 932216 4/13/2017 at 14:57 (2,568 days old) by joeekaitis (Rialto, California, USA)
Checkrate/Likes Yes, we're talking going from Windows 7 straight to Windows 10 Creators Update in one step. Did it all day Sunday during my last Computer Clinic at the church including clean installs and inline upgrades. 1. Install and activate Windows 7. Don't even bother with Windows Update. Stay connected to the internet. 2. Install and run Virtual CloneDrive (www.elby.ch/en/products/v...). 3. Park a Windows 10 Creators Update ISO on the desktop. Download it from (www.microsoft.com/en-us/s...). Hint: to bypass the tedious Media Creation Tool, use Google Chrome with a mobile device emulator extension. Or visit the site on a Mac or Linux machine and save the ISO on an external drive. 4. Right-click the ISO file and mount it as a virtual DVD. Run setup.exe and click the button for downloading updates later (by now Windows 7 is trying to download its first batch of updates in the background). Pick what you want to keep or toss and let 'er rip. Windows 10 will activate with a digital license (you can replace just about every component except the system board and reinstall Windows 10 without entering a product key). If you're upgrading factory-installed Windows 7 and have no plans to ever roll the machine back to new out-of-box state, use Disk Management in Windows 7 to wipe out the recovery partition and then extend the C: volume to recover the newly freed space. Then proceed with the Windows 10 installation. On an inline upgrade, Windows 10 will take 450 to 500MB from the end of the C: partition to make its system partition. If you don't remove the recovery partition first, the system partition will block you from extending the C: partition and you might not be able to remove the recovery partition and get back its usable space. I don't know if a partition management utility can fix that. If you try to do a clean install of Windows 10 from a USB device like a bootable flash drive or external DVD drive, the installation may hang, stall or BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) when Windows 10 tries to install USB 3.0 drivers (said the voice of experience), especially on system boards without native USB 3.0 support. This method lessens the likelihood because you're not using USB. You can clean install with Windows 7 media because the USB 3.0 drivers are usually installed by Windows Update.

Post# 932479 , Reply# 1 4/15/2017 at 00:01 (2,567 days old) by dartman (Portland Oregon)
Checkrate/Likes When my buddy and I built my newest machine we just did a clean install of 10 pro 64 using a 7 ultimate license, it installed fine back less then a year ago I'm guessing. Later I found the hacked 8.1 media center files seeing how I have a HD Homrun Prime 3 tuner cable TV tuner that supports a cable card. I had to disable updates as the latest ones kept breaking media center but I think eventually the clever users will figure that out again. I kept my old 7 box around for media center to run the tuner but now that 10 still works it's just a redundant backup that runs the few things 10 doesn't like and that's not much. Once I saw 10 I figured might as well run it on the new box, boots super fast and is pretty self healing. It's also a bit more stable then 7 was for me and it can be tweaked to look about any way you want and do things they claim it doesn't support like media center. Pretty happy with it and I used 7 from before it was officially released till about last year or so.

Post# 932563 , Reply# 2 4/15/2017 at 17:21 (2,566 days old) by jerrod6 (Southeastern Pennsylvania)
Checkrate/Likes 1 Why can't we just buy windows 10 and install it over windows 7? I bought windows 7 and installed it over windows vista so why can't we just do that. I have no immediate plan to go to windows 10 so I guess I don't need to worry about it.

Post# 932570 , Reply# 3 4/15/2017 at 18:02 (2,566 days old) by joeekaitis (Rialto, California, USA)
Checkrate/Likes If you're running Windows 7 you don't need to buy Windows 10. Just start at step 2 in the original post. Microsoft wants Windows 10 running on as many computers as possible so they're continuing the ability to upgrade indefinitely even with the latest Creators Update.