Have you upgraded to Windows 10?

With Windows 10 FREE upgrade offer for eligible systems running Windows 7/8.1 set to expire this July 29th, now may be a good time to future proof your system.

Btw, did you know that you can upgrade to Windows 10 AND keep your current OS intact (ie. w/o altering your system/repartitioning)? Here's how I did it:

1. Download the Windows 10 ISO via this tutorial: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/9230-windows-10-iso-download.html

2. Obtain the entitlement key from existing genuine Win7/8.1 installation with this tutorial: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...10-directly-without-having-upgrade-first.html. NOTE: You only want to obtain the entitlement key from the tutorial. DO NOT proceed to install as described in the above tutorial. Instead, go to step 3. on this page to keep your current system intact.

3. Disconnect your system from the internet. If you were connected to the internet thru WiFi, it's VERY WISE to change the password key on your WiFi router to a temporary one, as MSFT WILL share this key to the police authority, BIG BROTHER in the USA, and what not. You can always change the password back later, but it's a very big mistake to let MSFT have the real WiFi key to your router, which is why a temporary change is warranted!! (Also disconnect any network drives/servers just to be sure Windows 10 can't access/affect them)

4. Proceed to install Windows 10 from the install media you have created with the Windows 10 ISO you downloaded. When you get to the screen where it asks you to select the location to install Windows 10 to, do this:

4A. Press "Shift + F10" to bring up the command prompt

4B. Look for the drive letter of your current OS (ie. type "A: [enter]", then type "[dir] enter"). Cycle thru the letters of the alphabet until you discover the drive letter your current Win7/8.1 resides on. Make sure this drive has enough space for Windows 10. For example, my Windows 8.1 installation was located on drive letter E: with drive D: being the very small boot partition that Windows loves to create on everyone's computer!

4C: Next type "diskpart [enter]" to bring up diskpart console. You should see something that looks like this: DISKPART>

4D: Having loaded up the diskpart console, type the following commands substituting E: for your current Win7/8.1 OS drive letter from step 4B:

4D(I): "create vdisk file="e:\win10.vhd" size=25000 type=expandable" (note this will create a virtual drive of 25GB size, you can change this if you like, but it must be above Win10's drive space requirement)
4D(II): "sel vdisk file="e:\win10.vhd"
4D(III): "attach vdisk"
4D(IV): "create partition primary"
4D(V): "active"
4D(VI): "format fs=ntfs quick"
4D(VII): "exit"

5: Back at the Windows 10 install window, click refresh. The virtual drive you created in step 4 will now appear. Select it and click install to install Windows 10 to that virtual drive.

6. After Windows 10 is installed, follow the last steps from the tutorial in #2 to load the entitlement key into Windows 10. Reconnect your internet. Restart.

7. After rebooting, search "activation" in the new settings app. If you followed the steps correctly, Windows 10 should say it was activated by digital entitlement. The next time you reinstall Windows 10, you don't need to repeat the procedure to obtain digital entitlement. Just make sure your internet is connected throughout the install, and it will automatically pick up activated registered with MSFT the first time around!

8. Congratulations, you have installed Windows 10 to a virtual drive and activated it. You now dual/multi-boot Windows 10 alongside your previous OS. The previous OS remains untouched by Windows 10. And if you log onto your previous OS, it's still activated, meaning you can switch between Windows 10 and the previous OS at a whim, but you can only use one of them at a time!

Enjoy!

(P.S.: Windows 10 is really slow. The time it takes to boot up and load the default web browser is like 1.5-2x slower than in Windows 8.1!)

9. For really paranoid ppl like me, it's safe to wipe Windows 10 off your system by deleting the d:\win10.vhd". There's absolutely no purpose in doing all of the steps above save to register your machine for digital entitlement (ie. activation) before the July 29th deadline, should you ever find yourself needing Windows 10 in the future. Basically, you get to keep the Windows 10 license for the life of that machine! And, you get to keep your current OS intact at the same time! A win-win situation!!

 

NOTE: I'm still using XP as my main OS (not a heretic) after the whole ordeal. But now, since I registered my machine with MSFT for Windows 10, for the life of this machine, I can choose to quadruple boot XP/7/8.1/10 if I so desire!

 

NOTE #2: the steps described above is something called "native vhd booting". This is NOT the same as running a virtual machine. You're basically running the OS natively, not thru a hypervisor like Hyper-V/VirtualPC. The only component being emulated is the hard drive. There is minimal performance loss if you have an solid state drive. Even with a mechanical drive (my machine), the performance loss is minimal!

Once again, "native vhd booting" is the same as booting from a(nother) hard drive partition. It means, the OS you're "native vhd booting" is the HOST OS NOT the guest OS (ie. as ran thru a hypervisor)!

Also, "native vhd booting" is a new Windows feature only introduced in Windows 7 Ultimate and above. Hence, if you are using the FREE upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 HP/Pro, the above steps might not work b/c Win7 HP/Pro do not have native booting capability, but Windows 8.x (plain home/pro version) does! In which case, I will recommend that you perform the Windows 10 upgrade to a separate partition or a spare hard drive so as to leave your current system intact during the upgrade process!


PS: I really wished it was invented when XP came out b/c native vhd booting is a really convenient feature for restoring systems from a backup.

 

NOTE #2B: Scratch out what I wrote earlier. I forgot that Windows 10 WILL create new Windows boot files for your system (that little menu that shows up before the OS loads up, if you dual/multi-boot), so the above methods WILL work whether you have Win7HP/Pro/Ultimate!

 

people recon windows 10 spies on you i find that disturbing so no ill stay with xp

 

^ I wiped Windows 10 off my system immediately after I activated it. But it's always there. My activation will always be valid if I need it in the future... And all I had to do was delete that "win10.vhd" file and my system was back to normal w/o needing to restore from a backup image.

 

Just activated Windows 10 on another PC using above method. First time was on a desktop using spare 5400rpm HDD (I didn't want to risk Windows 10 doing anything to the system, period). 2nd time on a laptop with stock 7200rpm HDD. Difference was like night and day. Win10 was really sluggish in the first PC activation, but seems to fly on the 2nd. I highly doubt it was the HDD rpm alone. If Windows 10 wasn't so full of spying features, I might be inclined to like it even more than Windows 8.1!

Anyways, here is the paradox: Is Windows 10 optimized to run on mobile devices (laptops/tablets)? Does it not perform as well when using a desktop? Can anyone else confirm?

 

I run W10 on homebrew desktop: it is very fast, but this system has 32GB ram! (Plus SSDs)

I also run it on laptop: a 'Thinkpad T410': same processor, but slower memory, and only 8GB, and on laptop it is very slow!

ps Microsoft have backported some of the data gathering software used on W10 to Windows 7 and 8.

Spybot Anti-Beacon works on Windows 7, 8 and 10. to block the telemetry of data to M/s.

 

That doesn't mean you can't avoid them. I've effectively stopped updating my Win7/8.1 April of last year, well before Win10 reached RTM and MSFT actually had time to backport those features... Will be very very selective going forward. Possibly looking to resume updates in the near future, or not at all...

 

No, because I am on a Mac, but very interesting and well-written tutorial, thanks for writing and sharing it with us.

I agree Windows 10 is much slower: we had old hardware running 8.1 at our school, then they upgraded (or should I say, 'downgraded'? ) to 10 and received new computers which were more powerful, since then, everything has been glitchy/slow.

For a comparison, the new computers are entry-level Acers built sometime in 2015, the old ones were built in 2006, and were pre-installed with XP, and they ran much faster on 8.1 than the Acers.

Good tip about the Wi-Fi password, by the way, although I suspect Google would know it anyway (they know around 96% of passwords to Wi-Fi connections or something around that...)

 

You CAN make Windows 10 like the earlier versions of Windows in terms of privacy and security if you follow this fantastic video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1kGMCfb2xw

I find it absolutely pathetic and unacceptable though that we must follow a 40 minute video to do this. No other OS spies on you this severely and this is a major problem. I am not sure how this isn't illegal. So many touchy and very questionable things with Windows 10. I've deconstructed and reviewed a ton of 10's code (I am a developer and know my way around the NT code and that jazz) and it is very, very, privacy violating and no matter how hard you try, they hide failsafes in the code to keep harvesting your machine data.

I am not entirely sure why MS is doing this. For YEARS they were a very good company in terms of data and if I didn't just HAVE to use Windows, I would switch to Linux (not ubuntu, but something actually GOOD). This is why I still use XP. I can handle my own security issues on my PC and I haven't had a virus at all and I seriously have no antivirus software active. I just don't pirate software or go to questionable sites.

Its a shame how MS as gone this low. Maybe they need another Anti-Trust lawsuit again ala early 2000s?

 

@towgers: It's because of the way they've grown and the fact NSA and other security organisations have increased their spying and want huge companies that obviously can hold loads of data to fetch and spy on us for no real reason.

I might ask about the full history one of the users on my site will probably know about it.

 

I had win10 for months but I got a bsod and I was fed up with win10 in general so I did a factory reset to my pc it now runs win7.

 

Hello All,

I upgraded one of our PC's, the one I use to Win 10 when it first was released. Was not impressed with the "look and feel" and less impressed with the incursions on privacy. Stayed with Win 10 for a month or so and rolled back to Win 8.1. Quite happy with Win 8.1 and XP in a virtual machine. Tried the progressive builds of Win 10 on and off until something destroyed the Win 8.1 hidden re-install partition on the PC. Great !. Do I suspect Microsoft, yes. Can I prove that Win 10 wreaked this havoc, no.

Swapped PC's with my wife as the "gorilla" my wife used has much more, "grunt". Installed Win 10 Anniversary upgrade/build. As usual, compatibility conflicts with the programs I use, mainly flight simulators at the probably high end.

A few weeks ago, deja-vu. A BSOD with Win 10. (well not the classic looking BSOD but the result being the same). Digging with my rescue CD showed some .ddl's gone bye byes.

Made the decision. Flatten the lot and do a fresh install of Win 7 Home premium 64 bit. Do the usual services tweaks/start up tweaks/and all of the good things one could do with Windows from Win 3.1 to Win 7.

Now, to me anyway I have an OS that to me seems far more "snappier" than Win 10 and my two main problems with Win 10 no longer in the picture. Program compatibility and privacy.

When I get the chance, probably in the small hours of the morning, wipe the second PC of Win 10 and give it Win 7 also. (yes, I have two valid Win 7 install DVD's).

Two schools of thought here. By choosing not to "go with the flow" and not use Win 10 am I, and many others, Windows Luddites. Or, by choosing not to use Win 10, am I being practical and choosing the OS I want rather than upgrade to Win 10, "because it's there".

Win 10, in my view is more of a show pony than a solid OS. Sly practice by Microsoft to foist Win 10 on me anyway it /they can makes me rather annoyed.

In years to come I may look at what the OS scene offers but by that stage I may probably be beyond caring anyway.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

I have 2 boxes of used hdd's. I cloned one with XP & one with my W-7 laptop. Installed 10 on both. Hated both, ended up deleting partitions etc & put 'em back in the box!

-c-