Windows 7 is a really cool operating system for PC, and so is Windows 8 and 8.1. However, we can’t hide the fact that the Windows 10 is the best Windows ever, thus, an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 will always be seen as a wise move.
Except you can pay Microsoft to extend the official Windows 7 End-of-Life, you use Windows 7 at a great risk to yourself. Windows 7 users are more vulnerable to security threats than ever, and hackers will continue to find more vulnerabilities in the system, with no hopes of getting it fixed.
To encourage users who would like to upgrade, Microsoft made it free to migrate to Windows 10, from Windows 7. However, this free period has expired and anyone wanting to migrate to Windows 10 will have to pay cash.
This article is just to guide you through the required steps in the installation, and not to teach you how to bypass the payment gateway. If you’re looking for an article that guides you on how to freely migrate to Windows 7, then I’m afraid you have to look further.
Now, before we get onto the process of installation, let’s get the minimum requirements for installing the Windows 10 operating system.
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System Requirements for Windows 10
Steps Required to Migrate to Windows 10
1.Buy a Windows 10 license from Microsoft
For a hitch-free installation of the operating system, you should buy the license before downloading it. There are many authorized sellers of the license, but it’s recommended to buy it from Microsoft.
There are different versions of Windows 10, based on what you’ll need it for. Windows 10 Home is the cheapest Windows 10 version, but it lacks some nerdy features. If you want some more advanced configurations to your system, you should always go for the Professional version.
At the moment, Windows 10 Home retails at $140, but Windows 10 Professional is $60 costlier. If you’re not planning to use your computer for power-intensive tasks, and you don’t need the nerdy features, the Windows 10 home should be sufficient for you. Otherwise, you can choose the professional version.
2.Choose an Upgrade Method
If you’ve followed the above steps and bought the Windows 10 from Microsoft, you’ll need to load the operating system into your machine.
There are two options for this, you can either choose to download the operating system as an ISO file, or choose to load it from a USB.
Downloading the ISO file is not a recommended way of loading this operating system to your machine, as the file is upwards of 4 Gigabytes. Downloading a file of 4GB can be painstaking, especially if you lack access to a speedy and reliable internet connection like me.
For people like me, the USB option would be an excellent alternative. If you choose to upgrade via a USB, Microsoft will have a USB copy of Windows 10 mailed to you at the safety of your home. You can easily migrate to Windows 10 using any of these two methods.
When you’ve successfully downloaded Windows 10, or after getting the Windows 10 from Microsoft, what next?
3.Start the Upgrade
Once your USB containing Windows 10 has arrived, or the download is completed, you have successfully completed 50% of your upgrade.
If you’ve downloaded Windows 10, you’ll have to open the Windows 10 Media Creation tool. Otherwise, you’ll load the USB from Windows explorer and click “Setup.exe.” If there are no errors up until now, there should be an option on your screen that shows: “Upgrade this PC now.”
Click this option and grant all required access. You’ll be shown some apps and services which may not support Windows 10, you can choose to manually remove those.
You may need to input a product key (which happens in most cases). If you’ve purchased Windows 10, it must have been mailed to you. You can check your email for the product key. Sometimes, however, you may not need to input the product key, as it will be automatically pulled from your machine.
When you’re through verifying your subscription, you can get to sleep, as the PC continues with the upgrade. It might take up to an hour to completely migrate to Windows 10. However, based on your computer capabilities, it can be a lot faster.
4.Check for Broken Drivers
When the update is complete, you should check if all your hardware devices will work well. Manually testing them all means a lot of work, but you can check it automatically from Device Manager. You can get into Device Manager by right-clicking on the Windows logo and selecting it from the available options.
Check through all the categories and drivers and check to see if they all have working drivers. If you notice a yellow exclamation mark after it, it usually translates to a missing drivers or outdated drivers. These can easily be fixed by right-clicking the faulty device, and selecting “Update Driver.”
Your PC will search the internet for the driver and install it.
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Conclusion
Installing Windows 10 isn’t any difficult than that. If you’re facing countless problems after making the upgrade, then your PC might not be able to migrate to Windows 10.
That’s when the option of a new PC becomes imperative.
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