A bit of advice needed from those who can remember how to use Windows,
if I may be so bold.

SWMBO has a little Lenovo PC running 32-bit Win7 Pro. It's an Intel i3,
a few years old, and I wouldn't expect it to pass the Windows 11 tests,
but it has plenty of life in it yet. She's been putting off the
inevitable upgrade to Win10 because she hates it, but now has to for
work reasons.

She's also been complaining that it's slow -- the machine came with a
300-odd GB hard drive, partitioned with 60GB as C: and about 220 as D:.
She had about 60GB of stuff on D: but C: had about 1.5GB free and the
machine was running like a dog. I've repartitioned it from a Linux
LiveUSB and made C: about 100GB bigger, which has removed its canine
tendencies and persuaded her that the machine itself doesn't need
replacing.

I have, nevertheless, suggested increasing the drive size and switching
to an SSD ... that way we can keep the existing HDD as a backup if
anything goes wrong.

So ... she wants to go from Win7 Pro 32-bit to Win10 Pro 64-bit, and I
think this should be possible without buying a new licence ... but it's
really not my field as I went Linux-only about 12 years ago.

If I do a bitwise copy of the drive to an SSD and boot from it, can I
then get Windows to update itself to 10? If so, will I get the option
to upgrade to 64-bit at the same time? If not, what's the best way to
do that? Can one just install 64-bit over 32-bit (preferably without
destroying user data -- though that is backed up).

Alternatively, if I just install a fresh copy of Win10 64-bit onto the
SSD will it accept the Win7 licence key from the sticker? (I haven't
actually checked that that's still legible, the printing does have a
habit of rubbing off.) I presume I'd then have to reinstall
applications, but I hope the data (on a different partition) will
survive and save me the bother of restoring from backup. This will at
least mean that all the accumulated Windows cruft will be cleared out,
and the system should be fairly sprightly for at least a few months.

Which of these is the better approach, or should I do something
different again?

Cheers,
Daniel.

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Daniel James wrote:

If I do a bitwise copy of the drive to an SSD and boot from it, can I
then get Windows to update itself to 10?

definitely go with the SSD for a speed boost

You can't upgrade from Win7 32bit to Win10 64bit.

What I'd suggest is upgrade from Win7 32bit to Win10 32 bit (using the media creation tool) make sure it activates and says it has a digital licence

then wipe the machine and install win10 64 bit, it will automatically pick up the previous entitlement.

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On 25/01/2022 in message <j5b5d3Fimv8U1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
wrote:

Daniel James wrote:

If I do a bitwise copy of the drive to an SSD and boot from it, can I
then get Windows to update itself to 10?

definitely go with the SSD for a speed boost

You can't upgrade from Win7 32bit to Win10 64bit.

What I'd suggest is upgrade from Win7 32bit to Win10 32 bit (using the
media creation tool) make sure it activates and says it has a digital
licence

then wipe the machine and install win10 64 bit, it will automatically pick
up the previous entitlement.

I don't think you can upgrade in situ from Win7 to Win 10 but a win 7
licence key is still supposed to work on Win 10 for a clean install.

I would be inclined to download an iso from MSFT (they are all 64 bit
now), search for "Media Creation Tool" which makes it easy - and if you do
it from the existing PC it will fill in the gaps for you to make sure you
get the right version.. Put your SSD in and put the HD somewhere safe, and
do a clean install using the Win 7 key. You can then copy the existing
data back from the HD using a USB connector/cradle.

If it goes pear shaped you can put the HD back in and think again.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
If you ever find something you like buy a lifetime supply because they
will stop making it

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Jeff Gaines wrote:

I don't think you can upgrade in situ from Win7 to Win 10

course you can, done it dozens of times

but a win 7 licence
key is still supposed to work on Win 10 for a clean install.

theoretically the free 7->10 upgrade should have stopped years ago, in practice it never did.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 25/01/2022 in message <j5b9hmFjfgaU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
wrote:

Jeff Gaines wrote:

I don't think you can upgrade in situ from Win7 to Win 10

course you can, done it dozens of times

OK, I haven't and all the information is that you can't. May be worth a
try but a clean install is usually the best bet for clearing out crud.

but a win 7 licence key is still supposed to work on Win 10 for a clean >>install.

theoretically the free 7->10 upgrade should have stopped years ago, in >practice it never did.

That's right, MSFT have quietly left it valid.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Am Dienstag, 25. Januar 2022, um 19:52:59 Uhr schrieb Daniel James:

So ... she wants to go from Win7 Pro 32-bit to Win10 Pro 64-bit, and
I think this should be possible without buying a new licence ... but
it's really not my field as I went Linux-only about 12 years ago.

IIRC activating Win 10 with a Win 7 Key is still possible.
What edition do you have now?
It does not work for Enterprise.
Win 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium --> Win 10 Home
Win 7 Professional, Win 7 Ultimate --> Win 10 Pro.

You need the right edition fo Win 10 to make it work.
You need to reinstall Win 10 to upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit. An
upgrade is not possible.

Use the ISOs from MS: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

Before doing it, use NirSoft Produkey to read out the Win 7 key if the
COA isn't readable anymore.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 26/01/2022 in message <20220126080349.6299cbac.mo01@posteo.de> Marco
Moock wrote:

Before doing it, use NirSoft Produkey to read out the Win 7 key if the
COA isn't readable anymore.

YES!! I forgot that it is important and Windows will treat it as a virus
and try to isolate it. Magical Jelly Bean will read it as well but as
Marco said read it and write it down somewhere other than the machine in question!

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
I take full responsibility for what happened - that is why the person that
was responsible went immediately.
(Gordon Brown, April 2009)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In article <20220126080349.6299cbac.mo01@posteo.de>, Marco Moock wrote:

IIRC activating Win 10 with a Win 7 Key is still possible.

That's my understanding, and I'm rather relying on it.

What edition do you have now?

Windows 7 Pro 32-bit (did I not say?)

You need the right edition fo Win 10 to make it work.
You need to reinstall Win 10 to upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit. An
upgrade is not possible.

Upgrading to 64 bits is the intention. Some have suggested that if I do
an in-place update to Win10 32-bits and then install 64-bits over the
top the installer will (somehow?) pick up the licensing information from
the existing installation before wiping it.

OTOH if I have to do a clean install to get 64-bit Windows I might as
well just do it and input the key from the COA -- assuming a Win7 COA
still does activate Win10 (of the same edition).

(Assuming I can read the COA, which I haven't checked, yet.)

Use the ISOs from MS: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

As I said, this is a machine from a big OEM (Lenovo) ... is it still the
case that using install media from the OEM would mean that licensing information would be picked up from the BIOS (UEFI, whatever) ... or
doesn't it work like that any more?

Before doing it, use NirSoft Produkey to read out the Win 7 key if the
COA isn't readable anymore.

Useful tip, thanks.

--
Cheers,
Daniel.

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In article <j5b5d3Fimv8U1@mid.individual.net>, Andy Burns wrote:

then wipe the machine and install win10 64 bit, it will automatically pick up the previous entitlement.

Really? That sounds like magic. How does it do that?

--
Cheers,
Daniel

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Am Mittwoch, 26. Januar 2022, um 08:38:27 Uhr schrieb Jeff Gaines:

On 26/01/2022 in message <20220126080349.6299cbac.mo01@posteo.de>
Marco Moock wrote:

Before doing it, use NirSoft Produkey to read out the Win 7 key if
the COA isn't readable anymore.

YES!! I forgot that it is important and Windows will treat it as a
virus and try to isolate it. Magical Jelly Bean will read it as well
but as Marco said read it and write it down somewhere other than the
machine in question!

I successfully used ProduKey on Win 7 and 10, but maybe you need to
disable Windows Defender to allow it to run.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Am Mittwoch, 26. Januar 2022, um 08:58:17 Uhr schrieb Daniel James:

As I said, this is a machine from a big OEM (Lenovo) ... is it still
the case that using install media from the OEM would mean that
licensing information would be picked up from the BIOS (UEFI,
whatever) ... or doesn't it work like that any more?

That indeed applies to Windows 7, but I activated Win 10 Home with Win
7 OEM keys without any problem, without doing an upgrade. It was a
clean install.
Win 10 MS ISOs seem to accept retail and OEM keys from Win 7.
Win 7 does not. You need the version from your OEM.
For XP there was a software called Windows Product Key Update tool.
With this tool from MS it was possible to activate a retail Win XP ISO
with an OEM XP Key. I don't know such a tool for Vista/7.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Daniel James wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

wipe the machine and install win10 64 bit, it will automatically pick up
the previous entitlement.

Really? That sounds like magic. How does it do that?

It takes a "fingerprint" of various components in the machine, MAC addresses etc

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Daniel James wrote:

Some have suggested that if I do
an in-place update to Win10 32-bits and then install 64-bits over the
top the installer will (somehow?) pick up the licensing information from
the existing installation before wiping it.

This doesn't rely on anything stored on the disk from the original install, it's
stored in a database at microsoft's end.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> wrote:

A bit of advice needed from those who can remember how to use Windows,
if I may be so bold.

SWMBO has a little Lenovo PC running 32-bit Win7 Pro. It's an Intel i3,
a few years old, and I wouldn't expect it to pass the Windows 11 tests,
but it has plenty of life in it yet. She's been putting off the
inevitable upgrade to Win10 because she hates it, but now has to for
work reasons.

Shouldn't work provide her with the tools required to perform her job? If
she's self-employed then it would probably be tax efficient to just buy a
new - win11 compatible maybe - machine. It's also less destructive so can
keep the old system running "just in case".

She's also been complaining that it's slow -- the machine came with a
300-odd GB hard drive, partitioned with 60GB as C: and about 220 as D:.
She had about 60GB of stuff on D: but C: had about 1.5GB free and the
machine was running like a dog. I've repartitioned it from a Linux
LiveUSB and made C: about 100GB bigger, which has removed its canine tendencies and persuaded her that the machine itself doesn't need
replacing.

I have, nevertheless, suggested increasing the drive size and switching
to an SSD ... that way we can keep the existing HDD as a backup if
anything goes wrong.

An SSD would be a dramatic upgrade. Also consider more ram if there's 8GB
or less.

So ... she wants to go from Win7 Pro 32-bit to Win10 Pro 64-bit, and I
think this should be possible without buying a new licence ... but it's really not my field as I went Linux-only about 12 years ago.

If I do a bitwise copy of the drive to an SSD and boot from it, can I
then get Windows to update itself to 10? If so, will I get the option
to upgrade to 64-bit at the same time? If not, what's the best way to
do that? Can one just install 64-bit over 32-bit (preferably without destroying user data -- though that is backed up).

Alternatively, if I just install a fresh copy of Win10 64-bit onto the
SSD will it accept the Win7 licence key from the sticker? (I haven't
actually checked that that's still legible, the printing does have a
habit of rubbing off.) I presume I'd then have to reinstall
applications, but I hope the data (on a different partition) will
survive and save me the bother of restoring from backup. This will at
least mean that all the accumulated Windows cruft will be cleared out,
and the system should be fairly sprightly for at least a few months.

Which of these is the better approach, or should I do something
different again?

Cheers,
Daniel.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <j5cjk9Fqq43U2@mid.individual.net>, Andy Burns wrote:

wipe the machine and install win10 64 bit, it will automatically
pick up the previous entitlement.

Really? That sounds like magic. How does it do that?

It takes a "fingerprint" of various components in the machine, MAC
addresses etc

Ah, so the record of activation is held remotely by MS, not stored on
the machine itself? Makes sense, I suppose...

So, that's what I did (well, I didn't wipe the disk, I swapped out the
old hard drive for a nice new SSD) and it all seems to have worked
(though I'm not sure how to tell that Win10 is activated, it doesn't
seem to say so in Computer|Properties as it did in previous versions).

.. then SWMBO came home and found she needed all sorts of data that
she hadn't told me she needed backed up, so I've put the Win7 HD back
in for now ... <sigh>

Thanks, everyone, for your help and encouragement.

Cheers,
Daniel.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In article <VA.00000da2.00180b0f@me.invalid>, daniel@me.invalid says...

In article <j5cjk9Fqq43U2@mid.individual.net>, Andy Burns wrote:

wipe the machine and install win10 64 bit, it will automatically
pick up the previous entitlement.

Really? That sounds like magic. How does it do that?

It takes a "fingerprint" of various components in the machine, MAC addresses etc

Ah, so the record of activation is held remotely by MS, not stored on
the machine itself? Makes sense, I suppose...

So, that's what I did (well, I didn't wipe the disk, I swapped out the
old hard drive for a nice new SSD) and it all seems to have worked
(though I'm not sure how to tell that Win10 is activated, it doesn't
seem to say so in Computer|Properties as it did in previous versions).

.. then SWMBO came home and found she needed all sorts of data that
she hadn't told me she needed backed up, so I've put the Win7 HD back
in for now ... <sigh>

Thanks, everyone, for your help and encouragement.

Cheers,
Daniel.

Tap the Windows key, type Activation - and hit Enter.

--

Phil, London

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Daniel James wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

It takes a "fingerprint" of various components in the machine, MAC
addresses etc

Ah, so the record of activation is held remotely by MS, not stored on
the machine itself? Makes sense, I suppose...

Yep.

So, that's what I did (well, I didn't wipe the disk, I swapped out the
old hard drive for a nice new SSD) and it all seems to have worked
(though I'm not sure how to tell that Win10 is activated, it doesn't
seem to say so in Computer|Properties as it did in previous versions).

Settings/Updates&Security/Activation

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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In article <VA.00000d9f.003a4ed0@me.invalid>, Daniel James wrote:

SWMBO has a little Lenovo PC running 32-bit Win7 Pro.

[snip]

She's been putting off the inevitable upgrade to Win10 because she
hates it, but now has to for work reasons.

Amusingly, when I came to take the machine apart and replace the full
hard drive with the new SSD I found that the Microsoft COA was for
Windows 8! The PC was bought as refurbished kit, and must have been
supplied with Win7 under downgrade rights ... but as I recall Win7 and
Win10 were the only options offered by the vendor.

The upgrade has all been successful, as far as I can tell, but the
process of reinstalling and licensing various bits of commercial
software has been hard going -- largely because SWMBO had registered
them all using an old EMail address to which she no longer has access
-- the installed programs were all happily running on the Win7 disk,
but once installed on the Win10 SSD they needed activating ... and, of
course, she had no note of the activation keys, passwords, etc., and
the vendors wanted to send reminders to the old EMail address.

Life is never easy, is it?

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who chipped it.

--
Cheers,
Daniel.

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