Now that a lot of companies are dropping support for windows 7 maybe its time to upgrade but the thought of re-installing everything really putting me off, i always do a fresh OS install but i know windows lets you upgrade, anyone here tried that and can give me their experience?

Thanks

 

I wouldn't recommend that. But that doesn't mean you couldn't try it.
Make a backup of everything first and then with some luck and a couple of software tools perhaps it'd work.

The backup also includes the Win7 partition in case it doesn't so you can easily revert to your stable Win7. That would leave you only with the fresh install option for Win10.

 

You are doing yourself a dis-service by not upgrading and a fresh install IMHO. Sure, W7 is/was great but 10 is much better! You may lose some third-party functionality from some software, you'd have to re-install those. Doing a backup first would be wise!

Like any learning curve, once you get used to it you will be good to go!

Just my 2¢ - YMMV.

 

i ran into alot of issues upgrading from 7 to 10, kept crashing and bluescreen, but maybe that was just my pc, so i did a fresh install, and yes it took alot of time reinstalling all vst`s and software, but im glad i did it now and win 10 is just fine for me.

 

I was thinking of doing a full partition back up too just in case

I have no problem with win 10, just dont want to reinstall hundreds of programs/plugins

 

Downsizing is liberating lol...

 

Oh, how I can imagine that. It was the same for me.
Plan A: But it's no real problem: Make a backup of you Win 7 installation and do the update to Win 10. There are chances that it works flawlessly.
And if it doesn't work, it's just a question of minutes to get your old Win 7 setup back. I do recommend "Macrium Reflect" as it turned out to be the most felxible and reliable backup soulution for me.
Plan B: Do a fresh install and install the VST and other software you have actually used in the last year. You will be marveled

 

I tried installing windows 10 over the existing win 7 installation... It was a grand failure.. while theoretically possible, there are dozens of variables that can go wrong... And most times its very difficult to pin point whats going wrong... Like finding a needle in a haystack.

So, I swallowed the bitter pill and did a full fresh install of Win10... It took me 2 full days of installing all existing apps... But in the end it was worth it.

Win 10 works just fine... Havent had a single problem with it so far. I used this guide to make it sleek and bloatware free.

HTH

 

I've upgraded from Win 7 to 10 in place, it went OK but things seemed just... choppy. Hard to quantify but something just seemed off, probably some leftover useless drives and background services.

Instead of cleaning up I decided to "do it right", as in, do a clean install. Then install Shut Up (https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10) and set up a hosts file to stop tracking. Then went through services and disabled shit I didn't need. And so on.

I was way happier with the result that way, the choppiness went away and things ran smoothly. Actually I'm running this installation now on my Windows box, upgraded to 2004 and have had 0 problems.

Best of luck regardless of what you choose to do, and I'll join the chorus of "back up now".

 

I recommend to always do a fresh install. It is a lot of work but you'll be shure that everything works.

I did it like that:
I cloned my drive using c't-WIMage and installed that image to a virtual machine in VMware.
c't-WIMage creates an installation image (.wim) from your OS drive including everything you have installed
and all of its settings and user data. That way you can backup your OS and install it to another PC or machine.

Also works perfectly to create a basic installation image with all the settings and tools you need. In case of
a virus or system failure, you can re-install your backed up OS like when you install a fresh windows.
Then I made a fresh install and created the VM. That way I could easily copy my files and settings from
the VM to my OS.

Btw. if you need a special Windows Image, I created a performance mod for Win 10 1909
which uses as less cpu and memory as possible. The whole installation only takes 8GB of Space
compared to 12-15GB from a regular installation.



With some themes installed, it looks quite nice:



Removed Windows Defender & the security center (every free anti virus does a better job), Advertising Apps, preinstalled apps,
office hub, windows feedback, onedrive and most of the spying processes and added some useful settings for a better workflow.
But it's still in beta as I have to fix some more little things. For now I just tested that mod on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
but it should also work on Windows 10 Pro and others.

Best thing is: you don't need extra tools to turn the spying stuff off as it simply doesn't exist.

 

Last edited: Jun 28, 2020

XP takes me half an hour to optimise for audio... W7 takes me a couple of hours... W10 takes whole day. Fuck you Microsoft. /rant

macOS takes me about half an hour, too. Debian Linux the same.

Now instead of installing the OS and all the plugins in one afternoon, I lose about two days, because W10 has settings so all over the place it's confusing and hard to remember. Search helps in the same manner as in W7, but why not just having one fucking control panel for everything??

Having said, vented, ranted all this away, don't forget to put VSTPlugins folder as far away from the Program Files as possible. Believe it or not, but My Documents or the root of C are the best places for VSTPlugins. Windows has become more like macOS and Linux, and file/folder permissions can be a bitch on those, too. Home folders or My Documents in MS case are the places for all your stuff.

Oh... and make a clean install. It's really the best way. Making backup of the W7 OS partition is definitely recommended for you never know what could go wrong with w10. Maybe your mouse will stop working and you won't be able to use it no matter what you do. Happened to one of my clients. I hope you have a W10 LTSC installation, because you'll have twice as much of hard time with a normal installation. e.g. you can't disable windows update and all kinds of unnecessary shite, at least not as easily as in LTSC version.

Some great advices on installing just what you used in the last year, for instance. It'll save you a lot of time and you can start working on your projects as soon as possible.

First time I installed W10 LTSC onto my client's computer, after wiping my tears, I felt like I was leaving Earth for Mars. Well, almost.

Cheers! and good luck.

 

Don't forget, this website is your church: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/

Use it.

Personally, I still won't install W10 on any of my computers because they are working nicely with W7. Those developers that can't compile a freaking binary for W7 are crap and I won't use any of their plugins. It is easy to make plugins that work even on XP. Voxengo plugins work with XP all the way to W10, no problems, for instance.

 

Forget about backups and the whatnot. Buy a new 250 or 500GB SSD, take your old drive out of the computer, and install a fresh W 10 on your new SSD. If for whatever reason you don't like it just switch SSD's. That is what I do for new OS upgrade-installs. I never have had "issues" with a back up.

 

Who knows what his PC configuration is. Maybe he's not using an SSD? It is definitely recommended especially as they've become so cheap. It's an excellent idea to have an OS per SSD.

The old days of dual booting are gone for the most part. It's a relief. I'd rather use a BIOS option to choose from which SSD to boot anyway. It's faster and less complicated, eh?

 

You can! If you need tools for that, I can help out.
There's also a nice little program called NSudo, which is the windows equivalent to the linux sudo command.
With that tool you can obtain all the privileges you want - also for the System and Trusted Installer account
and having that, you can modify your system as you like with no restrictions.

For disabling Updates I use StopUpdates10. It stops Windows Update completely and runs a little guard in the background
which disables updates again when Windows somehow reactivates them (after installing ms office for example).
It also contains an option to pause updates until the year 2099 if you don't want to disable Windows update completely.

And if you don't want to struggle with such tools, you can modify the windows installation before you install windows.
That's how I do it (using NTLite).

Btw. there's also an IoT version of windows 10, which is basically the LTSC but with the ability to get new feature updates
or upgrades to newer builds without waiting for the next major ltsc release. Everything else is the same.

But for now I don't recommend updating Windows. The new 2004 upgrade has some serious errors that need to be fixed
before I even think about upgrading.

 

Last edited: Jun 28, 2020

You cheater! That's technically a backup...

Best tool for this things hands down.
I got a wild hard-on the first time I used it correctly

 

You can absolutely stop auto updates. Take a look at the video I linked to in my earlier post... It has many steps to take to make Win 10 a lean mean OS.

I havent had any forced updates done to my system ever since I upgraded to Win 10 (about a year ago).

At the risk of sounding repetitive, iam a Win10 convert (so long as you can tweak it and make it lean)... It feels much better than Win7.

Regards

 

I installed a Lite version and don't have to be tweaking Microfuck crop. An alternative is one of those apps like WindowsTweaker or whatever its name is that will automatically do it for you.

 

@The Pirate yes... I used a debloating script thats freely available at github

 

All those scripts, and apps are a blessing. I have been using Oprekin Lite, and Oprekin Lite + both work well. Vro microfuck really went crazy installing shit on Windows 10. From XP to Windows 10 this is freaking crazy.I feel bad for those that buy one of those off the shell systems like Dell. Those have even more shit pre installed.