How To Upgrade To Windows 10 Right Now UPDATE: This Sucks

How To Upgrade To Windows 10 Right Now UPDATE: This Sucks

Update: "Something happened". The day has finally come, Windows 10 is available to the public and if you currently have a computer with Windows 7 or 8 on it, you can get Windows 10 totally for free. Let me give you a few tips about upgrading your operating system and a few warnings.

I personally own 4 windows computers, 3 of them running windows 7 and 1 of them running windows 8 (which I've never really liked). I know that upgrading an operating system can cause problems and that is why I WILL NOT upgrade to Windows 10 on any of my main machines until our latest project is 100% complete. It's not worth risking months of work to upgrade to something that we really don't need. If you rely on your computer for your livelihood then I would suggest waiting at least a few weeks to install Windows 10. That being said, I do own 2 laptops that I rarely use for business and I am excited to install Windows 10 on them today. 

You may have noticed a small Windows logo in the bottom right of your screen that looks like this:

To upgrade Windows for free you can simply click on this icon and "reserve" your free copy by sending Microsoft your email address. Once you do this Windows will tell you to be patient and you will be alerted when you are able to install the update. This is extremely frustrating because you don't know if it will be ready in an hour or a week.

How to download Windows 10 directly from Microsoft without waiting

If you're like me and you don't want to wait, you can simply go directly to Microsoft's website and download the update directly here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Clean install vs upgrade

I don't like upgrading my operating system. In fact, I usually do a clean install of Windows every year anyway for a fresh start. You might be tempted to skip the upgrade and wipe your entire hard drive and install Windows 10 fresh. In this particular case, you shouldn't do that. 

Windows 10 is free for those of us who already own Windows 7 or 8. If you upgrade, Microsoft will automatically use your current OS product key and generate you a new key for Windows 10. If you attempt a fresh install without first getting a Windows 10 key, you will actually have to buy it. If you upgrade first, Microsoft will associate a new license with your computer and then you can do a fresh install without having to spend any money. 

How to do a clean install

Once you've spent a ton of time upgrading your computer to Windows 10 to get your free license, you will then need to go back to this page and download the Windows 10 installer again and click “Create installation media for another PC.”

The Media creation tool will create an installer on a USB drive or DVD-R. You will then need to restart your computer and boot from the USB drive in the bios by pressing F1 or F12 (it will say when your computer first boots up). 

Follow the directions and choose "Custom: Install Windows Only." Choose the correct hard drive and click "format." THIS WILL DELETE EVERYTHING ON THIS DRIVE SO MAKE SURE YOU'VE BACKED IT UP. 

After a few minutes of formatting and installing you will have a computer with a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it. As I understand it, Windows will automatically know your license key for Windows 10 even after you have formatted your C: drive if you perform the instlal in this order. I am currently working through this process right now and I will report back soon with my results. 

Update: This shit doesn't work

While I was writing up this post I was personally walking through the steps to update one of my laptops to Windows 10. In classic Microsoft fashion, the update has failed in way that is so stereotypically "Windows" that it's hilarious and sad at the same time. 

When I first got back to my laptop there was an error on the screen that said: "We couldn't complete the updates, Undoing changes, Don't turn off your computer"

Typical Windows right? Well I figured I would just have to restart and try once more and it would work. NOPE! I went back to the download folder and tried to start the update process again. I recorded the process for your amusement. 

"Something happened????" Is this some sort of joke? Something happened? No it didn't. Actually, nothing happened. No matter how many times I click on the installer and Windows tells me that "something happened" nothing will actually happen. At this point I'm so pissed off I'm going to forget about this for a day and revisit tomorrow. Maybe I should swing by the Mac store. 

Update number 2

Tonight I went to dinner with my girlfriend and she said "you seem like you're in a bad mood." I realized that I was in a bad mood and I had to explain how frustrated I was with my Windows 10 update. When I got home I decided to give the update one more try on a completely separate laptop.

The update took a few hours but went totally smoothly. When I booted Windows 10 for the first time my screen resolution was way out of whack. Everything was ultra low res and stretched out. I tried changing the screen resolution but the current setting appeared to be correct and it didn't give me any other options anyway. I started looking for display driver updates. 30 minutes into my search, SNAP! My desktop became "normal" again. I have no clue what happened but I assume Windows automatically downloaded some sort of update for me.

I started using Chrome and everything did appear to be working but it also seemed a bit slower than normal. I then switched over to Microsoft's new Edge browser and noticed that my 2 finger scrolling didn't work (although it does work in Chrome). I then figured out that 2 finger scrolling doesn't work anywhere in Windows.

I clicked on the start menu and the entire thing started glitching out. Mousing over one program would make another option or program appear above it and start blinking. Moving my mouse around then started to "paint in" other tabs of the start menu. It felt like Windows 98 all over again.

Now this is hardly a full review. I've used Windows 10 for about 20 minutes now but so far nothing is going smoothly for me, especially with so many glowing reviews out there. Tomorrow I'll give you another update but until then, I cannot suggest anyone upgrade to Windows 10 at this point, especially with a work computer.

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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Nvidia just released a driver update

I'm working with the GeForce GTX970 GPU tho

I'm jealous of you. I'm using a simple GTX 750 Ti and would LOVE a 970 haha

970 here too! That Project C.A.R.S. in Ultra at 1440p.. ahhhh

That was the with the latest drivers off the website, 353.62 date the 29th July. As I said it's fine on a single head rig, but I try to rig up two or three monitors it just flakes out.

There is little excuse for this quality of drivers from a top OEM in a professional market.

Lee, your anti-Windows rants are getting a bit formulaic. Every other review I've read of Windows 10 has had nothing but praise for the installation process.

Are you suggesting that I made this up?

If everything works on a pro system why upgrade? To get some gimicky aero effects? I m on a mac and everytime there is a major upgrade you loose something, a plugin or a pshop script stops working so if not needed what is the point on a pro machine ?

Well if it's not better you're right. Windows 7 is pretty old at this point and we're excited to see what's next.

No, I'm suggesting if you'd had a similar issue with a Mac you'd have just figured it out and got on with your life.

I hope you're not basing your impression of Windows 10 on these first few problems...?

Actually... have it and it works. Just afraid first time with some error message. But after a reset it was good.

If you don't have it already here you go guys and girls!!

http://venturebeat.com/2015/07/28/how-to-force-windows-to-start-download...

Disappointing to say the least. I really have zero reason to upgrade beyond Windows 7 I guess. I have a 100% rock stable system that I can use for production - in any production environment stability is key anyway.

I'm never an early adopter - I deal with software for a living and have seen thousands of dollars lost because various types of software were updated without proper vetting on lower environments.

It's always a good idea to empty your temp folder before attempting any upgrade. I've found failed installs are often caused by that simple problem.

Hi, I'm Cortana of Windows 10 - Let me steal all of your personal information including location, contacts, messages, app info, calendar details, communication history, browser history, and other information on your device before I start helping you.

Who the **** is Cortana?

Mine was just fine. Can't say I like it yet as I haven't had a good time testing everything. I was just annoyed with the customization of appearance like the logon screen. Well got it sorted now. Hopefully this will keep up to be a better OS

what's wrong with you, Lee, 4 Windows computer?? :D

The reason i upgraded is partially because of the new security features and partially because i work in IT so i "haztohave!". But i work in IT long enough to be cautiaus of first day releases :-)

That said i updated my laptop first by means of test and everything, and i mean everything from Adobe CC to the last piece of funky homebrew software and scripting, worked flawlessly. Not a glitch.

I then felt the overwelming urge to take some risk and to do another computer that is in production. Again not a glitch.

So far even my photography workstation is updated together with 12 other computers. some with the downloadtool from the updateprocess, some with the mediacreationtool by means of test.

I had 3 that glitched. One didnt have all updates, one was infected with a virus (on purpose i might add), and one was a virtual machine with funky network and firewall settings.

You wont hear me say that it cant go wrong, but i have the distinct impression that Microsoft did a clean and good rollout this time round.
If i compare this with a friend of mine who upgraded a mac a few months back and lost everything due to a corrupt os after upgrade with no means to roll back... Thank god he had backups.

"If i compare this with a friend of mine who upgraded a mac a few months back and lost everything due to a corrupt os after upgrade with no means to roll back..."

So you're into bold-faced lies are ya? You can always roll back a Mac to the restore disk i.e. version of OSX it originally came with... always!

"Thank god he had backups." - OMG! Kudos dude! Then he lost absolutely nothing, except for the last 2 hours since the last TimeMachine backup, right?

Carry on... and just wanna say that my 1 Windows 10 upgrade, and 1 fresh install went perfect. Lee didn't say what he did to prep his computer BEFORE the upgrade, which I assume was absolutely nothing(?).

You were bored because of windows ahaha ohhh man. Chill! I've updated it yesterday, it's well worth the wait, for the first time i can look at windows and say, this looks better than OSX (design talk, quit it fanboys, don't...keep scrolling). It's wayyy less distractive than Windows 8/8.1 and is smooth as butter.
Mine is working on top of a 8 Core CPU @ 4GHz with 16GB DDR3 @ 1866Mhz and a Nvidia GTX 970 4GB. :D never better!

I'm not going to upgrade my computer from Windows 7 to 10. Windows 7 does what I need my computer to do. I don't know what advantages Windows 10 has over 7.

9 reasons not to upgrade to Windows 10 -- yet
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2945195/microsoft-windows/9-reasons...

Whoa! How professional. Disappointing from fstoppers :(

Hmmm, I prefer to use Rufus to make a Win installer over the Windows tool. I have a bunch of thumb drives laying around and even use(rarely) my CF cards. Give that a try.

This was still more interesting to read than someones brag how wonderful their Mac is :) PERIOD!

Do a clean install after the upgrade.
The upgrade "installation" didn't behave on 2 of my test PC platforms ( first one was shocked when I went ahead to create a Network Share :D ).

After doing a clean install everything seems to be running smoothly.

The number one thing people are missing here is you get Windows 10 HOME for free, in order to connect to other files and folders on public or school/private networks you need to have Windows 10 Pro edition that cost $100.00. This is frustrating because even simple versions of windows 8.1 8.0 and 7 offer this to you in every version. They basicly have striped you of those normal features and have asked for $99.00 to get them back. Apple doesn't release different versions of their OS why is Microsoft still doing this, we don't need a windows 10 basic, home, and pro editions just make it Windows 10 thats it.

Wow this is huge. I had no idea

Hmmm I don't think this is true. Here are the actual differences between home and pro versions https://citrusbits.com/difference-between-windows-10-home-and-windows-10...
I see nothing that says that you can't connect to files and folders on the network. Unless i'm missing something

THIS IS NOT TRUE. Please do not use this info when upgrading. All of my systems are Windows Pro machines, except one that's Enterprise. All of my Win Pro machines upgraded to Win 10 Pro, free of charge.

If you have home editions, you get the home version. If you have pro edition, you pro version.

Confessions of a amendment Windows XP user. Yes I'm typing this on WinXP machine and I've had little reason or incentive to upgrade to v.7 let alone v.8 but now as my OS procrastination continue, version 10. However I have recently found software I NEED aka: WANT I'm NOW forced into a position of upgrading, if I can euphemistically call it an upgrade. Having worked a PC-tech position and having installed over the years (too many to count) allot of operating systems the NEWS offered here comes as NO surprise but that's not to say I don't feel the pain, I can sympathize. Therefor, I think I'll wait for Windows10 to stabilize somewhat and wait for the 'drivers' to materialize before trying for the first time, actually that was a given as I'm never the one to play on the-bleeding-edge! Regardless if I want 'NEW' software I WILL also need to buy a supported OS today if not soon ... LMAO, or maybe I should also check out Mac Store before the Linux Crowd and their holy crusade chime in, eh !?!

I was already convinced not to upgrade...I always have the "wait and see" approach with Windows... Guess I'll have to wait! :) Thanks for the heads up Lee!

Denis it makes very little sense to not upgrade based on one account of bad luck. 65 million people have already upgraded and very, very few are having issues. If you don't believe me go and check out a few reviews. Doing a roll back is so easy that it's a much better idea to simply create a back up that you can always roll back to and update. Windows 10 is awesome.

Forgive me for being a little insensitive, but you should have bought a MAC. I was a Microsoft user from the days of DOS. My last computer was a Dell notebook with Windows 7 Ultimate. I refused to upgrade to windows 8 and decided to keep Windows 7 and I would not be upgrading to any subsequent version of windows. I moved to the dark side when I realized after many many years I could do whole house audio with Apple, then I saw how nice and streamlined the system was and progressed to full blown apple conversion. So I do feel your pain, and I understand what you go through. With Apple, the new updates are just so smooth and seamless and work the way you expect them to work.

I downloaded and used the Win10 from the Insider Program, installed it in Virtual Box and it ran just fine. When doing stuff like this, I prefer to make sure what ever system I'm using, I'm connected with a hard line. WiFi can be a little iffy. Sometimes drivers can be a source of headaches.

Really sorry that you had such a bad experience Lee, my upgrade process when very smoothly and I'm enjoying windows 10 very much so. My surface pro 3 is running faster than before (especially when running lightroom) and i'm enjoying all the new features, especially cortana. I could not fathom going back to anything else. To anyone who is still hesitating I have one advice: don't. Create a backup and upgrade, if you are unlucky enough to be like lee and have some weird issues you can always roll back, but chances are that you won't. As can be seen from the great majority of reviews, it went very well for the great majority of individuals (as of this morning it was already installed on 67 million pc's)

I upgraded my Windows 8 to Windows 10 a few hours back. I did not have the activation key to activate windows 10. But thanks to Kmspico software: https://kmspicoinfo.com for helping me to activate my Windows. Kmspico is a windows activator. If anyone has not fully activated windows 10 can get Kmspico and activate.

There is a solution to solve the problem of bluetooth connectivity https://fixconnectionsbluetoothaudiodeviceswirelessdisplayswindows10.net/ it will give you the best way to remove your hurdle.