What needs to be done before upgrading Windows 7

[Gaserh]

What needs to be done before upgrading Windows 7 , I am currently using Windows7 , and i'm going to upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7, backup all data  ?

[Willabong]

My experience of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 was painless, but soon after the upgrade I started to have niggling little problems with stability, so I then performed a clean install on all 3 of my machines, and I have never regretted doing that!

But you do need to backup/save anything you want to keep, this is just good sensible practice!

Now that I am fairly proficient with Windows 10, I can honestly say I would never go back to Windows 7 or any other version of Windows.  

[toltec]

I have both Windows 7 and Windows 10 machines.

 

My opinion is NEVER downgrade to Windows 10. It killed one of my laptops (I had to install Linux), made another one so slow and it constantly keeps "upgrading" and locking me out for hours on end. It was so bad I stopped using it, I use the Linux machine. 

 

As Willabong suggests, a clean installation is better but Windows 10 is useless on a laptop. With Windows 10, the PC no longer belongs to you, it belongs to Microsoft and they just let you use it, when they feel like it.

 

My advise is, don't do it unless you absolutely need to, certainly not if it's a laptop. Almost none of your software will work and you will need to update all drivers. It will be much slower. Better to wait until you can afford a new PC with loads more RAM and a much faster processor, you will need it. I have a new i7 with SSD and loads of RAM and it is OK (at a price). Tellingly, I am writing this on an older Win 7 machine !!!

 

And certainly backup all your important data at least twice.

 

 

[- S -]

6 hours ago, Willabong said:

My experience of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 was painless, but soon after the upgrade I started to have niggling little problems with stability, so I then performed a clean install on all 3 of my machines, and I have never regretted doing that!

But you do need to backup/save anything you want to keep, this is just good sensible practice!

Now that I am fairly proficient with Windows 10, I can honestly say I would never go back to Windows 7 or any other version of Windows.  

^ Pretty much this. 

I've only ever upgraded Dell and HP machines, but they were all pretty straight forward upgrades and ran with no problems.  They were all clean installs of Windows using an image created from the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool, rather than in-place upgrades though.  I even had an old Core 2 Duo Vista machine with 4GB RAM running 64-bit Windows 10 perfectly fine.  Maybe self-built/barebones or less mainstream brands are more problematic due to driver issues, I don't know.  Some peripherals like older printers/scanners/etc. don't list drivers for Windows 10 on the manufacturers website, but I found Windows 8.1 drivers work fine.

Windows 7 is going only one direction now.  It has already been out of mainstream support for a few years and in just over two years it will be out of extended support too, making it end-of-life.  The problem you have is the Microsoft upgrade offer to upgrade Windows 7/8/8.1 machines to Windows 10 for free was only valid for a year and so ended in August 2016.  Therefore the free upgrade tool is only available for people who use assistive technologies now.  So unless you use assistive technologies, you're looking at either buying a new PC or buying Windows 10.

I too avocate at least two backups. because when your machine is in a wiped state, you're back to only one copy of your data until you get it back onto your machine again.  So if your backup drive fails at that moment, you will lose all your data.  I have only had one backup drive fail, but when it did it was without any warning.  It backed up fine previously, then the next time it was plugged in, it would power on and spin up, Windows would recognise it as a hard drive, but no data could be read from it and it would just click internally every 5 seconds.  The drive itself only ever went from a fireproof safe to the computer and back again, so it can happen to pretty much any drive.

[SrPx]

Back up all, even in two devices (ideally two external HDs). One will do, whoever.

 

Fresh install. I'd even format the disk.

 

I recommend going to Win 10. Is just  the flow, you will have to do it sooner or later (software or hardware will force you to). Better to do when you have time and possibilities to do it properly. (that said, I'm yet at Win 7, no problem...But have moved the entire family (and some neighbors/friends) to Win 10, no issues in very varied scenarios ... I solved any eventual stuff easily.) 

[firstdefence]

6 hours ago, Daskert said:

I see,before reinstalling the system,you can pull the drive and copy over files directly on other devices.Recovering passwords on Windows 10 computers is fairly easy.

Recovering passwords on any windows system is very easy, windows is about as secure a tent. 

One of the most common issues I've come across is not being able to type in the search bar or edge, there are multiple fixes to this issue, they fix it for some people, but many don't get it fixed and have to use workarounds like running a new task for ctfmon.exe. I have three friends who suffer this win10 malady, they have all tried to fix this permanently but none have succeeded. Some win10 users never get this issue, but it's a pain in the butt for the ones that do get it.

As for Microoksoft and their creepy spying, there are a few apps that attempt to stop it, how successful they are is open for debate but apps such as Spybot Anti-Beacon go someway to stopping this. There are other apps too: https://www.geckoandfly.com/25083/free-tools-disable-stop-windows-spying-tracking-you/ and don't forget the tinfoil hat to stop the mothership from calling you in