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BIF
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It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 2:09 pm

Hello:

My workstation has been working well since my cold boot problems were fixed a couple months ago, so now I want to upgrade it from Windows 8 Pro to Windows 10 Pro. I've done the download part already.

I plan to take an additional set of Macrium backups of my boot and application partitions.

The upgrade advisor has only flagged my Corsair monitoring software (software came with CPU water cooler), but everything is plugged into the motherboard and (I am fairly sure) I'm using the Asus monitoring and fanspeed tools. So I plan to uninstall the Corsair software before proceeding with the upgrade.

My laptop has been on Windows 10 since the first week it became available, and it has been working just fine. Here were the issues I dealt with back then:

1. Re-enable IE (I hated Edge)
2. Re-install Classic Shell with new version
3. Disable Windows automatic updating (yes, I have a "control thing")

The one I'm upgrading this week is an i7 workstation based on a 2012 Asus motherboard with 64 GB RAM, two GTX 980s, and some SSDs and a couple HDDs. Its main purpose (in the rare times when I'm not goofing off) is for graphic arts and DAW.

None of that software is specialized to the point where it should require any special handling, and of course the upgrade advisor hasn't flagged any of it. But can anybody think of any other issues that may have come up since Windows 10 was new last summer?
 
End User
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 4:01 pm

BIF wrote:
The one I'm upgrading this week is an i7 workstation based on a 2012 Asus motherboard


I'm running Windows 10 Pro on an ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM from 2012. No issues for me.
 
BIF
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 4:43 pm

Thank you. Mine is a 2011 board; different from yours but from the same era. I don't expect to encounter any issues.

I do plan to review all my installed software anyhow and like I said, I'll take a second set of backups.
 
biffzinker
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 4:49 pm

If you can BIF try and do a clean install instead of the upgrade. Your less likely to run into issues with hardware drivers from the past Windows 7 install or programs.
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 5:29 pm

biffzinker wrote:
If you can BIF try and do a clean install instead of the upgrade. Your less likely to run into issues with hardware drivers from the past Windows 7 install or programs.

Good point I bought a new boot SSD for a fresh install of 10 Pro. I kept my original boot drive installed as a just in case option. I use the BIOS to manage boot options.
 
BIF
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 5:30 pm

Thanks, BiffZ, but I have to take a chance on an upgrade-in-place, due to the sheer number of all of the software currently installed. My last re-install, which was Windows 7, took a week. Not to install Windows, no. It's all the other stuff that's on CDs only, DVDs only, various media hard drives for products, and then all the licensing stuff. There's always something that won't go right, either due to a bad DVD or maybe a buggered up license key or code. I must pass on all that. :)

My current goal is "no new installs until I've retired from my full-time job, because frankly, that's the soonest I'll have that kind of time. And that won't happen for many years yet. I hope. :P

In the "old days" of Windows prior to 7, it was indeed best to install fresh, and that's what I always did, even with Windows 7, too. But through the years I haven't had any trouble going from 7 to 8, then to 8.1, and (on the laptop), to 10.

I think Microsoft has figured out (for the most part) how to prevent the clutter of the old OS from causing problems in the new OS, so even though there's some small amount of risk with an upgrade-in-place, I've decided to just go for it. Those problems in prior years just don't exist to nearly the same level.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 6:05 pm

Um, BIF, you have heard of this concept called imaging?
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Sun May 01, 2016 6:10 pm

BIF wrote:
Thanks, BiffZ, but I have to take a chance on an upgrade-in-place, due to the sheer number of all of the software currently installed. My last re-install, which was Windows 7, took a week. Not to install Windows, no. It's all the other stuff that's on CDs only, DVDs only, various media hard drives for products, and then all the licensing stuff. There's always something that won't go right, either due to a bad DVD or maybe a buggered up license key or code. I must pass on all that. :)

This, of course, also increases the odds that the in-place upgrade won't go smoothly...
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blahsaysblah
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Mon May 02, 2016 5:02 am

If you have UEFI instead of BIOS firmware check that Windows was able to install UEFI boot manager. Some UEFI features wont work w/o it. (CPU based TPM, Deep Sleep(at least on my MB))

"System Information"->BIOS Mode should say UEFI. or just check that Reset My PC has option to reboot into UEFI under Troubleshoot, Advanced.
 
MOSFET
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Tue May 03, 2016 9:14 pm

Good luck BIF - go for it (after a backup). I certainly prefer clean installs from a technical perspective, but similar to you, I have more working and configured programs than I care to reinstall and reconfigure on my main work endpoint workstation, so in-place upgrade it was. The only precaution I took (other than backup) was to uninstall Corsair Link. That's it. Everything works perfectly afterward - even my Resource Monitor view settings were preserved. Bank of America check scanning with a Digital Check CX30 is the only hiccup, and that is absolutely BoA's fault and not Microsoft. It's a pain in the a$$ with every Windows version and even more trouble with AMD USB (again, not an AMD issue, the issue is the specific Device Manager-style naming of the USB controllers.)
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BIF
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Tue May 03, 2016 11:31 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
Um, BIF, you have heard of this concept called imaging?

Um, I infer that you're not referring to taking a backup image of my partitions (because I already mentioned that), and I'm also pretty sure you're not referring to "slipstreaming", which I'm pretty sure hasn't been a regular practice for home users since Windows XP or earlier.

You've got me, so you'll have to give me a little more detail than that, because no, I have no idea what you're referring to. :-?
 
BIF
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Tue May 03, 2016 11:33 pm

blahsaysblah wrote:
If you have UEFI instead of BIOS firmware check that Windows was able to install UEFI boot manager. Some UEFI features wont work w/o it. (CPU based TPM, Deep Sleep(at least on my MB))

"System Information"->BIOS Mode should say UEFI. or just check that Reset My PC has option to reboot into UEFI under Troubleshoot, Advanced.


Very good, I'll check that!
 
localhostrulez
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Tue May 03, 2016 11:34 pm

Look up "disk imaging" - backing up the entire disk, sector by sector, partitions, files, and all. The idea being that you can set up/deploy tons of computers this way, or reset things if you screw up.
 
BIF
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Tue May 03, 2016 11:36 pm

MOSFET wrote:
Good luck BIF - go for it (after a backup). I certainly prefer clean installs from a technical perspective, but similar to you, I have more working and configured programs than I care to reinstall and reconfigure on my main work endpoint workstation, so in-place upgrade it was. The only precaution I took (other than backup) was to uninstall Corsair Link. That's it. Everything works perfectly afterward - even my Resource Monitor view settings were preserved. Bank of America check scanning with a Digital Check CX30 is the only hiccup, and that is absolutely BoA's fault and not Microsoft. It's a pain in the a$$ with every Windows version and even more trouble with AMD USB (again, not an AMD issue, the issue is the specific Device Manager-style naming of the USB controllers.)

Well, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has had to change his methodology due to technical and time limitations. Thank you for sharing.
 
BIF
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Re: It's time for me to Upgrade Workstation to Windows 10

Tue May 03, 2016 11:43 pm

localhostrulez wrote:
Look up "disk imaging" - backing up the entire disk, sector by sector, partitions, files, and all. The idea being that you can set up/deploy tons of computers this way, or reset things if you screw up.

I follow you now; thank you for the clarification.

When I used Acronis backup, I used to do this. Because Acronis was notorious (to me anyway) for not properly restoring boot and application partitions correctly unless the backups were taken cold. That is, with Windows inactive, and the system booted from a DVD with Acronis on it.

But Acronis was messed up in other ways, and not all of the backups were valid. I could never even do a successful "system restore" with Acronis-taken snapshots and their forum was constantly riddled with technical problems without responses or resolution, so a few years ago I jumped to Macrium, and I have never had any trouble restoring Windows from a backup taken while Windows was running. The restore is done via standalone Macrium via a booted DVD or thumbdrive, yes; but any Macrium backup will work, even if it was created with Windows up. I do have VSS turned on, of course, which allows all of this to work correctly.

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