Windows 10 July 29th... Back up your system

[Mike]

Please don't say I didn't warn you.

If you reserved your upgrade of Windows 10, it is likely high time that you backup your system, right away.

Most commercial backup software will work well with Windows 8.1 at this time, including the front-runners Acronis True Image 2015 and Paragon. These are not endorsements, just the facts.

It is not advisable to perform the upgrade without backing up your entire hard disk to a restoration image that can be recovered on boot-up in the event of a disaster.

Even the built-in backup feature in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 may be advisable as opposed to nothing. To let you know, I have personally begun to back up systems in the event that this upgrade seriously wreaks havoc. I cannot say that it will, but let's be safe, rather than sorry. Do you agree?

Best regards and good luck.

 

[Saltgrass]

I go a step further. I create an image, then replace the hard drive and restore that image. This accomplishes two things, first my original install is safe and secondly I have tested the restoration process.

But I do agree it is essential some type of backup be done.

 

[Trouble]

Most commercial backup software will work well with Windows 8.1 at this time

And with even most if not all of them offering at least a limited free trial, there is no excuse for not making a disk image in advance of the upgrade.

Acronis True Image http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/pc-backup/
AOEMI BackUpper AOMEI Windows Backup, Cloning, and Recovery Software
AX64 Time Machine - Snapshot Imaging Backup Time Machine Windows 7, PC Backup Software, Time Machine Backup, Windows Time Machine | Ax64.com
EaseUS ToDo Best free backup software for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/vista - EaseUS Todo Backup Free
Macrium Reflect Link Removed

Some options. Not recommendations or endorsements.
This thread not only needs to be a "Sticky" somewhere. It needs to be used as a banner / link on the home page of the site.
"DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU!!!"

 

[Joe S]

The problems is many people go by read instructions after everything else fails!
Joe

 

[davehc]

There are still one or two grey areas in the upgrade process.-

But, as I read it, one of the problems if you accept and begin the upgrade process, is that your "key" is then placed on the "cancelled " list. With that, I am not sure at what stage this occurs. Then, the only way back is through Microsoft's own restore channels.
Should you go through with the upgrade, and then decide to replace it with your original home made 8.1 image, sooner or later, you will find this is no longer active. Just my opinion.

 

[Big Dan]

Does anyone know what the upgrade process looks like? I ran a couple of test upgrades from 8.1 to one of the 9800 series builds and they went off without a hitch.

I wondering how I'm going to get fresh install media for 10 if I upgrade from 8.1 on both my systems.

As for backup everything is in the cloud. I even have copies of %appdata% for certain programs.

I'm also wondering if I upgrade to the latest build tonight will I automatically get the RTM version. Does anyone know how that's working?

 

[loug]

I do backup on my computers weekly. But I receive emails from different forums stating the best thing to do is use a program like Acronis. Others state after a backup, format the drive and start again. I'm going to take my chance with the backups I have. If worse comes to worse, I should be able to revert to Windows 7 or 8.1, that I have on my computers. I realize some of these folks recommend certain programs, perhaps because that program sponsors their website. The only thing I'm not certain about is the Windows registration code. I intend to copy and save these on paper in case.

 

[Night Hawk]

Glad to hear someone else uses Acronis I still have the True Image 2010 version in use here and actually prepped for 10's release by cloning the Windows 7 host drive and unplugging that to either see a full inplace upgrade to 10 or to wipe the clone if the method is available to perform a clean install.

If I am able to immediately see a USB Install key or dvd media used I will proceed with a fresh clean install where 10 will run as the second OS for the present time for evaluation and to get to know what will run on it as well as what changes have been seen having skipped over 8 and 8.1 entirely.

Having come up from DOS/3.1 through 9x, XP, Vista, and 7 it won't take too long!

 

[merk]

Does anyone know what the upgrade process looks like? I ran a couple of test upgrades from 8.1 to one of the 9800 series builds and they went off without a hitch.

I wondering how I'm going to get fresh install media for 10 if I upgrade from 8.1 on both my systems.

As for backup everything is in the cloud. I even have copies of %appdata% for certain programs.

I'm also wondering if I upgrade to the latest build tonight will I automatically get the RTM version. Does anyone know how that's working?

Using the preview builds, it upgraded me to the RTM build a few days back without any issues. Kind of surprised me since I think with windows 8 they wanted you to do a fresh install (or upgrade from win7) rather then upgrading from a beta build. I don't know how the upgrade will start in win8 since I ran the upgrade from downloading and ISO image. But after that, it upgraded through windows update. Just be prepared for it to take a while to complete the upgrade - probably took me about 2 hours or so for it to finish.

 

[Night Hawk]

Well here's a quote off of the W10 for Business page that covers the upgrade options.

How to upgrade
With Windows 10, businesses have two new upgrade options:

• In Place Upgrade from existing Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1 devices directly to Windows 10 without having to wipe and reload the device.
• Dynamic Provision devices right out of the box –reducing the cost and complexity of large scale deployments.

Of course traditional wipe and reload deployments of Windows 10 can still be used too. Whichever path you choose, moving to Windows 10 has never been easier. Learn more about upgrading your business to Windows 10 by reading the Windows 10 for Business Link Removed or by visiting the Link Removed for detailed deployment guidance, resources and forums.

Link Removed

The part I like is:

Of course traditional wipe and reload deployments of Windows 10 can still be used too.

It will certainly be interesting to watch how this new In Place Upgrade works. Previous versions from Vista on would see the Windows.old folder where you would find all the files stashed away in the user account(s). A clean install usually means a total wipe of everything in contrast.

 

[Big Dan]

Well here's a quote off of the W10 for Business page that covers the upgrade options.



Link Removed

The part I like is:



It will certainly be interesting to watch how this new In Place Upgrade works. Previous versions from Vista on would see the Windows.old folder where you would find all the files stashed away in the user account(s). A clean install usually means a total wipe of everything in contrast.

To me it feels like not a whole lot is changing under the hood. Most of Window's 10 improvements are in the GUI area. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure code has been optimized and such over W7&8 but to me it feels I'm installing a new desktop environment in Linux.

For that reason, I don't think we're going to see the familiar Windows.old folder.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a clean install. I'll probably do an in place upgrade and play around for a week or so then try and figure out how to do an install straight from a RTM ISO.

 

[Night Hawk]

To me it feels like not a whole lot is changing under the hood. Most of Window's 10 improvements are in the GUI area. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure code has been optimized and such over W7&8 but to me it feels I'm installing a new desktop environment in Linux.

For that reason, I don't think we're going to see the familiar Windows.old folder.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a clean install. I'll probably do an in place upgrade and play around for a week or so then try and figure out how to do an install straight from a RTM ISO.

Apparently someone I was hearing from earlier already saw a $BT folder or something similar appear on his main drive and he was working on creating an iso for dvd as well as a flash drive. I will be waiting to see jus what options are presented since I should be seeing W10 Pro with 7 Ultimate running here. The Education edition has a bit more features to offer however over the Pro edition I was taking notes.

Now the first and obvious thing you notice right away is the return of the Start menu as opposed to the annoyance of the Metro screen. But you also have to note how the 10 Start expands over a bit more to include some large Metro style tiles! They didn'tdump that entirely but worked out the multi platform issues as well as brought that back as for both GUI and some under the hood workings. The Secure Boot most likely saw an upgrade there was well while the system specs haven't really changed any as far as what had previously been the XP to Vista headache where MS lowered the expectations by not raising the minimum up from 512mb to 1gb and 2gb(recommended) as they should have there. But that's ancient history at this point.

The Customize Desktop option(Virtual desktops note) seen with all editions would seem close to what you are saying there as far as just seeing a new desktop. For W7 carried on until now with 8 and 8.1 besides the Secure Boot as one large change there to add additional security the core doesn't seem to have seen any large changes except 7 goes on in 20minutes clean from a usb flash drive while when eamining the 8 Customer Preview when that first came out and ealier this year putting 10 TP on a VM the installation for both ran a full hour! Vista took about 40-45min on average during a fast install showing that 7 was quite a bit faster in that regard.

As for the Windows.old folder that was seen even for upgrades as the entire Windows folder plus users folders were eradicated on the older versions. The indication here is we may be seeing only the Windows folder itself under changes while presersing the existing users folder with files intact going on as any other typical update would to an extent of course. We'll know soon enough however.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

Been there, done that

 

[merk]

There will be a windows.old folder which i think is basically just a straight copy of the previous windows folder.

The real question you want to be asking is if you can clean out the windows 10 version of the windows folder, since right now on my system that's eating up about 40gb of disk space. A big chunk of that is the installer folder. I realize disk space is pretty cheap, at least for HDDs. But man this just gets under my skin - it just seems like a very sloppy way for MS to handle this and just assume we'll provide them with additional disk space.

 

[Ralph Bromley]

I just used clonezilla, rawr!

 

[Night Hawk]

Well 10 is downloading right at the moment from being a Windows Insider naturally as the Media Creation Tool is in use for the USB Installation Key first for both 32/64bit options for the Pro edition and later simply run it again to grab the second download of same already in ISO format. The product key from the existing Windows installation will be what is needed since no new keys for 10 apparently are being provided for the free release. Later once it goes out on retail media that's when to expect each disk set will then have a separate key.

 

[patrickt]

I have an SSD and a hard drive so, of course, my data was on the hard drive and my OS and programs on the SSD. I had absolutely no glitches in the upgrade and was almost nostalgic for the adventures in previous installations of new systems.

 

[Night Hawk]

Well that's good to hear! At least we can be confident that 10 won't be seeing any installation bugs. At the moment the USB Installation key is now at 97% for the Pro edition as well as the option for both 32bit and 64bit combined. I will run the tool a second time to download 10 in ISO format choosing the same options to have onhand as well as burn to optical.

Link Removed

A little late for this now that "Your USB flash drive is ready" where I now hit the back button to go back and now select the iso option to proceed with that. Only took about 10minutes for the download. And as for data I had already created not only the image backup of the 7 host drive presently unplugged for the 10 clean install but have two 1tb Sata 3 HDs in a SCSI array for backing things up while I did have to clear space on one since the previous image was stored on the now W10 drive.

 

[Big Dan]

I downloaded the 64 Bit Pro ISO last night. I'm going to use that to upgrade my laptop via USB. Right now, Windows Update is "Preparing for Installation" for an in place upgrade on my desktop. If you don't see me for a few days something blew up on both upgrades.

Heck if it's that bad, I'll run a fresh install of Ubuntu and play with Windows over the weekend.

 

[Big Dan]

I downloaded the 64 Bit Pro ISO last night. I'm going to use that to upgrade my laptop via USB. Right now, Windows Update is "Preparing for Installation" for an in place upgrade on my desktop. If you don't see me for a few days something blew up on both upgrades.

Heck if it's that bad, I'll run a fresh install of Ubuntu and play with Windows over the weekend.

Well the in place upgrade went off without a hitch. I started it and left for the store. Came back to Windows 10!