How to revive a Windows 7 system with a clean install via the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool

[RV_]

The Media Creation Tool makes it easy to perform a clean installation of Windows 10 on a Windows 7 machine. This illustrated walk-through will show you how it's done.

 

Excerpt:

 

"If you've ever had to pack up your house and move to another state, you know that when you finally get to the new house, it can take a long time to unpack everything. Well, two years ago, I moved my family from Kentucky to Indiana and we put the bulk of our stuff in storage and rented an apartment while we shopped for a new home. We've been in our new home for just over a year now and there are still boxes in the basement we have yet to unpack. To make a long story short, I recently came across my old laptop.

 

My trusty ASUS F3 with an AMD Turion 64 X2, 80GB hard disk, 1GB of RAM and running Windows 7 Ultimate. Wondering if it still worked I found the power cord, plugged it in, and pressed the power button. As it came back to life, I tapped it into the new Wi-Fi and watched as it connected to Windows Update and began downloading a series of patches and fixes.

 

Sometime later, after Windows 7 was completely up to date, the Get Windows 10 prompt appeared and informed me that the system was ready to for the upgrade. I declined to perform the upgrade right away and decided to use the system with Windows 7 for a while. However, after a couple of days, the system began acting quirky and I remembered why I abandoned it in favor of a new laptop several years back.

 

Attributing this quirkiness to some flawed update, I decided against upgrading Windows 10 over top of Windows 7 and figured that I would perform a clean install. I've performed a clean install of Windows 10 multiple times, but as I was doing so this time, I realized that I have not covered the procedure in an article. So, let's take a closer look.

 

What you'll need"

 

The article goes on in great detail with how to use the media creation tool here: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-revive-a-windows-7-system-with-a-clean-install-via-the-windows-10-media-creation-tool/?ftag=TRE684d531&bhid=19724681974700635514865380622813

[LindaH]

Thanks for posting this, Derek. I have an old Windows 7 computer sitting around here and I may try this. I haven't updated my Windows 8.1 computer to 10, so this would give me a chance to try it out. Unfortunately, my old Windows 7 computer isn't a touch screen, a feature I really like.

[RV_]

Win 10 work well with desktop/laptops without touch. Hey YW let us know how it comes out for you.

[RV_]

YW Bill,

Let us know how it works out.

[LindaH]

Derek, I found my old Windows 7 computer (in fact, I have two). A couple of questions come to mind before I start on this project:

 

1. The article to which you gave the link indicated that the author downloaded patches and fixes for Windows 7. Is this really necessary if one is going to update to Windows 10?

 

2. Do you have any idea how many GB's the Windows 10 download is? I have 18 GB monthly data allowance and have currently used about 7 GB for the month (my billing period ends on the 4th of each month). If I have to download updates for Windows 7 on top of downloading Windows 10, I'm afraid I may run out of data before the 4th!

[Jimalberta]

When I click on that site it takes me to the app store. Is that how t works....have to download an app?

[LindaH]

Bill B, on 20 May 2016 - 08:11 AM, said:

Linda - I downloaded both, we have 30 g and the 32 bit was about 3+ gigs and the 64 bit was close to 8 gigs . Our billing cycle fell and I had 'space' to down load the 64 and the next day the 32 bit.

 

How do I tell which "bit" I need? And why would I want both...seems to me it would be an "either/or" situation?

 

 

 

AND turn off Win 10 sharing (limited or metered connection) Derek posted about Win 10 sharing with other people and using your data. I have to find that post again also.

 

If you find the post, would you please post the link here? I know there's been a lot of discussion about Windows 10 here, but I haven't read any of them because I had no intention of updating my Windows 8.1 computer. I guess I'll have to go back and search out those discussions!

[LindaH]

When I click on that site it takes me to the app store. Is that how t works....have to download an app?

 

When I clicked the link in Derek's OP, I was taken to the article with step-by-step instructions on how to update a Windows 7 computer to Windows 10. I think there is something that you need to download before you can do the Windows 10 update, but I haven't read the article in detail yet.

[RV_]

Linda when you go through the initial setup in Windows 10 select custom rather than the "express Settings choose Customize. Here's the screen shots:

https://askleo.com/setting-up-windows-10-for-privacy/

[RV_]

Bill,
Thanks, I forgot about that one. It has been three or four months since I upgraded my last machines. I made the same settings changes as you have. It is pretty easy to use Windows 10 no?

[LindaH]

Bill B, on 20 May 2016 - 5:43 PM, said:

Linda - start menu (lower right corner) - select "computer" - system properties (second tab)

 

also start menu - control panel - system button - both tell you what your running

 

Thanks!

 

 

Bill B, on 20 May 2016 - 5:43 PM, said:

 

I did both - one for my tablet (32 bit) and the 64 bit for my and the wife's computers.

 

Ahhh....I didn't realize you were talking about two different items! That makes more sense than downloading both for the same computer. Duh!

[LindaH]

Linda when you go through the initial setup in Windows 10 select custom rather than the "express Settings choose Customize. Here's the screen shots:

https://askleo.com/setting-up-windows-10-for-privacy/

 

Thanks for the link, Derek!

[RV_]

YW Linda,

[LindaH]

I spent a good part of yesterday updating my Windows 7 computer to Windows 10. Everything seems to be working OK so far except:

 

I did the Customized settings per the instructions in the link at Derek's Post #13, above. Per that website, I turned everything off so that automatic updates wouldn't happen. However, earlier today when I turned off my computer, I got the message "Update and Shut Down." Obviously, the computer downloaded updates despite my turning off automatic updates!

 

Is there anyway of turning off automatic updates now? What I want to happen is to be notified that there are updates and let me decide whether to, or when to, update.

[RV_]

Linda the settings may have reset on install. Go here: http://www.markspcsolution.com/2014/11/disable-automatic-update-in-windows-10.html scroll down past the ads and do the simple configuration and let me know how it works out for you.

[LindaH]

Derek, I can't get past typing in "gpedit.msc." I keep getting the message that the computer can't find it.

[k4rs]

I spent a good part of yesterday updating my Windows 7 computer to Windows 10. Everything seems to be working OK so far except:

 

Is there anyway of turning off automatic updates now? What I want to happen is to be notified that there are updates and let me decide whether to, or when to, update.

 

There is no way to turn off updates on Windows 10 Home. Other editions allow you to defer, but again, you can not turn off updates in Windows 10. Just make sure to set your Wi-Fi as a metered connection and disable sharing updates with other people on the Internet.

 

 

Derek, I can't get past typing in "gpedit.msc." I keep getting the message that the computer can't find it.

 

Gpedit is not included with Windows 10 Home, it is only found on business oriented editions (Professional or Enterprise).

 

Safe Travels...

[RV_]

Oops! Thanks Roger, I'm still getting used to 10 as well. and forget I am running Pro on my system. I'll need to delve into the differences. Sorry Linda, it looks like I was wrong for home. I always take all updates and of course have no issues because I am on cable broadband. I thought I would be able to check on Win 10 home questions on my tablets or Lynn's Lenovo but I just double checked and all are Pro. I have had too many systems in the last five years and I will have to try duplicating things on the laptops until I advertise them for sale.

 

You have a month to see whether you like it or not, and can revert back to windows 7. BTW, getting Pro I just found out won't help much. You can only defer the performance updates, security updates still push through with Pro. I don't know about Enterprise edition.

 

In the past, 60% of folks worldwide never did their updates and some of that was because a lot of the Asian computers were running bootleg copies or had malware that prevented updates from running. One of the update items that took some time was the Malware removal tool, which runs during updates and checks for the most prevalent infections in the wild and fixed them in most cases. Making updates mandatory may be a very good thing. If the folks who don't practice safe computing aren't passing around the latest infection, Windows infection rates go down.

 

That does not help RVrs with limited bandwidth.

 

For any folks that want to revert to Windows 8.1 or 7, (I can't imagine anyone who had 8.1 wanting to go back to 8.0) from what I am reading today MS is forcing upgrades to 10 in a number of ways. So if you do Linda, get GWX control panel or you will be right back to 10.

http://gwx-control-panel.en.lo4d.com/

 

If you are not on a limited bandwidth for data like me, Windows 10 is really a vast improvement over even Windows 7. Usability comes with time. I could flip between 7, 8.0, 8.1 and 10 for a while there just before Christmas when I had upgraded my soon to sell laptops and my tablets to 10. My wife messed up when I was not home and upgraded and did not tell me for a few days as she handled it just fine on her new All In One, and she is not any kind of a tech. But she had been using it on her tablet for a couple of months already. With me just pinning what I did before to the task bar including but not limited to: Windows Media Player, Control panel, IE 11, calculator, Snipping tool, Opera, Task Manager, CCleaner, Defender, Outlook, and Word. Several others on my machines and Open Source equivalents on the user ready machines to sell later when I am through with them.

 

I have never declined an update and only had one IE update that made it weird but worked, another that made my Outlook run in safe mode. Not exactly the disaster scenarios I read about. There were a couple that were the fault of the manufacturers leaving calls for Intel drivers on AMD machines that did not have the files loaded for boot. HP was lazy and used the same original system files for both and only deleted the Intel drivers not the calls on boot. Yep dumb but not MS. Another was the update that crashed computers and made them unbootable. That one turned out to be a rootkit infection that hid completely successfully until they forgot to upgrade it before the Updates that month. The infection failed, not the updates. But of course the damage was done because it took a few weeks to confirm the problems and a couple more to determine the cause, and by then the ABMrs had successfully convinced folks that MS updates were dangerous.

 

Note: I am talking about consumers with normal systems, not enterprise that need to test for legacy and one off software, or custom server systems that need custom updates. That again is not MS' fault. If they ran Linux they still would have to check that kernel upgrades and the automatic updates most set would not break their Enterprise servers or workstations.

 

Folks here that are not running server systems like stand alone computers, or just using stand alone systems are reasonable safe from any complete boot failure. AVG had an update that did that too.

 

If you have the bandwidth do 10. If not then assume until we see differently that windows updates for security on pro machines, and all on home systems are going to pushed with no way to stop them. I'm now taking that as a given.

 

Linda, again sorry, the Windows updates has changed dramatically with the November 2015 upgrade to 1511? anyway, I will delve into it later and see what options there are today because it has changed for Win 10 home since I last looked into it.

 

Right now I have to go across to Shreveport and do a Colonoscopy follow up appt.

[LindaH]

 

There is no way to turn off updates on Windows 10 Home. Other editions allow you to defer, but again, you can not turn off updates in Windows 10. Just make sure to set your Wi-Fi as a metered connection and disable sharing updates with other people on the Internet.

 

 

 

Gpedit is not included with Windows 10 Home, it is only found on business oriented editions (Professional or Enterprise).

 

Safe Travels...

 

Well, that explains why my computer couldn't find it! I don't remember any of the pages I read about how to get to the point where you could turn off automatic updates saying anything about it only works for Windows Pro...a little detail you'd think it would behoove them to mention!

 

I didn't want to turn off updates totally. I just want to be notified when they are available and then download them at "my" convenience! Since I currently only have 18 GB of data per month (and I'm now up to 13.5 GB after doing the Windows 10 upgrade with my end date the 4th of each month), I'd like to be able to postpone an update to, say, the 5th if I'm getting close to my limit.

 

Roger, how do I set up my Wi-Fi (using my phone or my tablet as a hotspot) to a metered connection...and where would I find the "sharing updates" in order to turn it off?

[DJW]

Linda

 

Go to settings, Wifi airplane mode etc. click on that go to wifi scroll down to advance options click on that and you will see the buttons to go to metered downloads and pc discoverable set the metered downloads to on and make this pc discoverable to off

 

Dennis