I have Win7 Professional. I am contemplating the shift to Win10.

Quite frankly I'm petrified about my investments in programs that are non flightsim. I recall the couple times I upgraded or had to reinstall Windows and had to spend a week, dawn to dusk, 1000s of coffees to get everything reinstalled and operating and updated again.

Apparantly, most of our P3DV4.5+ and XP11.4+ will work although I did hear that the Flight1 GTN will stop working.

What I am particularly concerned with are my many other things I use my PC for. I have some 12 HDs, six with six backup copies. Many are just data of course, especially bizillons of digital photos, terabytes of home digital movies both historic old 8mm conversions to modern HD stuff. And terabytes of ortho scenery and all that.

So I'm not worried about data but my Win7 compatible programs such as movie making, photo editors, all windows 7 programs such as Outlook, paint, word, excel, picture manager, my scanner, my printer, my income tax software, Photodex, my Norton security software, firefox, crome, explorer, and tons of older software programs I use regularly.

Can anyone advise me. When I searched Microsoft website there was tons of info but I could not find one Q&A that specifically said anything about the impacts on other third party software; whether or not I would loose functionality and have to update each software and reinstall?

I am inclined to tough it out with Win7 Professional, keep my high security montoring on my Flightsim gaming machine which is also my PC for everything.

AND, I have a new one year old laptop with Win10 and just keep this for anything like tax filing etc. instead of using my PC with WIN7 Pro.

Bryan

 

Bryan - do it! when you move over to win 10, you will surprised at how easy it is, My main work PC system had 5 HDDs, several thousand photos, the transition to Win 10 pro 64bit(when the update was free) went flawlessly with no loss of files or program functionality. I'm still running some WINXP programs in Win 10. I have since converted 2 other desktop PC (1 32 bit) and 2 laptops from Win 7 to Win 10 with no Data or file loss. With your Programs, you have the option in Win 10, to run them as Win 7 by selecting this feature in the Properties menu

With the move over, you will be surprised how well Prepar3d 32 and 64 bit and XP11 run. You will also need Win 10 for MS2020 if your going down that path.

With Microsoft stopping support for Win 7 in 2020, you really don't have many options left.

Steve

Edited December 27, 20196 yr by JustanotherPilot

BTW.. the update is still free

A better question is, what’s the point if it’s all running well? No more support means nothing at the end of the day. It still works. :)

1 hour ago, Bert Pieke said:

BTW.. the update is still free

You sure, Bert, because I have two Windows 7 x64 Pro to Upgrade? Link?

18 minutes ago, vc10man said:

You sure, Bert, because I have two Windows 7 x64 Pro to Upgrade? Link?

I just upgraded a week ago..

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/upgrade-to-windows-10-free-heres-how/

Thanks a million, Bert. That link you have posted has saved me a great deal of head-scratching trying to get my boss to go down that 10 route.👌

2 hours ago, JustanotherPilot said:

Bryan - do it! when you move over to win 10, you will surprised at how easy it is, My main work PC system had 5 HDDs, several thousand photos, the transition to Win 10 pro 64bit(when the update was free) went flawlessly with no loss of files or program functionality. I'm still running some WINXP programs in Win 10. I have since converted 2 other desktop PC (1 32 bit) and 2 laptops from Win 7 to Win 10 with no Data or file loss. With your Programs, you have the option in Win 10, to run them as Win 7 by selecting this feature in the Properties menu

With the move over, you will be surprised how well Prepar3d 32 and 64 bit and XP11 run. You will also need Win 10 for MS2020 if your going down that path.

With Microsoft stopping support for Win 7 in 2020, you really don't have many options left.

Steve

Thanks Steve!

2 hours ago, JustanotherPilot said:

no loss of files or program functionality

Now for the most important part.

So I'm not worried about files, mostly data...as everything of mine is backed up - twice, I would just also go into Users files and make sure I have some of the obscure data backed up temporarily.

Can I ask, have you many other productivity programs that you have tested?

2 hours ago, JustanotherPilot said:

or program functionality

I need to say that I'm scared cow pied over doing this!

Anyone else able to support this experience, some idea of how things will play out??

In five days I leave for four months living out of country and with only poor wifi. I take my PC (and all my flightsim hardware) with me for a variety of productivity reasons and so I can flightsim once in a while...I can't afford to have m PC a jumbled mess.

Bryan

 

1 hour ago, Bert Pieke said:

BTW.. the update is still free

Bert the instructions keep saying that one needs a Win10 license? So are you saying you don't need one, that this will still install Win10 without one?

2 hours ago, Doug47 said:

A better question is, what’s the point if it’s all running well? No more support means nothing at the end of the day. It still works. 🙂

You see, this is why I have been delaying. I have a laptop which is Win10 for some essential stuff.

I maintain a war on security, malware, security software, alerts...this is still all working great.

52 minutes ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

Bert the instructions keep saying that one needs a Win10 license? So are you saying you don't need one, that this will still install Win10 without one?

As long as you have a valid win7 license, you are ok..

15 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

As long as you have a valid win7 license, you are ok..

OK no issue then, and I understand then that since I have Win7 Pro that the update will install Win10 Pro or whatever equivalent.

35 minutes ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

OK no issue then, and I understand then that since I have Win7 Pro that the update will install Win10 Pro or whatever equivalent.

That is my understanding as well..

On 12/27/2019 at 7:57 PM, 1st fltsimguy said:

OK no issue then, and I understand then that since I have Win7 Pro that the update will install Win10 Pro or whatever equivalent.

Use the link that Bert posted, download the updater, and let it do it's thing.

Already done it on 2 machines, the last was 2 weeks ago...if you have Win 7 Pro, you will get Win 10 Pro. Because you have a valid license for Win 7, Win 10 Pro license will be activated automatically - you don't buy a license, you don't enter a license.

Before doing upgrades to 10, I used the old Win 7 "system image" backup function (which is a mountable backup btw); I STRONGLY suggest doing this system image - just in case), but didn't have to use those images as everything I had on Win 7 worked exactly the same on Win 10 - I lost nothing.

There is a roll-back option after updating to Win 10 to take you back to Win 7, if you so choose - as I recall you have 7 days to roll-back. I deleted the roll-back files before the roll-back period ended because I had no problems, and wasn't going back.

The final fall-back is your system image...if the whole thing goes belly-up, simply restore from your system image, and worst-case, you've just wasted a few hours.

As far a 3rd party software updates, I don't recall, other than if anything needed an update, they were detected automatically when I ran those programs and I just let them download and install. If I remember correctly, it was mostly security updates through Windows Update.

Kind Regards,