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My computer had problems and I had to reinstall Windows using the vendor's recovery program. Now, I am considering if I should wait till windows 10 rolls out, or go ahead and install 1.5GB of updates.

Do I need an updated Windows 8 / 8.1 to update to Windows X?

Lord Loh.
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  • 1) You must be running Windows 8.1 if you wish to do a in-place upgrade to Windows 10. 2) You must have all updates including Update 1 if you are running Windows 8.1 3) Going through Windows Update to upgrade to Windows 10 is 100% easier for an inexperience person like yourself. – Ramhound Jul 29 '15 at 01:29
  • @Ramhound : " inexperience person like yourself" - what gave me away :-D ? – Lord Loh. Jul 29 '15 at 02:38

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Yes Microsoft has a page that is very clear about the criteria. You have to run the upgrade from an existing Windows installation and if you are already running Windows 8 you need to install the updates to get the Upgrade offer (1, 2).

If you experience issues on a machine or license eligible for the upgrade to Windows 10 and you don't want to look up and interpret how the error codes relate to your situation you can take the shortcut and reinstall from Windows 8 refresh media after you have made a backup of your installation. (I prefer dism/imagex for backups.)

I just found this out while trying to get my upgrade, having a few error codes, tried cleaning and re-downloading a few times and found a suggestion to just install from the Windows 10 refresh media, which are already available, but this doesn't work for the upgrade of an existing license. However since I had a backup and nothing to loose I gave Windows 8 refresh media a chance and was surprised that at the end right before it would bring me to the Windows 8 desktop it notified me about the Windows 10 upgrade as part of the Windows 8 installer and started downloading and installing Windows 10 after I confirmed that this is what I want and not to skip this instead. The installation just finished and Windows 10 activated on the second try.

I would have expected a requirement to download and install all updates for Windows 8, but it did not. You can start upgrading to Windows 10 right off a clean installation of Windows 8.

For clarification, I used a T530 that came with Windows 7 Pro (MBR), updated it to Windows 8 Pro and 8.1, transfered and restored it a few times with dism and changed the bootloader to UEFI in the past years (so there where enough possibilities for something to break the Windows 10 upgrade process). I received a new product key during my Windows 8 upgrade back then, which I used during the installation from the refresh media, however I haven't received a new product key nor do I have any indication which licensing information was used to activate Windows 10 (and will probably be voided by Microsoft for downgrades) yet.

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LiveWireBT
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  • Why do you contradict yourself? First you say that you must install the updates, then you say you don't have to. I suggest editing your post to make this more clear (You don't have to install the updates if you install from media, only if you want to get the GWX icon and update through Windows Update). – Erik Funkenbusch Aug 07 '15 at 14:53
  • @ErikFunkenbusch Isn't that what I just said? The only thing that's contradicting is that your answer suggests to use Window 10 media for an *upgrade* where my experience was that this does not work but using Windows 8.1 refresh media works. – LiveWireBT Aug 07 '15 at 15:39
  • I said you contradict yourself, not me. Your first paragraph says this: `You have to run the upgrade from an existing Windows installation and if you are already running Windows 8 you need to install the updates to get the Upgrade offer` – Erik Funkenbusch Aug 07 '15 at 15:43
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Yes and no. If you want to use Windows Update to do the upgrade, then you need to be on Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1 S14 with all updates installed.

However, if you just want to manually do it, you can use the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool to download and perform the upgrade, or create an ISO and perform the upgrade from that (making sure to do an upgrade install and not a clean install). Using the MCT does not require that you have the latest updates installed and can be done from Windows 7 RTM or Windows 8 RTM (as well as 7 SP1 and 8.1 and 8.1 S14)

The Media Creation Tool is located here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

  • NOTE: You MUST perform an upgrade install (keeping your files) in order to get the free upgrade. You cannot do a clean install the first time. You can do clean installs afterwards. No key is required, but you must have a valid genuine Windows 7/8.x installation to upgrade from.
Erik Funkenbusch
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  • Have you tried directly installing from Windows 10 media without having a Windows 10 license? I did as I wrote in my post and I couldn't take part in the upgrade offer, though I had received the notification in Windows 8 before and "reserved" Windows 10. When I installed from Windows 10 media, the only option I had in the store was to buy a retail license for the full price. With installation from Windows 8 media the upgrade of the license went though without flaws. – LiveWireBT Jul 29 '15 at 22:20
  • I was about to answer this myself. I had the media creation tool and updated my win 8. – Lord Loh. Jul 30 '15 at 01:27
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Enough of the confusion here.. Unless you installed Win 7 or Win 8 BEFORE July 29th 2015 . you can NOT & WILL NOT get the FREE version of Win 10... IF you did have Win 7 or Win 8 installed BEFORE July 29th , then MS automatically will detect those OSs & send the Windows 10 Icon to your task tray AFTER the Win 7 or Win 8 updates are downloaded... You will NOT get the free version UNTIL you have ALL the updates from Win 7 OR win 8 & Win 8.1 downloaded & installed... When that's done you WILL get a notification that you are good to go with Win 10 IF you so choose...

The short answer is: IF you installed Win 7 or Win 8 BEFORE July 29th , you MUST have ALL the updates installed BEFORE you can get Win 10..( That means Win 7 , Win 8 OR win 8.1)

Good Luck !!!...

Have a GREAT day & weekend... :-)

Ron M

Ronald M
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    Not true. You can always use the media creation tool to download it and install it without all the updates. – Lord Loh. Aug 07 '15 at 20:43
  • I installed Windows 7 a few days ago, and it upgraded just fine. (Indeed, using a Windows 10 ISO as downloaded from the media creation website, like @LordLoh wrote.) – Arjan Aug 08 '15 at 22:28
  • I did an in place upgrade. My ISO did not work. it asked me for a serial numb3r. Perhaps I downloaded a wrong iso - there are 4 ISOs to choose and download from. – Lord Loh. Aug 09 '15 at 01:23