Windows 7 to 10 upgrade
Discussion
Morning Everyone. Not very good with Computers so bare with me. Currently running Windows 7 and I've had the message saying that Microsoft will shortly be stopping the support for this and I need to upgrade to Windows 10. Fair enough, watched several youtube tutorials, seems fairly straight forward.
Apart from one thing that I'm really worried about. Windows 7 is obviously Outlook for e-mails, Windows 10 is mail. Once the upgrade is complete, will mail automatically be there for me to see without registering or anything like that? Will it have saved my contacts and saved e-mails from Outlook? If mail isn't on my desktop once upgraded, how do I find it? I'd hate to lose everything.
Many thanks for your time.
Simon.
PS Upgrade is still free yes?
Apart from one thing that I'm really worried about. Windows 7 is obviously Outlook for e-mails, Windows 10 is mail. Once the upgrade is complete, will mail automatically be there for me to see without registering or anything like that? Will it have saved my contacts and saved e-mails from Outlook? If mail isn't on my desktop once upgraded, how do I find it? I'd hate to lose everything.
Many thanks for your time.
Simon.
PS Upgrade is still free yes?
Why not windows 11. Not much point upgrading to an out of date OS. Cue all the Apple fans saying you should have bought a mac it would just work.
No idea how the email will setup as never tried to upgrade I always do fresh installs as they tend to work better and its good to clean out your OS once in w while. But email is generally easy to set up these days.
No idea how the email will setup as never tried to upgrade I always do fresh installs as they tend to work better and its good to clean out your OS once in w while. But email is generally easy to set up these days.
The email issue may not be an easy one to resolve depending on how you have it set up. At a guess you are using Windows Live Mail which is a stansdalone programme but Windows10/11 doesn't support this & basically offers Hotmail via a web browser.
Who is your email provider & do you know if you connect via POP or IMAP?
I'm not sure if the Windows 10 free upgrade link still works now Windows 11 is out as i haven't tried it recently.
Who is your email provider & do you know if you connect via POP or IMAP?
I'm not sure if the Windows 10 free upgrade link still works now Windows 11 is out as i haven't tried it recently.
Mr Pointy said:
The email issue may not be an easy one to resolve depending on how you have it set up. At a guess you are using Windows Live Mail which is a stansdalone programme but Windows10/11 doesn't support this & basically offers Hotmail via a web browser.
Who is your email provider & do you know if you connect via POP or IMAP?
I'm not sure if the Windows 10 free upgrade link still works now Windows 11 is out as i haven't tried it recently.
E-Mail provider is VirginMedia and connect via POP.Who is your email provider & do you know if you connect via POP or IMAP?
I'm not sure if the Windows 10 free upgrade link still works now Windows 11 is out as i haven't tried it recently.
Mr Pointy said:
The email issue may not be an easy one to resolve depending on how you have it set up. At a guess you are using Windows Live Mail which is a stansdalone programme but Windows10/11 doesn't support this & basically offers Hotmail via a web browser.
Who is your email provider & do you know if you connect via POP or IMAP?
I'm not sure if the Windows 10 free upgrade link still works now Windows 11 is out as i haven't tried it recently.
E-Mail provider is VirginMedia and connect via POP.Who is your email provider & do you know if you connect via POP or IMAP?
I'm not sure if the Windows 10 free upgrade link still works now Windows 11 is out as i haven't tried it recently.
Personally if you can archive all of your data to either an external drive or cloud storage (dropbox etc) and do a clean install and go to Windows 11.
Upgrades although they work fine just won't give the performance of a clean install. Yes it's more work, reinstalling your apps, setting up printers, email etc, but you'll thank me for it.
Upgrades although they work fine just won't give the performance of a clean install. Yes it's more work, reinstalling your apps, setting up printers, email etc, but you'll thank me for it.
Freakuk said:
Personally if you can archive all of your data to either an external drive or cloud storage (dropbox etc) and do a clean install and go to Windows 11.
Upgrades although they work fine just won't give the performance of a clean install. Yes it's more work, reinstalling your apps, setting up printers, email etc, but you'll thank me for it.
I don't doubt it. No idea how to back up saved e-mails to external storage, and I'm not sure it'll actually be worth all the hassle as the laptop is pretty old. I should really think about buying a new one to be honest.Upgrades although they work fine just won't give the performance of a clean install. Yes it's more work, reinstalling your apps, setting up printers, email etc, but you'll thank me for it.
Freakuk said:
Personally if you can archive all of your data to either an external drive or cloud storage (dropbox etc) and do a clean install and go to Windows 11.
Upgrades although they work fine just won't give the performance of a clean install. Yes it's more work, reinstalling your apps, setting up printers, email etc, but you'll thank me for it.
I would do the same, although I would personally go for windows 10. I have a Lenovo Legion pro and upgraded it recently to 11, but found all of the power management features no longer worked. My laptop has a whisper mode which runs the processor at 1mhz using FN+Q but this no longer worked.Upgrades although they work fine just won't give the performance of a clean install. Yes it's more work, reinstalling your apps, setting up printers, email etc, but you'll thank me for it.
I then reinstalled windows 10 and it still didn't work, I eventually found out that the Lenovo install has all sort of custom scripts run as part of the install that enables this feature.
I then ended up reinstalling the Lenovo version of windows 10 and everything worked again.
Out of interest, what processor does your laptop have?
GlenMH said:
If he is on 7, it is unlikely his hardware meets the MS requirements for 11.
This. Buy a new pc / laptop for win11 and transfer the data across as and when it suits you. Avoids the issue of corrupting the machine you have when trying to upgrade.
By the time you’ve bought a usb drive and win11 you might as well get an inexpensive pc.
SteBrown91 said:
If you are upgrading from 7 to 10, it *should* keep your applications If I remember correctly (been many years since I have done it). So you dont need to do a clean install and find new apps etc.
This worked for me when I upgraded my desktop after a computer store told me it would need to be a completely fresh install of Win 10. I felt it should need that, took the chance and did it myself with fingers firmly crossed. All but one app, an ancient version of Photoshop (6.0 I think) work just fine with Win 10 so it's been win/win for me 
Joey Deacon said:
I then ended up reinstalling the Lenovo version of windows 10 and everything worked again.
Out of interest, what processor does your laptop have?
This. You have to make sure all the drivers etc are supported as well. My Dell laptop isn’t getting official Dell support for Windows 11 so I am going to keep it on 10 until it is retired. I briefly tried Windows 11 because the OS kept insisting on an upgrade, but my machine became very slow and buggy. Out of interest, what processor does your laptop have?
My previous Sony Viao came on Windows 7. Sony only supported it with updates for 3 years. By the time Windows 10 rolled around, they had dropped support and the laptop BSOD’d every half hour so I rolled it back and kept using it on Windows 7 until it retired.
Simon Bags said:
E-Mail provider is VirginMedia and connect via POP.
Virgin also offer IMAP access, so that you can keep the same inbox across multiple devices 
https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-...
When I upgraded the old steam powered Windows 7 laptop to 10 it kept all the old programs, although a few of them didn't work in 10.
I use a Gmail address so everything is in the cloud and the copy on my pc is just a synced copy, if yours is only on your pc back up your emails first.
For what it's worth the laptop didn't so much run as crawl with Windows 10 so I've ditched the lot and installed Linux on it and it's much happier. All I use it for is office type stuff (words, spreadsheets, database etc), Web browsing, emails etc so it all works fine out of the box without spending any money.
It's keeps the laptop usable.
I use a Gmail address so everything is in the cloud and the copy on my pc is just a synced copy, if yours is only on your pc back up your emails first.
For what it's worth the laptop didn't so much run as crawl with Windows 10 so I've ditched the lot and installed Linux on it and it's much happier. All I use it for is office type stuff (words, spreadsheets, database etc), Web browsing, emails etc so it all works fine out of the box without spending any money.
It's keeps the laptop usable.
Macrium image backup the current system.
Then you can always get back to that point.
Then see what/if a win10 upgrade is possible and works as needed.
And go from there.
I assume you can’t get Outlook without a subscription these days?
An alternative, but not checked it in years, is Thunderbird (from Firefox browser makers), which may be compatible with your email setup from Outlook.
Win 7 and Win 10 are still completely fine OS, as is WinXP.
You just need to manage your firewall.
Deffo no harm in getting a new shiny laptop if a PC still fits your use case… then keep the old machine ticking over while you migrate.
Then you can always get back to that point.
Then see what/if a win10 upgrade is possible and works as needed.
And go from there.
I assume you can’t get Outlook without a subscription these days?
An alternative, but not checked it in years, is Thunderbird (from Firefox browser makers), which may be compatible with your email setup from Outlook.
Win 7 and Win 10 are still completely fine OS, as is WinXP.
You just need to manage your firewall.
Deffo no harm in getting a new shiny laptop if a PC still fits your use case… then keep the old machine ticking over while you migrate.
On the email, to learn how to save your emails search for youtube videos on 'export emails to pst file' for whatever version of outlook you are using. It's quite a normal thing to do, so there'll be loads of vids telling you step by step. Definitely only a 1 spanner job.
And of course to re-load them on your new windows then just search for 'how to import pst file' for whatever email program you end up using (ie windows mail).
As many have said, if the laptop is a bit old it wont officially support windows 11. There are ways around this, but not worth it, especially if you are not IT savvy.
Not wanting to complicate matters for you, but it is worth checking what type of hard drive your old laptop has. If it is not an SSD, then is it very much worth upgrading to one when you reinstall windows. Again, not something to fear if you've never done it before, just search for videos on 'how to upgrade hard drive on laptop XXX' where xxx is the make and model of your laptop. This will make your laptop much faster, and have the bonus that you keep the old drive, so if you forget to back up some file, or the email does not work, you just pop the old hard drive back in and run that to get the files off. If you put what laptop you have on here I'm sure we can provide links to the relevant videos, and even confirm for you if you have a SSD or not already.
And of course to re-load them on your new windows then just search for 'how to import pst file' for whatever email program you end up using (ie windows mail).
As many have said, if the laptop is a bit old it wont officially support windows 11. There are ways around this, but not worth it, especially if you are not IT savvy.
Not wanting to complicate matters for you, but it is worth checking what type of hard drive your old laptop has. If it is not an SSD, then is it very much worth upgrading to one when you reinstall windows. Again, not something to fear if you've never done it before, just search for videos on 'how to upgrade hard drive on laptop XXX' where xxx is the make and model of your laptop. This will make your laptop much faster, and have the bonus that you keep the old drive, so if you forget to back up some file, or the email does not work, you just pop the old hard drive back in and run that to get the files off. If you put what laptop you have on here I'm sure we can provide links to the relevant videos, and even confirm for you if you have a SSD or not already.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff