Upgrading device drivers and backup.

[albert01]

Hello,

I purchased a used

HP ProBook 11 G2 11.6" i3-6100u 2.3GHz 8GB RAM 128GB SSD Win 10 Home Touchscreen

Sold as part of the Microsoft 3rd Party Refurbisher Program. 

These systems have a product key affixed to them indicating that it is part of the Microsoft 3rd Party Refurbisher Program.

I went onto the HP website and downloaded the app that recognizes any connected  to the Internet HP PC.

I then ran the app that showed me bios, drivers and applications  with updates. I was able to update the bios as well as some but not all of the drivers, some of the installed drivers are later versions where iirc one or two of the others just wouldn't update.

The laptop Probook apparently originally had Windows 7.0 installed and must  have been upgraded to Windows 10 which appears to have a sticker with a COA.

What I'm wondering is about the best approach to backup the installed Windows 10 64-bit OS along with it's installed drivers and applications.

Just copy it to an image that can be re-installed without needing to boot to Windows?

If I ever need to re-install Windows 10 from scratch there shouldn't be any problems installing using the COA from Microsoft's OS sticker with COA?

From what I understand newer PC's Microsoft's past and present Windows OS registration numbers are installed within the bios and

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

The first thing to do is to determine exactly what version of W10 the notebook originally came with.

The version of W10 and the product key is in the BIOS.

I have zipped up and attached a free utility below that will show you the W10 product key in the BIOS.

I use this free imaging software to periodically create system images on my PC's. You save the image to a portable hard drive.

It will also have you create a bootable rescue DVD or USB flash drive that you boot from to navigate to and restore the system image you created.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree