I have a touch smart PC model IQ526. Can I upgrade to Windows 10?

[Joe30339]

I am currently running Windows 7 enterprise. I have heard that I would have to do a clean install instead of an upgrade. This is OK. I am mostly concerned about compatability and touchsmart functionality.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

Joe30339

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

Personally, I would advise AGAINST doing the Upgrade.  Why?

Because HP does not supply any Win10 drivers for your PC, and if you force the Upgrade, you will then be relegated to generic drivers that Microsoft supplies. While those MIGHT work, if any do not, then you're stuck with hardware that will not fully function, as the HP drivers needed for that hardware simply do not exist.

However, if you are determined to press forward, you can protect yourself from upgrade and recovery problems if, BEFORE you do the Upgrade, you consider using a third-party imaging/restoration application like Macrium Reflect to image off your machine so you can easily restore it if anything doesn't work.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 10 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

Have fun experimenting with Win10!

Good Luck

[Joe30339]

Thanks for your reply and help. Your concerns are exactly what I was worried about. This system originally came with Vista. As an HP employee at the time (retired now) I was given the opportunity to install Windows 7. Even with that single version upgrade, I had trouble with drivers to restore full functionality. It was still worth doing. I hated Vista.