Upgrade old slimline to windows 10

[Kirbybo]

ok. I will definitely try creating the flash drive on another pc. When you say "clean install" how exactly do i do that?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, 

I gave you the guidance for how to clean install W10 a couple of replies ago. 

[Kirbybo]

Ha! I'm sure you did, but I didn't understand. Going back through... it looks like the difference is booting from the flash drive -- that gives you a clean install?

Sorry for not getting it. I do appreciate your time.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is correct.

If you boot from the W10 installer, you can clean install W10.

But first try opening the W10 USB installer in Windows explorer, run the setup.exe file you will find there and see if you can upgrade the PC that way.

There are plenty of step by step you tube videos out there if you need help beyond the info I have provided.

[Kirbybo]

OK, will do. Thanks.

[Kirbybo]

OK, after several detours, I was ultimately successful, by creating a bootable USB drive on a different computer. The first problem: "We couldn't update system reserved partition." After some missteps, I discovered that I had no system reserved partition. I saw a few solutions, on line, but they were tortuous, so I decided to do a "clean install" per your instructions. I was able to repartition the drive in the windows setup, and all was good. EXCEPT. I was running Windows 7 Pro, so I installed Windows 10 Pro, but I forgot that I had upgraded to Pro a few years back (for reasons now that escape me) so my attempt to activate with the original  "Home" product key failed. I was ready to give up, but I happened to notice the word "Home" on the sticker when I was checking the product key for the third time. No biggie, just reinstall Windows Home and then the activate went fine. So now I have Windows 10 Home installed and activated. I guess the Pro product key is around here somewhere, but honestly I don't need Pro now.

So. I can confirm that it is still possible to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 for free. Still.

Thanks for your help -- I obviously couldn't have done it without you.

BK

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance, and I am happy you were able to update your PC to W10.

If you find the W7 Pro product key, you can do an in-place upgrade from Home to Pro with the W7 key.

You can read this link for more info on that...

How to upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Pro for free | ZDNet

If the onboard audio is not working on W10 (which is a very common issue on PC's with the IDT audio), see if installing this W10 IDT audio driver and restarting the PC gets the sound to work again.

Tempo High-Definition Audio Driver (Original IDT)

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp71501-72000/sp71717.exe 

I think that may be the only driver you need.  W10 should have installed everything else.

[Kirbybo]

Thanks!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.