ugrade hp envy - windows 7 to windows 10

[MountainNCity]

Attempting to upgrade my HP Envy from Windows 7 to Wiindows 10. Bef ore I spend the $139 to download I want to make sure I'm able to.

System Info:

Intel (r) hd graphics 6400

12 g ram

acpi x64

Thanks. 

B

[Prométhée]

Hello
There is probably no driver available from the product page
You can try to search with this site, but no guarantee
Try to search the net, if others have already done this upgrade
In any case, the price you indicate seems absurd to me for a model can be old!
You should be able to upgrade with the windows 7 key
I would advise you possibly, to create, if still possible and not already done, your HP recovery kit!
Try the installation after checking the availability of the drivers, but without buying windows!
Use the windows 7 key for activation

https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/software-download/windows10

we need the exact model of your computer, and the product number
To find it follow this
for a desktop computer

HP Desktop PCs - How Do I Find My Model Number or Product Number? | HP® Customer Support

and for a laptop:

HP Notebook PCs - How Do I Find My Product Name or Number? | HP® Customer Support

[WAWood]

@MountainNCity 

In my experience, Intel seems to do a better job of both supporting older graphics chips under Windows 10 and in updating the drivers for those chips to work with Windows 10.  So, your success in updating this PC to Windows 10 will probably be much better than trying the same with a Wi7-era PC using AMD video.

As to price, you should be able to do the upgrade For FREE -- using the links that @Prométhée has already provided you.

But, BEFORE you attempt such an upgrade, I strongly advise you read the information below about making an image backup of your Win7 system.  That way, if the upgrade fails, you will have something to restore FROM.

------------------------

I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
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 60% 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 24GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

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

[Prométhée]

Yes, yes, it is very good ..
but first of all you have to check if the original recovery system allows you to create the factory reinstallation kit
Otherwise, the user may have difficulty in finding the original version of windows.
A disk image is good but sometimes a return to zero is also welcome, better to have both options !!

[MountainNCity]

Thanks for the detailed information. Will proceed based on your answer and the info from WAWoods. Appreciate the rapid response and helpful information. 

Will post back when I've found the time to get to all of this! 

From Colorado...

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @MountainNCity 

Before you go out and buy W10, see this info...

 Here's how you can still get a free Windows 10 upgrade | ZDNet

After you read the above article, if you are interested in trying to run W10 on your PC, click on the blue Update Now button at the link below to being the upgrade process from W7.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

If there are any devices that may need drivers, let me know what they are, and I will be happy to help you find the drivers you need.  There shouldn't be too many.

If you don't like W10, then you have 30 days to go back to W7 as long as you don't delete any files.

See this link for how to go back to W7...

https://www.cocosenor.com/articles/windows-10/go-back-to-windows-7-or-8-from-windows-10.html

[Prométhée]

For information
I performed the windows 10 update on an HP computer
but I did not need to restart from a dvd, or usb key
I simply used a virtual disk, mounted the windows 10 image, then directly launched the setup!
There is a search for update, then the installation begins
Activation made automatically after connection to the internet
But it may not work for everyone

[stevecomputer]

PaulTikkane is correct. The only thing you have to watch for on an installation is a warning about the incompatible driver which you can ignore.  Do a check on your hard disk using chkdsk to make sure it's ok and make sure you have at least 40gb space left on your drive as an old windows can take up to 30gb space.  Turn off any antivirus and set power options to high performance and disable hibernation.