TouchSmart IQ524 - Windows 10

[M2Clark]

Hello,

Can I load Windows 10 in my machine - I have made ZERO upgrades to it - out of the box in 07 and want to use it for some projects

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@M2Clark 

My own GUESS -- probably NOT. For several reasons.

First, there is no Upgrade Path from Vista to Win10.  This means that you would have to do a clean install and you will  lose everything on the PC in the process, including all your apps.

Second, HP would have no working Win10 drivers for a PC this old.  While a Windows install DOES install drivers, it installs only the most basic versions.  There is a strong chance that one or more of your hardware devices will NOT work after the Win10 install.

Third, MS does not offer a free upgrade to Win10 from Vista; the oldest OS it supports is Win7. Thus, you would have to PAY for a license with no guarantee that it would work.

IF you want to Experiment, then do the following to ensure you have something to restore FROM if the Win10 install does not work well:

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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 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 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.

[M2Clark]

Thanks for the input - that is what I figured.

Have a good one and stay safe.