How to deterine if an HP laptop was supplied with Windows10 or upgraded from earlier version

[pvman80]

Windows updates are not being installed and it is impossible to create a restore point.  As  perhaps a rest may be required I need to know if the computer was upgraded to Windows 10 or came from the factory with Windows 10 installed.

What would be the best way to reinstall Windows10 in order to retain the HP recovery manager.

[Huffer]

We would need the model or product number. If it came from HP with Windows 10 you could get the restore media and it would replace Windows and the recovery partition. With Windows 10, frankly, you do not really need a recovery partition any more as Windows 10 is freely available to download and your installation will just activate when reinstalled. Drivers and HP apps can be downloaded from this site. 

[pvman80]

Thanks for the information.  Am I right to assume from what you mentioned  that the Recovery partition on my machine is there only to revert Windows back to it's former glory and does not contain any important material from HP? If that is the case I would be quite happy to get rid of the partition.

During boot up yesterday there was apparently a problem and HP software performed some repairs automatically. After that Windows Update was back to normal. Apparently the problem had also disabled disk protection. Set Restore Point now also back to normal.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

The recovery partition contains an image of the out of box factory software installation. It can be used for F11 factory recovery or is also the source of data for making recovery media. Other than that it has no function. If the laptop was sold with Windows 8 or 8.1 and then upgraded to Windows 10, the recovery partition gets corrupted and is unuseable. All the drivers and software included with the original image other than Windows itself is stored in the C:\swsetup folder which you can save off and use for a clean reinstall of Windows. 

[pvman80]

Thanks very much. Your info was most helpful.