Update to Windows 10

[Orlok]

I already tryed several times to update windows 7 to windows 10 when the possibility to free update was there but it never was succesful so I needed to get back to the windows 7 configuration. But now the support of windows 7 will stop soon and I want to know is there now a possibility to update this laptop to windows 10 and how must it done. Maybe I need to update HP drivers before the windows update too.?

[Dudefoxlive]

If you windows 7 Product key is still in tact you can do a clean install of WIndows 10. You can also try to do an in-place upgrade to windows 10 and hope it uses your already installed Windows 7 product key. If you don't have the key or the key is worn off from use over the years then you are going to have to purchase a new Windows 10 key. 

[WAWood]

@Orlok 

Part of your problem is that HP does not make Win10 drivers for your DV7 -- and that complicates updating to Win10 as MS only installs basic drivers.

I ran into a similar situation some time back upgrading my DV6 to Win 10 -- but I learned some lessons from it and, if you're willing to read through the details and follow the directions, you might be successful, as well.

As to being able to read the license code on the sticker -- that is not necessary.

You need to think about how much work you want to commit to just to run Win10. Seriously. Older Win7 machine tend to come in two flavors when it comes to the Win10 upgrade -- really easy, and really hard.

The really hard to upgrade PCs fall into two categories: (1) those that are upgradeable to Win10 and will work OK, (2) those that are not.

HP laptops, especially the older Win7 machines, often came with two different graphics chips -- and Intel and then, either an AMD or Nvidia. This was known as Switchable Graphics or Hybrid Graphics. You ran using the Intel chip most of the time, but when you needed extra graphics power, like in Gaming, the PC automatically switched over to using the AMD or Nvidia graphics chip.

Problem is, this requires special graphics drivers to work, and while those came preinstalled on the Win7 laptops, those drivers simply do not exist for Win10. Those drivers are not available from Intel, AMD, or Nvidia. A way to tell if your PC has two different graphics chips is to look in Device Manager under Display Adapters.

IMPORTANT Warning: If there are two different display adapters listed, one Intel and one AMD/Nividia, then you have this problem -- and if you force an upgrade to Win10, you will have serious graphics problems and your machine will not work.

However, if you do not have this problem, to CAN upgrade to Win10, but you must be prepared to do four things:

1) Make a complete image backup to external drive or large capacity USB stick,
2) Make changes to the reserved system partitioning scheme on your hard drive,
3) Use a different approach than Windows Update to do the Upgrade,
4) Be prepared to do a clean-install, if the Upgrade does not work.

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1: Image Backup:
This is VITAL because the machine is likely to fail the upgrade, and when it does, you will learn that the Win10 GoBack function is NOT reliable, and that can leave you with a corrupted machine that will require factory reset, and losing everything on it, to get it working again.

You avoid this by making an image backup to an external drive or USB stick using Macrium Reflect (MR) which 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)
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

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.
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2: System Reserved Resizing:
There is a small partition on the hard drive of Win7 preinstalled machines known as System Reserved. This holds something known as the boot loader code. It is 100MB in size -- all that is needed for Win7. But Win10 needs 350MB, and, in some cases, is NOT able to resize this on its own. IF that happens, you have to manually use a partitioning tool to resize it yourself.
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3: Use a different Upgrade approach:
Windows Update is the easiest, but least reliable, way to do the Win10 Upgrade. A much better, and more reliable way, is to use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

In my case, I created Win10 install media on USB, inserted that, and tried to do the Upgrade while still in Win7. That failed -- miserably!!

So, I ended up having to Restore my PC to Win7 (using the MR backup I had made prior to the Upgrade), and follow the details in step 4 -- and that worked!
---------------------------------
4: Prepare for clean-install:
If you do all this, and after the upgrade, your PC is only partially functioning, that means that the Upgrade did not go well and stuff is still there from the prior OS corrupting the functionality of Win10.

You MIGHT be able to fix this by doing a clean-install of Win10. Problem is that a clean-install often does not recognize the prior activation, even though it should.

So, BEFORE you do the upgrade, follow these instructions from the community Win10 forums about creating a genuineticket.xml file: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-fi...

You will need this later to activate your Win10 pc after the clean-install.

NOTE: I did the clean-install, and even though the product-key was SUPPOSED to work to activate Win10, it did not. And, calls to MS about this were wastes of time -- since the MS idiots said I could not activate Win10 with a Win7 product key!!

What DID work was using the genuineticket approach documented in the tenforums thread. I copied that from the USB stick where I saved it, rebooted, and after that, my DV6 was activated.

[Dudefoxlive]

In Windows 10 Windows update will attempt to download and install as many drivers as it is able to locate. Drivers should not be that big of an issue on older machines. 

[Orlok]

I found already that the operation system on this laptop have two graphic drivers one Intel and one AMD/Nividia that stops the updating proces near 90% of the update time.!

I read somewhere else on the internet that the screendrivers on this laptop won't fit to windows 10 and that deleting the AMD/Nividea drivers will result in a 900x600 screen but the update to windows 10 will then be succesfull? After the update to windows 10 re-installing the AMD/Nividia drivers will resulting in an automatique update to the right AMD/Nividia windows 10 graphic drivers but it's sound to me to risicofull to do.! I have only one laptop as my computer, so if it crashed . . . . . . .!

When it sound to me very easy to do and if this laptop after that works then fine on windows 10 why HP didn't come with this solution.? I think that i'll contact (again) HP for furthers informations about any solution to update this laptop or not to w10.

Thanks.

[WAWood]

@Orlok 

First off, your laptop has something known as Switchable Graphics and that means it REQUIRES drivers provided ONLY by the OEM.  The drivers provided by AMD and NVidia are for THEIR graphics adapters, not for your PC. So, folks telling you that MS will find and install those drivers are not providing you correct information.

Second, HP made no guarantee that ANY Win7 PC would update to Win10, as they had no way of knowing about that at the time the Win7 PCs came out. MS does the Upgrade to Win10, not HP.  So, if your PC does not upgrade to Win10 well, that is NOT the fault of HP.