Windows 10 Question

[DWalt]

Last week, my wife's laptop suffered some sort of corruption. It's sort of an old (2016) one that came originally with Windows 8. After the purchase I immediately updated it to Windows 10 and it has worked fine since. After it gave out last week, after exhausting all possibilities I used the nuclear option and restored everything using the recovery drive I created when I first got it. That part went OK, but of course it restored the Windows 8 OS, not Windows 10. From what I can determine, it is still possible to perform the free upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 10 via a download from Microsoft. I tried doing that and the Windows 10 download was successful. However, after multiple tries I have been unable to complete an install of Windows 10. It always gets to some point and freezes. It never gets to where I can input the Windows 8 product key, which I have. Has anyone else been through the same experience, and how was it overcome?

If worst comes to worst, she can continue to use Windows 8, and I have set it up to look like Windows 10. But she wants Windows 10. You know how wives are, so I am willing to do whatever it takes to make the Windows 10 upgrade, short of buying a copy of it. I also understand that it is not possible to upgrade Windows 8 directly to the new Windows 11, so I have not tried that - yet.

 

[LVSteve]

If you google "Windows 8 to Windows 10 update fails" I think you will find your answer. While I was rebuilding my wife's laptop last year it also reverted to Win 8, and somehow when I went to do the Win 10 update, it went straight in. BUT, I do recall seeing threads while checking how to do things where the process was more like yours. Good luck.

 

[pasound]

You may have run out of memory, or space on the hard drive. Win8 is a well-known drive space hog. I have forced Win10 upgrades, using the latest version (at the time) of the Win10 iso on a bootable flash drive for both Win7 and Win8.1. Upgrades from Win8 were sometimes problematic. Look for the Media Creation Tool (21H1 is the current) on the windows site. You need an 8Gb minimum drive. Do it from a different computer, and check it's for a different computer than the one you are using. That way, it will include extra drivers. Back up anything she may have saved, desktop, documents, etc. and then let it wipe the hard drive and start it out new. As long as you do the first login from the original account, your windows key will be valid. It's in the MS user profile, stored there when you first upgraded.

 

[Cdog]

Unless your computer has Trusted Platform Module, it ain't gonna support 11 anyway.

My opinion, 11 ain't worth the upgrade for the average user.

If it's working using 8, then 10 should be doable again.

I've upgraded several over the years with little trouble using the bootable flash drive method PASOUND posted.

 

[JcMack]

I've used this site in the past for info:
Bleeping Computer Technical Support Forums

 

[pasound]

Cdog is correct. Windows 11 isn't worth it on an older computer. The drivers for various motherboard components and additional video and audio cards don't exist under 11 for older equipment, other than generic MS drivers that often don't work well. I have installed Windows 11 on a couple of older non-TPM machines as an experiment, and it will run, but not well. On one, the usb quit working immediately after first boot. On the other, the video was 640x480.