win7

Installing Windows 10

Overview This is an article on my first install of Win10.  Installed Win10 on SPACE due to an issue with the current OS install, Win7 Ultimate.

The current OS was complaining it was not a valid version and therefore I had a few days left before it "expired".

I purchased a download of Win7 Home Premium and a 240GB SSD with the intention of installing the SSD, disconnecting the current C drive, installing Win7 home on the SSD, and then immediately upgrading the SSD install to Win10.

Steps

1)  created a bootable flashdrive and installed Win7 onto the flashdrive.

2)  copied the LHF admin folder to an external drive.

3)  disconnected the C: drive and the I: drive (music backup).  The I: drive had to be disconnected as I needed a SATA connection for the SSD.  (the old C: drive was an IDE).

4)  had to change the BIOS drive stuff from IDE to ACHI before I could get to the SSD.

5)  booted from the flashdrive and installed the OS onto the SSD

6)  downloaded the win10 upgrade tool and run it on SPACE

7)  after upgrade to Win10 I found that the system was rebooting every 1 to 3 hours (not sure exactly).

  • Win10 device manager did not show any device driver errors
  • the reboots seem to complain about something trying to write to read-only memory...indicates a driver issue according to the net
  • I updated the Nvidia driver that was a couple releases out of date...no change
  • downloaded and ran "driver booster 2" and it found 2 drivers way out of date and 1 just old...updated these.  still no change.
  • checked the ASUS drivers on their site and they were all at least 5 years old
  • changed the power save to never shutdown, and the screen saver to 30 minutes...now we've been runs for a few days with no errors.  Didn't want to shutdown anyhow with so many PC's accessing SPACE.

Get a list of programs installed on a PC

Overview When rebuilding a PC it is always really handy to know what programs are installed on a PC.  Here's a simple way to do this:

1)  Search (program files search window) for Windows Easy Transfer.

2)  Run the program...helps to have a flashdrive or HDD connected to the system to write to.

a)  Don't selected all the SHARED ITEMS as this could be huge.  Go into customize and de-select a lot of the shared items.

3)  After the program has been run, there is a Programs Report that could be run (again search for easy transfer....select reports one).  The program will show the report but you cannot print it.  Here is the location of the XML file with the info....just open it in excel:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Easy Transfer\PostMigData\2011-10-14\SourceAppList.xml

Reference:

Lots of info on the program:

http://www.technospot.net/blogs/windows-7-easy-transfer-files-users-settings/