In place upgrade from Win 7 to 10, what happens with activated software?

[pekadan]

I'm planning on taking the Windows 7 to 10 upgrade plunge and I'm probably going to do the upgrade "in place" rather than doing a fresh Win 10 install on a separate drive. The reason is that I feel it will take much too long to reinstall the absurd amount of software I have on this DAW PC.

My main concern with upgrading is all the software that will probably stop working afterwards.

I'm wondering if anybody who has done this upgrade already would be kind enough to share their experience. I'm scared to find out afterwards about software that can't be reactivated after the new OS has been installed. I believe some companies charge you, or you have to buy a new license, if you need a new activation - possibly if you've failed to deactivate the software before making changes to the computer.

I'd be grateful for any tips, suggestions, warnings etc!

[Forgotten]

I have done it in the past when I used Windows, and never had a problem with activated software.

[Psuper]

Since the PC is already built, I highly recommend clean slating -- while reinstalls can take some time as you mentioned (new drivers will too with upgrading), you can plan it out a bit before and not install the stuff you never use, streamline how/where its installed, start with fresh everything and generally expect extremely better performance than just upgrading. You can then clone it and have a "fresh system" on hand anytime in the future if something happens.

Course if you upgrade and are happy. no reason to. I never willingly upgrade on my own systems though, so much better clean slate with a new os and clone it just in case.

[VitaminD]

This is a fine reason to cut down on plugins and consolidate into less. Then you won't have to dig around trying to piecemeal projects back together.

I'd also recommend just going to Win10 fresh on a clean hard drive. In place can work but it can also get messy with the baggage from all the junk that accumulates over time (registry and miscellaneous files).

If you have ilok licenses, you may have to release them from your old drive first though to reuse them on the new. I'd also backup the data (email, favorites, photos, song files, samples, presets, etc) on to a separate disk altogether before doing anything. If anything goes wrong at least you'll have the data.

[pekadan]

Oh darn, I was afraid you guys would be talking me into a fresh install...

[VitaminD]

It is a pain, but it is worth it. I built a new system back in August. It took a couple evenings to put together the hardware, but a couple of weeks to get all the software on it.

One thing I've slowly started doing years ago was shying away from downloading and installing every cheap or free plugin. That and sticking with a handful of companies and suites. It makes it sooo much easier to get the VST folders back and projects up and running. Still had a week or so of pulling a random effect here or there, but by and large the majority of my projects were back in the first few days.

And I had to create a symbolic link to point some older projects to my Native Instruments Library folders since I apparently used an unconventional naming scheme many years ago. That saved a lot of hassle (the link) versus trying to copy and move duplicate files all over, or point my projects one by one to the new location and resave. Just create a single symlink and done.

[THE INTRANCER]

I covered some of this about a month ago in the actual process to do the Windows 10 install fresh to a new drive, using a USB stick. I covered the things you'll need to know and will need and to do this really quite easily and avoid some of the issues you might otherwise encounter. I also gave some info on how and where you bring your VST instruments over and have them re-initialised. Currently I have almost all the plugin's I have on my Windows 7 installation, working on Windows 10, but there are a few obscure one's that don't show up, which were free. I'm still finding that I still spend more time with Win 7 still when booting up my machine rather than Win10 as not I'm feeling much advantage over an already established setup that I've had for years. That said I have been able to authorise my main software I use on Win10... I've covered that in this thread..There is some advantages with being able to use certain software such as the latest versions of Davinci Resolve 16...

Windows 10: Big Posts, Big Screens & Big DAW/Plugin Migration

If your using Windows Home Premium, then Windows 10 will remove the 16 Gig cap should you have more than that which is really quite useful if you do have more and can take advantage of it.

[pekadan]

I covered some of this about a month ago in the actual process to do the Windows 10 install fresh to a new drive, using a USB stick. I covered the things you'll need to know and will need and to do this really quite easily and avoid some of the issues you might otherwise encounter. I also gave some info on how and where you bring your VST instruments over and have them re-initialised. Currently I have almost all the plugin's I have on my Windows 7 installation, working on Windows 10, but there are a few obscure one's that don't show up, which were free. I'm still finding that I still spend more time with Win 7 still when booting up my machine rather than Win10 as not I'm feeling much advantage over an already established setup that I've had for years. That said I have been able to authorise my main software I use on Win10... I've covered that in this thread..There is some advantages with being able to use certain software such as the latest versions of Davinci Resolve 16...

Windows 10: Big Posts, Big Screens & Big DAW/Plugin Migration

If your using Windows Home Premium, then Windows 10 will remove the 16 Gig cap should you have more than that which is really quite useful if you do have more and can take advantage of it.

Now that thread is a FANTASTIC resource! So many of my questions answered! Thanks for that initiative and for letting me know about it!

[pekadan]

It is a pain, but it is worth it. I built a new system back in August. It took a couple evenings to put together the hardware, but a couple of weeks to get all the software on it.

One thing I've slowly started doing years ago was shying away from downloading and installing every cheap or free plugin. That and sticking with a handful of companies and suites. It makes it sooo much easier to get the VST folders back and projects up and running. Still had a week or so of pulling a random effect here or there, but by and large the majority of my projects were back in the first few days.
...

Yeah you're right for sure. Only I hadn't planned to make any hardware changes now but do this quick OS upgrade (if there's such a thing) just to keep my DAW alive for another year or two, then build a new fresh PC from scratch and put a lot more effort into the whole thing then.

[THE INTRANCER]

I covered some of this about a month ago in the actual process to do the Windows 10 install fresh to a new drive, using a USB stick. I covered the things you'll need to know and will need and to do this really quite easily and avoid some of the issues you might otherwise encounter. I also gave some info on how and where you bring your VST instruments over and have them re-initialised. Currently I have almost all the plugin's I have on my Windows 7 installation, working on Windows 10, but there are a few obscure one's that don't show up, which were free. I'm still finding that I still spend more time with Win 7 still when booting up my machine rather than Win10 as not I'm feeling much advantage over an already established setup that I've had for years. That said I have been able to authorise my main software I use on Win10... I've covered that in this thread..There is some advantages with being able to use certain software such as the latest versions of Davinci Resolve 16...

Windows 10: Big Posts, Big Screens & Big DAW/Plugin Migration

If your using Windows Home Premium, then Windows 10 will remove the 16 Gig cap should you have more than that which is really quite useful if you do have more and can take advantage of it.

Now that thread is a FANTASTIC resource! So many of my questions answered! Thanks for that initiative and for letting me know about it!

Thanks, I've just updated the first post in the thread I linked to so it's a little more clear in my wording, added some additional links and added a video I found online which should help give a better understanding of Bootice.

[Kinh]

Dont do it! I wouldn't. It's not worth the risk or effort. Windows 10 is rubbish. They should've just called it Vista 2.0. Total crap. Windows 7 is way ahead in terms of usability. Upgrade to 10 if you dont mind wearing concrete boots

[chk071]

Oh darn, I was afraid you guys would be talking me into a fresh install...

Do it. A fresh install is always better.

[pekadan]

Dont do it! I wouldn't. It's not worth the risk or effort. Windows 10 is rubbish. They should've just called it Vista 2.0. Total crap. Windows 7 is way ahead in terms of usability. Upgrade to 10 if you dont mind wearing concrete boots

Well I'm perfectly happy with Windows 7, but after January it won't be updated anymore and more and more developers will be dropping support. I think if I decide to do an in place upgrade I should do so before January (while the upgrade is still offered). Otherwise, if I decide to do a fresh install of Win10, I might wait until the dropped support for Win7 starts to really affect me and/or I get money to build a new PC. (I thought I was there already when I installed Waves Horizon v11 a few days ago and got a "no support for Win7" message. But the Waves v11 plugins actually seem to work on Win7 despite the warning).

[mcbpete]

Dont do it! I wouldn't. It's not worth the risk or effort. Windows 10 is rubbish. They should've just called it Vista 2.0. Total crap. Windows 7 is way ahead in terms of usability. Upgrade to 10 if you dont mind wearing concrete boots

The opposite of all of the above: W10 is like a Windows 7.5, the most stable version of the OS I've used since probably XP. My laptop has gone from 7->8->8.1->10 over the years (installing 'over the top' rather than fresh installs) and it's probably the speediest/responsive it's been - certainly the fastest booting of the OSs that have been on here.

The only 'casualties' for me that required re-activating were the XLN Audio plugins & the [older] Korg VSTi suite (that used to de-activate if you just sneezed though - been much better since they changed the activation software a year or two back though). All my Native Instruments, iLok, Plugin Alliance, Fabfilter plugins and Ableton all remained activated.

[pekadan]

Dont do it! I wouldn't. It's not worth the risk or effort. Windows 10 is rubbish. They should've just called it Vista 2.0. Total crap. Windows 7 is way ahead in terms of usability. Upgrade to 10 if you dont mind wearing concrete boots

The opposite of all of the above: W10 is like a Windows 7.5, the most stable version of the OS I've used since probably XP. My laptop has gone from 7->8->8.1->10 over the years (installing 'over the top' rather than fresh installs) and it's probably the speediest/responsive it's been - certainly the fastest booting of the OSs that have been on here.

The only 'casualties' for me that required re-activating were the XLN Audio plugins & the [older] Korg VSTi suite (that used to de-activate if you just sneezed though - been much better since they changed the activation software a year or two back though). All my Native Instruments, iLok, Plugin Alliance, Fabfilter plugins and Ableton all remained activated.

Wow that's interesting! So you haven't experienced any performance issues or driver problems etc when installing over the previous Windows version? Or have you been able to solve those problems when you've encountered them?