As you should know Windows 7 has reached its “end of life”, meaning it will never again get any updates. That said this is a great time to upgrade to Windows 10. Yes it’s still free!

What You Need To Do

1. Backup your data. Even though the upgrade has proven to be very reliable, nothing works 100% of the time.
2. This may sound strange if you have McAfee or Norton, uninstall them. To uninstall McAfee do not bother using the Windows uninstaller. Download MCPR Tool for McAfee or NRnR for Norton.
3. Make sure your Windows 7 has all of the latest updates.
4. Download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool.
5. Once you have that open it on your computer and follow the instruction to upgrade.

After installing Windows 10 from the upgrade check System Properties to see if your installation is activated. It will now say if it is activated only if it isn’t. Once it is activated your computer has what is call an entitlement and Windows 10 can be reinstalled on it at anytime.

How To Do A Clean Install

I always like to remove all of the cruft from my machine by doing a clean install right away but you cannot do a clean install right away because your PC does not have an entitlement so you must do the upgrade as described previously. Once you have the entitlement you can then wipe your drive and setup a new installation of Windows 10.

1. Again go to Microsoft and download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool. Start the app but this time follow the path to “Create Installation Media” and “USB flash drive”.
2. Follow your PC manufactures instructions to boot to USB media. Boot to your USB Windows 10 media.
3. Follow the prompts and when you get to the section listing the partitions delete them all.
4. You can create a new partition but I think you can just click next. follow the prompts, Yes, Ok and the like. soon you will have a new clean installation of Windows 10.

Don’t forget to install all of your new software from Ninite.