711. Steps to Install Windows 10

There will be different steps than mine, but I thought I would post my steps as a guideline. The upgrade install took 1.5 hours to sign in time. After that was customization time for my particular system. I would advise anyone installing review all steps and denote important elements in the install/testing/planning FIRST. For example, if you have data encryption and a password manager, you would definitely want those to come over CLEANLY.

Windows 10 Install:

1.      Backup all critical data (My Documents via SyncToy) to Transcend USB Drive

2.      Run CCleaner and remove all temp and unnecessary files

3.      Create System Image of W7 system onto Toshiba Portable HD

4.      Run Upgrade (8.1) Assistant to see what will not be compatible – Office 2003 (turned out to transfer and work), Microsoft games, MSE (now called Windows Defender and part of W10), Secure Boot won’t work on my system, Need a DVD Player (MSFT installed Windows Media Player as separate update). If you did any Registry changes or code Zaps or installed without Windows Installer any applications, make sure you get ready to reapply those.

5.      See 27. START Menu

6.      Download Media Creation Tool64.exe from Microsoft and Install/Run. Took about 1.5 hours, all automatic without intervention, to install.

------- At this point W10 is installed effortlessly and without intervention -----------

7.      Login to W10 (Rich)

8.      Review User Accounts. Both me and wife there, but new pictures were needed for ICONS.

9.      AntiVirus: Windows Defender. Running but ICON not in System Tray. Internet search has resolution. Also, system is NOT setup to allow scanning of an individual folder/file. I had to do add Keys to Registry to get the option to scan individual folder/file.

10.  Encryption software (AxCrypt): and access to files using same key. OK.

11.  Password Manager (AnyPassword):All OK and correct.

12.  Install Office 2003. Didn’t have to. Upgrade did it automatically and in Program Files as Office 11. Both Word and Excel do work fine. All my critical data in My Documents in tact.

13.  Check out new browser EDGE. Was easy to use, but when you view a PDF file you can view it, but printing and filing took some learning. When you file, the default name (from Fidelity) did not get filled in! The floating control box with Save and Print are not there because ADOBE is not being used! Thus, this browser is out-of-here!

14.  Chrome and Internet Explorer. Both came over in tact and work as before.

15.  Network: All automatic and OK. Network Genie came over and fine too.

16.  EMAIL: Thunderbird came over correctly as was. All emails and email in tact.

17.  System Details (Speccy): Had to copy this from old system (in Window.old\Program Files). NOTE: Need to check other programs that did NOT install via Windows Installer. If they were installed in system folder, like Program Files, then they will be in Windows.old somewhere. Same if installed under My Documents.

18.  Print to PDF (convert Internet file to PDF) via CutePDF: OK, but didn’t work out of EDGE. Another minus for EDGE.

19.  ERROR: I tried copying Windows.old to my Toshiba HD. After about an hour it made it to 99%, but stayed there. I had done a copy/paste to do it from File Explorer. It said it had 30 seconds to go, but was still running 20 minutes later. I displayed copy details and it showed files still being copied. I waited another 10 minutes before stopping the runaway task that actually copied only about 50% of it!

20.  ERROR: During the 99% time above, I wanted to do something on the context menu of File Explorer file (right-click file). The context menu had blank entries except for the designator that an additional dropdown menu was available for some. I then went to START and did right-click on several thing and same thing, with additional problem that the context menu had no width – only length was correct. This was reported on the Microsoft Community Forum, so I added my two sense there also. A system RESTART clears this problem. I suspect the previous error caused memory overlays and wiped out the pointers to context menus or registry entries.

---- NOTE: see my blog entries 701-705 for details of this problem in Microsoft COPY code relating to #19 & 20 above ----------

21.  Power Options: Hibernate disappeared as a default option. I found fix via Internet search to turn it on (powercfg –h on), set it via power icon, AND put it on Start menu when getting off. However, I am not too sure it is working yet. System always comes up as it had been in only Sleep mode. Will debug later.

22.  Desktop Background: My theme disappeared. Had to reload one AND set colors via Start->Settings->Personalize.

23.  Window Colors: Was not happy that individual window colors bare if all distinguished window edges from screen colors or other open windows. Found a nice theme for Chrome. But overall, all windows other than Chrome now have white edges. Changing Personalization color put a color border, but it is so thin it is unnoticeable.

24.  SPYBot: Did NOT transfer. Free SpyBot 2.4 is claimed to be compatible and needs to be downloaded. However, 2.5 was announced to be available shorty with new W10 features. I’ll wait.

25.  MalwareBytes: Transferred OK and runs.

26.  Swapfile Size: Already set as in W7 to 1.5xmemory.

27.  START Menu: This did NOT populate with W7 settings! Had to locate .exe files and Pin to START many of old ones. Also rearranged and deleted nonsense. There were additional setting to allow/disallow other things.

28.  SWITCH Users: On W7 the user had the choice when getting off to SWITCH users. This no longer exists in the power off options. To SWITCH, hit START and go to upper left and click your user ICON. You will see other users – click any of them and you will be off. SWITCH should be the same as SLEEP, i.e., keeps your environment in memory so you quickly get back to it at login.