I Want to Update Windows 7, but I’m Afraid of Losing My Programs
Everyone’s talking about Windows 7 this week. And even if you’re completely uninterested in the internals of your PC’s operating system, your attention has undoubtedly been drawn to a Microsoft perversion: The company no longer supports Windows 7 with security updates .
While you don’t have to worry and buy a brand new Windows 10 computer for fear, it is important for you to switch to an operating system that will ultimately be much more secure than left clicking for the deceased Windows 7. But one of the main the reasons people will hesitate is because they have programs that simply don’t work on more modern operating systems.
And to this Lifehacker reader Donald writes:
“While reviewing your article on Windows 10 free updates, I have a question: do I need to save all my programs to disk, or will my applications come with you?”
This is a great question because app compatibility can be an issue when upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 . I confess I haven’t done any of these updates forever, because I always go for a “clean” install – one that erases all data from your disk and installs a fresh, pristine version of Windows 10 without any third-party software. applications in general. (I’ll tell you why a little bit.)
Usually, the upgrade process from Windows 7 to Windows 10 should involve all of your apps on the journey. However, there are times when this might not be the case – your apps might not show up, you might not be able to choose the option to bring them with you during the update, or your update might not even work unless you first uninstall the apps that can’t. moving to Windows 10 for any reason.
I suspect that you will encounter the first and third problem more often than the second. (If I’m right, this can happen if you’re trying to migrate from one version of Windows, like Home, to something completely different, like Enterprise, which is less common for most people.) The good news is that you are probably what This will indicate that the upgrade process cannot (or does not want to) transfer them to Windows 10.
This is why I recommend testing your critical apps on Windows 10 first if you can, because you will at least get an idea of what will and won’t work on a modern OS. This way, when upgrading, the missing apps or apps that you will have to uninstall before upgrading will not come as a surprise. You can prepare for this turn of events.
I have a few more suggestions that might help you. First, I opened a command prompt, typed “wmic”, hit Enter, and then typed in the following:
output:C:\Users\Davem\Desktop\InstalledProgramsWMIC.txt product get name,version
Then replace my c: \ location with the location where you want to save this .TXT file we are about to create and then press Enter when done. You will then get a handy list of all the programs installed on your computer, which you can use to cross-reference what else is on your system after you upgrade to Windows 10.
(If you don’t like this option, you can also just browse your list of installed programs through the Windows 7 Control Panel and take screenshots. Save them somewhere and then revert to them when checking out a fresh installation of Windows 10).
To complete this full circle, I recommend taking this step in conjunction with the retroactive advice to run a clean install instead of installing an update. That’s why. If you’re worried about whether all of your apps will be ported to Windows 10, let alone run to Windows 10, you’ll have to do a lot of spot checks depending on how many things you have installed on your system. It will take some time. Why not spend this time reinstalling only the apps you need instead of checking to see if they are present and working?
I bet you probably have a lot of things on your computer that you forgot and probably don’t need – apps you have used but are not using now, services that you installed at some point and forgotten, old files, random data, garbage, and so on. Moving to a new operating system is the perfect time to start over, as it allows you to be very precise and precise about the new elements you place on your precious, clean PC.
I won’t go into details now as we have covered this exhaustively , but I encourage you to consider it. This will mean a little more work on your end if you have a ton of specialized applications that you need to reinstall, but at least the basics are very easy to install and use on your system. You will probably spend half a day reconfiguring Windows 10 to your liking, but I think the optimized experience you get in return is worth it. (And you can always image your system afterwards to create a “base” version of Windows that you can reinstall later if needed, which can save you tons of installation time.)
Finally, I sincerely recommend that you make a full backup of your Windows 7 PC before starting the update. If you are a disk image or a clone that’s up to you, but I would copy every bit and byte of data in such a way that going back to your exact copy of Windows 7, in the event of a disaster, is a simple process. And I would only do that if you find that even with virtualization, there is absolutely no way to run the mission-critical applications that you had on Windows 7. You can never be too careful.