Windows 8 upgrade help

chaz206

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Hey all, basically ive got a lenovo laptop from pc world and trying to do this windows 8 to 8.1 upgrade than i can do the windows 10 free upgrade before july

Ive got a normal version of windows 8 but cant find the upgrade in the store, after some looking around and research it looks like ive got the volume version of windows (how i have no idea) so i cant download or upgrade to windown 8.1 without going through the licensing bit

Basically i need help lol

how can i do what i want with what ive got please

thanks in advance
 
You can go directly to 10 from 8 (or 7 for that matter) - no need to go via 8.1. A couple of recommendations from me are:
- before you begin, check that your Windows installation is activated (Explorer, right click on "This PC" > Properties & scroll down to see "Windows is activated")
- DO NOT follow the instructions "upgrade this PC". Instead, download the "Download Tool" from this page Windows 10 and then use it to create a USB stick (or similar) as described under "Using the Media Creation Tool > Upgrade to Windows 10 using the tool. The reason for this is - it's a big download, and just in case it goes wrong mid-process (and I have had two instances where this has happened), you can start over without having to download it all again.
- before you go any further, back up any of your own files etc., onto separate media, and do a Malware/virus scan on your machine, and preferably two different ones from different AV apps.
- or better still (or as well), take a full system image onto separate media using something like Macrium Reflect Free; that way you can put it back exactly as it was in case of need
- run setup.exe from your USB to begin the process.
- to save time now, tell the early part of the setup process NOT to download updates. They will come after you are done anyway; if you let it go ahead it can add a couple of hours onto the process depending on how busy the update server is.
- regardless, be VERY patient as it upgrades. Parts of it may appear to hang the machine, sometimes for many, many minutes. Go and have lunch or something. Or do it while you are watching TV.
 
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You can go directly to 10 from 8 (or 7 for that matter) - no need to go via 8.1. A couple of recommendations from me are:
- before you begin, check that your Windows installation is activated (Explorer, right click on "This PC" > Properties & scroll down to see "Windows is activated")
- DO NOT follow the instructions "upgrade this PC". Instead, download the "Download Tool" from this page Windows 10 and then use it to create a USB stick (or similar) as described under "Using the Media Creation Tool > Upgrade to Windows 10 using the tool. The reason for this is - it's a big download, and just in case it goes wrong mid-process (and I have had two instances where this has happened), you can start over without having to download it all again.
- before you go any further, back up any of your own files etc., onto separate media, and do a Malware/virus scan on your machine, and preferably two different ones from different AV apps.
- or better still (or as well), take a full system image onto separate media using something like Macrium Reflect Free; that way you can put it back exactly as it was in case of need
- run setup.exe from your USB to begin the process.
- to save time now, tell the early part of the setup process NOT to download updates. They will come after you are done anyway; if you let it go ahead it can add a couple of hours onto the process depending on how busy the update server is.
- regardless, be VERY patient as it upgrades. Parts of it may appear to hang the machine, sometimes for many, many minutes. Go and have lunch or something. Or do it while you are watching TV.


thanks mate, will do it directly from 8 to 10 then

another thing or the main thing - the windows 10 site says the following -

If you’re on an Enterprise edition, the media creation tool and the Upgrade now button above won’t work for an upgrade. Please see the Volume Licensing Service Center for more info.

as i mentioned i think ive got the volume version, so would this work for me?
 
Sorry but I don't know; you can but try it, I guess. As I say, if you create a system image beforehand the worst that can happen is you waste a few hours...

It may be more illuminating (though perhaps not to me - I have no commercial system experience) if you could take a screenshot of the system properties page and post it here
>> Explorer, right click on "This PC" > Properties
 
You will have a manufacturer licensed install of Windows 8, not an Enterprise license. Therefore the free upgrade process described by LV426 above should work without any licensing issues.

A manufacturer license is installed by the likes of Lenovo with a generic license key as they mass produce their laptops and would not want to manually enter a specific license key on each device they build. My Vaio laptop had the same type of license and it did upgrade without any issues.

Mark.
 
people following are the attached pics of the windows types

As shown in 1 of them, for some reason it says windows is not activated but then after some time the product keys shows up and it says activated

Is Reflect quite easy to use mate?
 

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  • Screenshot of Windows 8.1 update diag.jpg
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Yes, very. And as well as simply recording the image, it allows you to download a special portable version of Windows which you can stick on a bootable external media; if you need to do a full restore, you can boot from the media and then use that to find the image and install it. That's an optional way to do it - useful if you have a HDD failure for example.
 
So people after a lot of faffing around finally managed to do a default of windows 8, managed to update to 8.1 and now doing w10

quick question - i had a short cut on the taskbar which was a link to a folder on another computer on the network. Cant seem to do that again or ive forgotten how to do it, any advice plz
 
I'm on my work Win7 PC at the moment, but to setup a link on the task bar I would need to do the following

Right click on the task bar and select 'Toolbars' > 'New Toolbar'
You then just use the pop-up window to navigate to the folder you want to add.

As I've said this is for Win7 but is likely to be very similar on Win8/8.1/10

Edit: or just create a shortcut and then pin it to the taskbar 'Pin to taskbar' Folder and Drive in Windows 10

A Pin folder sits to the left of the task bar, but a Link sits to the right

taskbar.jpg

If I click on the chevrons to the right of a link then it shows the contents and I can select what I want from that folder without having to open it

Mark.
 

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