Win 8.0 on dual boot. Get rid of just 8 and clean install, or in place upgrade 7 instead?

[Eric Bentsen]

I have a laptop that is dual boot Win 7 Pro with XP Mode & Win 8 Pro. I can't upgrade the Win 8.0 Pro to Win 8.1, it just fails and HP doesn't seem to have any information about Win 8.1 for this laptop except it hasn't been tested.

Should I just erase Win 8 from the 2nd hard drive and do a clean install there with Win 10 noticing the Win 7 install on the first hard drive and not touching it?

Or should I erase Win 8 from the 2nd hard drive and do an in place upgrade Win 7 Pro to Win 10?

This dual boot stuff has worked awful on this laptop and maybe just chucking the free Win 8.0 is OK, maybe I can use it on another machine that WILL upgrade to 8.1, lol.

 

[photonboy]

Hey,

1) I'm not sure why Windows 7 is required, but my advice is upgrade either one to Windows 10.

2) Probably just load the OS that installed first, then DELETE the other from "msconfig->BOOT" which will then eliminate dual-boot. After that you can remove or wipe the second OS drive.

Other:
You can technically move Windows 8 (not 8.1) to another machine but only for an OEM/System Builder you bought separate and not if preinstalled.

And by move I mean reinstall Windows 8. It's also not upgradeable to Windows 10. They probably unintentionally worded the Windows 8 EULA to allow it to transfer for OEM/SB because they changed that for Windows 8.1 (which includes upgrading from 8 to 8.1).

So Windows 8 once installed CAN be moved but if you want W10 you have to update to W8.1 which then can't be moved. Long story short is you can not MOVE and UPGRADE to Windows 10 from W8. You can move if not upgrade to W8.1, or you can in-place upgrade to W10 but can't do both.

 

[Eric Bentsen]

I wish M$ would remove the distinction between OEM and Retail OS's. I'd like to someday put my OS into a virtual machine on a newer machine someday with all the hundreds of installed programs intact, and it seems only retail OS's can do that. It's also hard to find a VM that can hold a 1 TB (or even a 250 GB) VHD to run an old OS.

 

[Eric Bentsen]

The Win 8.0 Pro disk I have came from Best Buy, so that's a retail disk that I can uninstall and reinstall on another machine (or VM). Is there a proper way to uninstall it so I don't lose the license for it?

 

[Eric Bentsen]

If I uninstall Windows 8.0 from the 2nd hard drive, can I clean install Windows 10 on the 2nd hard drive while Windows 7 remains unaffected on the 1st hard drive?

 

[Eric Bentsen]

I guess I need to download the Windows 10 ISO and put it on a USB thumb drive and mount it while in Windows 8.0 then run setup; but I'VE GOTTA DISCONNECT ALL MY OTHER EXTERNAL & INTERNAL DRIVES FIRST! (Caps Lock stuck, lol)