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I’ve dug out my old laptop to give to someone and have just installed Win 8 on it using an installation DVD.
When I originally upgraded it from 7 I seem to remember buying 8 which allowed a more or less instant update to 10. I think at the time 8 was cheap and included a free update, too buy 10 wasn’t cheap.
Is there a way to go from 8 to 10 or 11 now for free? Bearing in mind the laptop did previously have 10 on it having used the same product code that I’ve just typed in to it, except now it isn’t offering me an upgrade. (At least I think I’ve used the same code).
If no free way can I just buy a cheap product code and use that or??
Any help appreciated cheers 🙂
If it's had 8.1 or 10 on it prior then it's just a case of installing the OS, it's already licensed. You don't need a product code.
I doubt the hardware will fully support 11. Maybe worth checking first.
It’s actually 8.1 I’ve just put on it.
It has had 10 on before but might have a different hard drive in it now?
I wonder if I should have used the original product key of the bottom of it rather than the one that came with the 8.1 discs? Maybe that’s the code that got the upgrade?
I doubt the hardware will fully support 11. Maybe worth checking first.
Good point, I’ll check. It definitely supports 10 though, the only thing that wasn’t working before was the finger print scanner.
@Cougar cheers that seems to have worked 🤞
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I did find another link for an upgrade tool but it said it wouldn’t run 🤷🏻♂️
It’s actually 8.1 I’ve just put on it.
It has had 10 on before but might have a different hard drive in it now?
I wonder if I should have used the original product key of the bottom of it rather than the one that came with the 8.1 discs? Maybe that’s the code that got the upgrade?
All wholly irrelevant.
I doubt the hardware will fully support 11.
Install W10 and it'll tell you.
Annoyingly, my i5 6600k doesn't support windows 11...Unless I do a hack job which I don't reccomend.
Anything skylake or kabylake or older is unsupported by microsoft for win11.
So when support for win10 stops in a year or two, i'll have to relegate my perfectly good i5 system to media center duties. Might just whack linux on it but it's still a really good gaming system which is highly annoying.
I'm guessing like me, the OP's CPU just isn't supported for 11, despite being plenty powerfull enough and having a motherboard which has TPM.
Basically if you have an intel CPU that starts with the number '7' or lower, you're outa luck, win11 simply isn't supported. I can't comment on AMD CPU's, however.
I’m guessing like me, the OP’s CPU just isn’t supported for 11,
Yes you're right, says the processor isn't supported. Oh well, 10 is fine. Anything other than 8 is good 🙂
Up and running 10 now and installing updates.
Cheers 🙂
Yeah I think 8 is probably the worst OS since windows ME 😀
I still actually think windows 10 is better than 11, it's just the lack of security updates once it's E.O.L that bothers me a bit.
1 more question...
I signed in as me to set it up, I've made another local account just called "User"
Can I remove me and just leave an Admin account and the "User" account on there?
I have no idea if the person that will be using has a Microsoft account (or their name).
Annoyingly, my i5 6600k doesn’t support windows 11…Unless I do a hack job which I don’t reccomend.
Back up and give it a try. I've been running it on unsupported hardware since it came out with no issues.
You didn’t need to sign in as you but Microsoft make it look like you have to by hiding the local account option in a later screen during setup which only appears if you say you don’t have a Microsoft account and even then it’s in tiny text at the bottom and says something like continue with a poor experience or words to that effect. But yes is the essential answer to your question….
All sorted thanks.
I’ve signed in as a local user and set it as Admin then deleted my account from it.
It’s painfully slow to start up but once it’s running isn’t too bad. I remember why I’d put an SSD in it now.
Only thing not fully working is the scroll function on the trackpad, can’t find the right drivers for it.
Only thing not fully working is the scroll function on the trackpad, can’t find the right drivers for it.
If you google the model number of the machine, you might be able to find the details of the trackpad and download a driver from the manufacturer (of either the computer or the trackpad).
Synaptics apparently. But any Synaptics drivers I can find don’t work (and Dell stopped at win 8) they install and say that it’s set up but it’s still just showing in device manager as a PS2 compatible mouse.
I’ve just removed the drivers and restarting to try and install them again but it just auto adds it back the same.
I’ve not had to mess about with drivers for years 😞
The Windows 8 drivers might work.
Failing that, if you go to the Details tab on the device properties and change it to display Hardware ID it will show, uh, the hardware ID which might return better Google results. (Everything after the PID and VID is likely junk; my mouse ID is HID\VID_046D&PID_C52B&MI_01&Col01 so I'd use HID\VID_046D&PID_C52B as a search term.)
Honestly though, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if you're giving it away. The recipient probably won't care or even know it was ever a feature, and if they do then an external mouse is a better solution. (Though not being able to fix it would irritate the crap out of me.)
Go into Device Manager, right click the PS2 mouse, select Update Drivers. Select Browse Computer for Drivers then "Let Me Pick From A List...".
If you downloaded the correct Synaptics driver, it will appear on the list.
There are a number of variations of that driver however. Snappy Driver Origin or the laptop manufacturer's website are the best place to track them down.
Snappy will look at the device IDs as in @Cougar 's post and find the exact right one (if available)
It’s sorted cheers 😃
The uninstall and then find the driver files manually in the “Have Disk” installation bit has done the job.
Though not being able to fix it would irritate the crap out of me.)
yep, it’s this that’s the issue ☝️ 😂
I’m sure she won’t care but I care that I couldn’t get it working.
I am drawing the line at getting the finger print scanner working though!