Upgrading a HP computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10

Prerequisites

Find the serial number of your computer, it may be useful later

A computer that has a Windows 10 license but was bought with Windows 7 pro installed (the Windows 7 downgrade option was selected when ordering the computer)

If you are not sure if you have this option, you can call the HP Professional hotline and ask: +33.1.70.48.53.19

You can also check the warranty status on the Product Warranty Check page

A USB stick with 16+ Gb for downloading the installation files, if there this no working HP_Recovery partition, or you can't use it

A network connection

If there is a working HP_Recovery partition

Connect a network cable (just in case Windows tries to find an update)

Reboot and press the ESC key repeatedly to enter the Startup Menu

Select F11 to recover the system

Follow the instructions

Once the actual Windows 10 configuration starts, go to the Basic Windows 10 installation section

No recovery partition

Downloading the installation media

Go to the HP Software and Driver Downloads (French) and then enter your computer name (you may have to click on Other HP Products first): e.g. 840 G3 (for a HP Elitebook 840 G3)

Expand the Software-Restore CD panel and download the Cloud Recovery Client

Execute the client installer

If you execute this on another computer than the target computer, manually enter the serial number and model name of the target computer

Select Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit Professional

Select Operating System & Drivers and Western Europe and a server in Europe

Select a USB drive with at least 16 Gb (the content of the drive will be erased!) and start the download

Performing the factory reset

Note: you may have to enter the BIOS and disable the Secure Boot and enable the Legacy Support (check MBR vs GPT, Legacy vs UEFI for more details

Connect the USB drive, reboot and press the ESC key repeatedly to enter the Startup Menu

Go to the Boot Menu (F9) and select the appropriate USB drive (e.g. LEGACY - SanDisk Ultra) and press Enter

Note that if you select UEFI - SanDisk Ultra instead of LEGACY, you may not ne able to select some of the partitions when choosing where to install Windows

Follow the instructions from Windows Setup

Select the language (e.g. French)

Disable Cortana (by clicking Deactivate vocal control)

Select the operating system (e.g. Windows 10 Anniversary Update Pro - WestEU, x64, 20/03/2017)

Accept the Licence

Select the partition where you want to install Windows

The partition needs to be big enough (>14729 MB)

The following steps have not been tested

Follow the instructions

Once the actual Windows 10 configuration starts, go to the Basic Windows 10 installation section

Basic Windows 10 installation

Select the language (e.g. French)

Disable Cortana (by clicking Deactivate vocal control)

Choose the region (e.g. France) and keyboard layout (e.g. Français)

You can ignore the secondary keyboard layout

Let Windows quickly look for updates (if you have a network connection)

Accept the Licence

If/When Windows 10 wants you to create an online Microsoft account or to use a company account, disconnect the computer from the network before going to the next screen and Windows 10 will allow you to create a local account

create an account that has the same login as your LSCE account

Reconnect the network and do some basic configuration:

disable Cortana

disable all the personalized settings, in order to get as much personal data protection as possible

Update Windows

Clean the C: disk, including system files. You may gain 30+ Gb if you accept to completely remove the previous version of Windows (Windows 7)

Installing HP Software

You can use either SDM (HP SoftPaq Download Manager) or HP Support Assistant. SDM will offer more packages to download (not all of them useful), but SA is easier to use. The version numbers may differ slightly between SDM and SA

Using HP SoftPaq Download Manager

Go to the HP Software and Driver Downloads (French) and then enter your computer name (you may have to click on Other HP Products first): e.g. 840 G3 (for a HP Elitebook 840 G3)

Expand the Software-Solutions panel and download and install the HP SoftPaq Download Manager

Execute the download manager (Start => HP => HP Softpaq Download Manager)

If there is an available update for the BIOS (with the manual install status), select only this one and accept the manual installation

If the BIOS does not seem to have been updated after you followed the instructions and rebooted, maybe the installation files were not in the right place!

Copy the F:\Hewlett_Packard (HP_TOOLS) directory to D:\ (HP_RECOVERY)

Reboot, type ESC to enter the Startup Menu, and choose Update System BIOS. The Update BIOS button should display the version of the new BIOS you want to install (e.g. 1.24)

Install the packages that are preselected (packages shown as Newer version available)

Install the packages that have a Critical priority

Note: Some of the packages (e.g. BIOS) can't be installed automatically! They will be downloaded to C:\ProgramData\HP\HP SoftPaq Download Manager\SWDownload and you have to execute them from this directory

Using HP Support Assistant

Install HP Support Assistant and check if there are other recommended updates

Other resources and links

HP Notebook PCs - Installing Windows 10

HP PCs - Understanding and Using Windows 10

HP PCs - Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 10)

HP PCs - How to Reset Your Computer to Factory Settings (Windows 10, 8, 7)

HP PCs - Microsoft Push-Button Reset (Windows 10)

[ PMIP3 Wiki Home ] - [ Help! ] - [ Wiki syntax ]