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

Note: the created drive used 10.4 Gb

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)

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)

Optionally format the partition where the previous system was, if you want to make a really clean start

Wait...

The computer will reboot at some point and may start the full installation process again! If that's the case, interrupt the installation process at the partition selection step, and remove the USB drive during the reboot

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 on 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 selection Home/Office, go to the next screen and accept to ignore this step, 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 saved (C:\Windows.old) previous version of Windows

Important step before installing the specific system drivers! Activate the system protection on the C: drive, in order to be able to create system restore points. Allocate 5-10 Gb of disk space for the restore points. You can always set a lower limit later, when you know that the sytem is stable

English: go to the Control Panel, search for Recovery, and then select Recovery > Configure System Restore > Configure and make sure Turn on system protection is selected

French: dans le Panneau de configuration, recherchez Récupération, puis sélectionnez Récupération > Configurer la Restauration du système > Configurer et assurez-vous que l’option Activer la protection du système est sélectionnée

Create a system restore point (Créer un point de restauration système), and give it a meaningful name (e.g. After initial Win10 install and update), in case you have to use it later

To be extra safe, create also a recovery drive (Créer un lecteur de récupération)

The recovery drive need to have at least 8 Gb free and all of its content will be erased

The recovery drive that was created at that point needed only 5.32 Gb

Allow Windows Update to update all Microsoft products, and delay the installation

Windows+I (open Settings) => Mise à jour et sécurité => Paramètres de mise à jour

Reboot options: choose More notifications

Advanced options:

get updates for more Microsoft products

updates can be delayed 7 days, but do not choose to interrupt updates (this would interrupt all updates for 35 days)

Installing HP Software

Windows 10 seems to install the correct device drivers during the Windows update step(s) (Intel proc & video drivers, touchpad, audio, some HP drivers), so it may be a good idea to only use the HP tools to install the BIOS updates and not worry about the rest March 2019: also added HP Hotkey Support in order to be able to use some function keys (e.g. screen brightness)
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 (and possibly unstable). The version numbers may differ slightly between SDM and SA. SA stopped working at some point (it said that there were no available updates)

The test computer (EliteBook 840 G3) could not boot anymore (system thread exception not handled BSOD) after installing HP Universal Camera Driver (Realtek 10.0.15063.11290) in Windows 10 Pro 1709 (OS Build: 16299.125), in Feb 2018. The following solutions were tested: most radical solution: completely reinstall and enable restore points intermediate solution: go back to a restore point before the camera driver best solution (if you know what's going on): boot in safe mode and uninstall the camera driver

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 you still have the same BIOS after the reboot, check the BIOS update section below

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

Install the packages that have a Critical priority

Installation by hand

Some of the packages 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

BIOS update

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. 1.38)

Using HP Support Assistant

Install HP Support Assistant

Execute HP SA for the first time and select to automatically check for updates, but to choose when the updates should be installed

Check if there are (other) recommended updates

Install the recommended packages (e.g. HP Universal Camera Driver, Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver)

LSCE specific configuration

Let the LSCE IT take care of the rest of the configuration!

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)

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