How-To Geek
What You Need to Know About Upgrading a Windows Vista PC to Windows 10
Microsoft won’t be offering a free Windows 10 upgrade to any old Windows Vista PCs you might have around. Only Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs get to join the new Windows 10 era for free.
But Windows 10 will certainly run on those Windows Vista PCs. After all, Windows 7, 8.1, and now 10 are all more lightweight and faster operating systems than Vista is.
The Cost
Windows 10 will be released on July 29, 2015. Microsoft is already advertising it to Windows 7 and 8.1 users... [Read Article]
Upgrading a Windows Vista PC to Windows 10 will cost you. Microsoft is charging $119 for a boxed copy of Windows 10 you can install on any PC.
Still considering upgrading? You might have used — or still be using — the Windows 10 preview as a “Windows Insider.” Microsoft has made some confusing statements, but the reality is that you won’t be able to upgrade to the final release of Windows 10 unless you have a Windows 7 or 8.1 license. Windows Vista licenses aren’t allowed to upgrade.
However, it seems you can continue using preview releases of Windows as a Windows Insider. If you upgraded a Windows Vista machine to the Windows 10 preview, it’ll remain on the unstable, preview release path unless you pay for a Windows 10 license. Want to use Windows 10 for free on a Windows Vista-era PC? Stay on the unstable, Windows Insider testing builds! You’ll continue getting new features before everyone else — but they won’t always be stable.
It’s Time For a Hardware Upgrade, Not a Software Upgrade
If Windows 10 was free, it’d be a fine upgrade for your old Windows Vista PCs. But it isn’t. So you have to consider whether $119 for a Windows 10 license is really worth it.
Windows 7 was launched in July 2009, which means all those Windows Vista PCs out there will be six to eight years old when Windows 10 launches.
Those Windows Vista PCs are getting quite long in the tooth and lack modern processors, graphics hardware, and — most importantly — solid-state storage. Modern computers are becoming less and less expensive. There’s a good chance you can get a laptop or desktop PC that comes with Windows 10 for just a few hundred bucks. At $119 just for a Windows 10 license, it’s really not worth the upgrade unless you have a big, beefy, powerful PC that for some reason still runs Windows Vista. But, even if it was powerful back then, that old PC has been far surpassed by modern hardware.
That $119 you’d put toward a software upgrade just isn’t worth it — you’ll get much more improvement out of a hardware upgrade. Yes, it costs more than $119, but you’re better off putting that $119 toward some new hardware that will come with Windows 10 and saving up for a while.
If you do decide to shell out for a Windows 10 license, you’ll have to perform a clean install instead of an upgrade install. You should back up your files ahead of time. Windows won’t attempt to automatically migrate your settings and files.
When an Upgrade Might Be Worth It
If you plan on building your own computer instead of buying one that comes with Windows 10, you’ll need to buy a Windows 10 license anyway. So, if you are sure you’re building your own computer, you could buy a Windows 10 license now, install Windows 10 on your Vista computer, and then remove Windows 10 from your old computer when you get a new PC and use the Windows 10 license on the new computer. That’s the only situation where it would make sense to upgrade a Windows Vista computer to Windows 10 — and most people won’t even want to build their own PCs.
Corporations with Windows volume-licensing agreements will also get access to Windows 10, and they could upgrade their Windows Vista PCs to Windows 10 for what might be no extra licensing cost. This might be worth it.
If, somehow, you can get your hands on a cheap Windows 10 retail license, you could absolutely use it to upgrade an existing Windows Vista PC. As long as you remove it from the old PC in the future, you can then use that license to install Windows 10 on a new PC.
Vista PCs Get Security Updates Until 2017
Windows Vista is still under “extended support” until April 11, 2017. This means your old Windows Vista PCs are still getting security updates for a few more years. They aren’t completely unsupported, like Windows XP PCs are.
If you are on Vista, you have some time before your PC becomes completely unsupported. Modern software does still support Windows Vista, too. Vista will never get Microsoft’s Edge browser, but it can use the latest versions of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox just fine.
Those old Windows Vista PCs can make good Linux PCs, too.
Yes, if Microsoft offered Windows 10 for free — or even for a small fee — to Windows Vista computer, it would be worth the upgrade. But, even then, you’d probably want to consider replacing that aging hardware anyway. If you’re still using a Windows Vista-era PC, Microsoft wants to encourage you to upgrade your hardware to have a better experience with Windows 10.
In some cases, hardware may not work properly if the manufacturer fails to provide Windows 10 drivers but does provide Windows Vista drivers. But Windows Vista and 10 have similar driver architectures — the big change was from Windows XP to Vista — so this problem shouldn’t be as common as was with the shift from Windows XP to Windows 7.
Image Credit: Stephan Edgar on Flickr
- Published 07/6/15
Microsoft has never been kind to anyone who adopted Windows Vista. All Windows Vista users should have been given a free upgrade to Windows 7. Illegitimate children (for better choice of words) as far as Microsoft is concerned. Forgotten for crying about the pains of the Vista experiment. This is how many began the trail of piracy to a better life.
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In my opinion, Microsoft should just give the free upgrade to Vista users. It will keep them on Windows from Linux and will just get more computers on 10, which is better. Also, Vista users should get the upgrade just to get off Vista (although I never thought it was as terrible as everyone made it out to be.)Also, I would buy a Windows 8 computer and then upgrade to W10. I don't mind the upgrade process and new computers with W10 won't necessarily have the ability to boot with live Linux. If I remember correctly, Microsoft isn't forcing hardware manufacturers to include the BIOS/UEFI switch which allows booting to Linux.
Vista was pretty much fine by the time it is SP2. I still rebuild customers Vista Machines with fresh clean Vista SP2 builds if they ask me to and to be honest its hard to tell it apart from 7 at that point. Works great. Pretty solid OS.
Vista got hurt by the delays and still came out 6 months too early. Then got hurt by skinflint OEMS thinking they could run it on XP spec machines with less than 1GB of ram. That and lazy driver rollouts from the likes of Nvidia and ATI (as were) didnt help.
Oh and OEMS slapping on useless XP era bloatware everywhere they could.
A clean install of Vista SP2 is perfectly usable for day to day use. Plus a 120GB SSD is dirt cheap nowadays. Even if it's a SATA 1 laptop it will still whizz along far better than the 4200rpm 45MBps 80GB HDD in there.
Not much heartache and to be honest most people I know don't bat an eyelid at changing their $20000+ cars every three years but get upset when they 'have' to buy a new $500 computer after eight or so.
Essentially people are full of it.
Oh and one other point...Vista won't work with the over the top install feature that 10 has (well 8/8.1 too).
So if MS did offer 10 to Vista hold outs (I Know the types that are) it would be carnage as they ignored the notes from MS to back up their data and software etc.
And as we know it would all be MS's fault.