Windows 10 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 4

Upgrades and Clean Installs

In This Chapter

Finding out whether you can upgrade that old bucket

Upgrading online to Windows 10

Installing Windows 10 from a DVD

Cleaning the gunk off a new PC

What to do if Windows dies

I’ve been upgrading Windows machines since I moved from Windows 286 (a souped-up version of Windows 2.0) to Windows 3.0 on my trusty Gateway PC in 1990. All the upgrade took was five of those new-fangled high-density (1.2MB) five-and-a-quarter-inch floppies. Since then, I don’t know how many systems I’ve upgraded over the years, how many times, but the count certainly runs more than a thousand.

During all those upgrades, I’ve sworn and kicked and moaned about in-place upgrades. They never worked. Sooner or later, putting a new version of Windows on top of an old one, without wiping out the old version, led to heartache, yanks of pulled hair, and screams of ...