1
Background
I recently built an almost completely new computer. The only things I'm reusing are my old hard drives. On one of those hard drives I have Windows 7 installed, but it doesn't work for the new computer for some reason. I decided that it was time to upgrade to Windows 10 anyway and I had wanted to have Windows installed on an SSD for performance. So I added the new SSD and installed Windows 10 on it.
Before I bought the new computer I made no preparations for the move whatsoever. It was an "emergency" purchase since my old computer stopped working.
Problem
I now have a fresh Windows 10 install on an SSD and an old Windows 7 trashing on another hard drive with all my Internet history, settings and application data and what have you. I would like Windows 10 to inherit these things. I would also like the user files, temporary Internet files and non-Microsoft program files and things like that to be kept on a separate hard drive, to minimize the use of the SSD.
Questions
Is the best solution here to wipe the SSD, re-install Windows 10 over the old Windows 7 and then clone Windows over to the SSD?
Or can I continue from where I am and just do some super user magic to get the setup that I want?
Expected results
* Windows 10 system files on SSD.
* User files inherited from old Windows 7 installation. (I'd like to open Firefox and find all my old tabs open if possible.)
* User files, temporary Internet files and similar things on a separate hard drive.
Kapten-N
Posted 2017-12-14T15:19:12.847
Reputation: 111
If you reinstall Windows 10 over your Windows 7 everything you want to save will be lost. To upgrade and keep what you want to keep requires you to launch the upgrade from within Windows – Ramhound – 2017-12-14T15:32:11.147
I have to launch the upgrade from within Windows? I have a USB-stick for installing Windows 10. Do I still need that? – Kapten-N – 2017-12-14T16:23:08.410
If you want to upgrade your Windows 7 installation to Windows 10 you must perform the upgrade from within Windows. There are numerous methods of doing that, but your Windows 7 installation is not working on the new hardware, so that won't be possible until it is. – Ramhound – 2017-12-14T16:43:21.097
Ah, damn it. Can I not just copy my user files from Windows 7 to Windows 10? AppData and stuff still goes in the same place, right? – Kapten-N – 2017-12-14T16:52:22.213
You can but you could do that with your current install of Windows 10. How you transfer a user profile is well documented – Ramhound – 2017-12-14T17:51:40.410