Windows 10 Upgrade closes after "What do you want to do?" screen

Question

I'm trying to upgrade a Win 7 SP1 Home Premium 64-bit laptop of mine to Windows 10 so that I can play around with it before installing it on my primary desktop. The laptop exceeds all of the Windows 10 minimum specifications (latest OS, > 1 GHz processor, > 2 GB of RAM, > 20 GB of HDD space, > DirectX 9, and > 800x600 display) listed on the Windows 10 Specifications page, and it is running a legitimate copy of Windows 7 that came pre-installed on the laptop when I purchased it new from the store. After I run the installer, it takes ~1 minute for the following window to pop up (not sure if the taking a whole minute for the window to pop up is a symptom for a problem or not)

Once I get to that screen and I click next, the Windows 10 Upgrader just closes and nothing happens, even if the laptop is left on overnight. I get a hidden folder named "$Windows.~WS" added to C: (before I click next), but it never grows past its initial size of 47 MB. I've tried this numerous times, each time having to delete the existing $Windows.WS folder to avoid a "Something Happened" error from the upgrader, but the result is always the same: the upgrader closes and the $Windows.WS folder never grows in size.

I downloaded the upgrader from here because the "Upgrade to Windows 10" icon never popped up in the system tray even though the laptop meets all requirements I can find on "Windows 10 upgrade missing from taskbar" articles / forum posts. The laptop is running a genuine copy of Windows 7 SP1, is compatible according to the Windows 10 Specifications page, has IE 11 installed, has all updates installed through the Windows 7 automatic updater, and has automatic updates scheduled to install automatically. I didn't want to go through the trouble of figuring out how to enable the system tray icon, so I just installed it manually from the previously mentioned page. I've heard that others have installed it successfully through that page, so I doubt it's a problem with that upgrader.

I reside in the United States, so my regional location shouldn't be an issue.

Quick overview of laptop:

• Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
• AMD A6-3400 1.4 GHz quad core
• 4 GB RAM
• 197 GB free on HDD

DxDiag results

Is there something wrong with my laptop that is causing the upgrader to close after I click "Next"?