If you have a Windows 7 or 8 PC and you really can’t wait until Microsoft gets round to sending you the upgrade application, you can get upgrading pretty much immediately. It just so happens that I run my Windows PC as a virtual machine (using Parallels) on my Mac but the task of upgrading is identical whether virtual or on a standard physical computer. Here’s how I did it:
Backup your PC. Yes of course you must, you are replacing its core operating system – anything could happen!
Go to this web page https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Download the Media Creation Tool application.
Launch Media Creation Tool when it finishes downloading.
Select the Upgrade This PC option and click Next to start it upgrading.
I found that Media Creation Tool ran pretty much automatically, first downloading the bits and pieces it needed and then upgrading. It did stop occasionally to ask me to go to the next stage in the process – so alas you can’t leave it to do its thing fully automatically overnight for example.
But it all went well and, after a restart, I was greeted with this pleasant login screen:
As I am running Windows 10 as a virtual machine, when I logged in I needed to upgrade the Parallels Tools software that runs inside the virtual machine to make it interact better with its host computer. Fortunately it ran automatically and works perfectly.
So now I have Windows 10! The main visual difference is that those metro tiles are now available from the newly returned Start Menu (huzzah!) in an area called ‘Life at a glance”.
Replacing an operating system is a risky thing to do but this upgrade was successful and painless, well done Microsoft!