Moving from Win7 to Win10

mikeyBoo

Senior Member
Since a lot of folks have moved or contemplating a move to Windows 10, I thought it might be a good idea to open a project containing information to help others with problems they may encounter.

The attached .pdf explains how to keep Win7 in a VM (virtual machine) with full functionality while isolating it from the internet. The example shown is for a Mac running Parallels.

Of course, it may be possible to do an "internet-isolated" Win7 VM inside Virtual Box, Fusion, or even Win10.
If anyone wants to illustrate how to do that, this thread is a good place to share it.


In addition, a scheme for keeping your off-line PCs (or 2nd Win10 PC) updated from your primary Win10 PC/VM using xcopy is also illustrated. Note that although xcopy works across all Windows versions, Win10 xcopy has a “gotcha” that you may need to be aware of.

There are numerous reasons for keeping an off-line Win7 VM while using Win10 as your primary:
01 not-so-old printer refuses to work with Win10
02 needed program won’t work with Win10
03 prefer Win7 ease of use
etc.

Keep in mind that I am not infallible, so if you find any mistakes or a better way to do things that I post, let me know.
Once again, if you have solved an issue with Win10 or the transition. Feel free to add to this thread. Especially Picaxe-related solutions!
(e.g. updating .net for Picaxe on Win10)
 

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PhilHornby

Senior Member
Of course, it may be possible to do an "internet-isolated" Win7 VM inside ... even Win10.
If anyone wants to illustrate how to do that, this thread is a good place to share it.
WIndows 10 Pro includes Microsoft's Hyper-V virtual machine environment.

You can convert your existing 'physical' machine - i.e. running Windows 7, into a virtual machine. (If nothing else, the resulting .VHD file is 'mountable', and so is useful as a complete backup of the previous OS).

The conversion tool is here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd
 
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