I have a headless server that I manage mainly by Remote Desktop. It is running Windows 7 Ultimate SP1. I would like to upgrade to Windows 10, in particular I like the LTSC version. Is it possible to upgrade without losing installed programs and user data? If so, how? It would be a real mess if I should lose the working installations there. I do have a working LTSC image that I installed on another box, but I'm not sure it's going to be useful for this particular purpose. Any help will be appreciated.
Nope not possible directly, first upgrade to 2015 LTSB and next to 2019 LTSC should work. There is a publication about modifying 2019 LTSC to be able to directly upgrade from 7 with keeping files and apps but that will result in integtrity errors, according to @whatever127 in the past. ps, there always can be incompatible apps when upgrading from 7 > 10.
Thank you for your answer, @Enthousiast! I've got this ISO: Windows 10 Enterprise X64 2016 LTSB en-US MAY 2018 Version 1607 Build 14393.2248 Do you think it will be OK as a first step (LTSB)? Should I just install it from scratch, or should update process start with Windows 7 running? (I hope these questions are not too newbish.)
Install windows 10 1809 enterprise (upgrade windows 7 ) regular edition And switch to ltsc 1809 after upgrade
All operations must offline ! Without networks Upgrade windows 7 to windows 10 With windows 10 1809 iso Convert windows 10 1809 pro to enterprise by entering windows 10 enterprise gvlk key , reboot , After that use windows 10 1809 ltsc iso and choose upgrade Windows 10 enterprise 1809 to enterprise 1809 ltsc are supported
Thanks to @pm67310 for chiming in and to @Enthousiast for checking. So now as a first step I'm downloading en-gb_windows_10_enterprise_2015_ltsb_n_x64_dvd_6848318.iso - is that right? I'm not understanding this But here's my plan. Does it look good? Firewall the Windows 7 machine away from the internet (firewall running in my router). Mount en-gb_windows_10_enterprise_2015_ltsb_n_x64_dvd_6848318.iso in my Windows7 system and proceed to upgrade by running the setup.exe in the "DVD" drive (virtual: Daemon Tools or something like this). I could be happy like this and not upgrade to LTSC. But if I want to upgrade... ??
No use the normal one, not the N version. The upgrade failed for me with the officially 5 year ago released ISO, probably needs to be offline updated first. Not really needed. Deamon tool should work, extract the ISO to a folder too. I would not want to be on that ancient 2015 LTSB.
Wow @Enthousiast, helpful and quick! Thank you. Oh thanks... I missed the N bit. Downloading en_windows_10_enterprise_2015_ltsb_x64_dvd_6848446.iso I think I'm coming across as a super-noob, but what does offline update mean? How do I do that? I trust your judgement. So neither would I. How do I go about bringing 2015 LTSB to 2019 LTSC? Just mount en_windows_10_enterprise_ltsc_2019_x64_dvd_74865958.iso, run setup and I'm good to go?
Pre-integrate the latest updates, using W10UI or by using dism manually. Yep, same process. To answer this question in some way, i would just upgrade to the latest normal Enterprise and be done with it.
you can "sidegrade" enterprise 1809 to LTSC 2019 and keep all apps and programs by changing the EditionID in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion from "Enterprise" to "EnterpriseS", before you start the LTSC setup. I have done this a few times in the past. a nice side effect of doing it this way is, you will keep the microsoft store and all installed UWP apps after the sidegrade -andy-
After a few tries, I just found out I can't actually upgrade and keep all installed programs and preferences. There's a language issue: I bought this computer second-hand, and its Windows7 has a different installation language, although all messages are in (US)English. If I want to switch to Windows 10, I have to lose several years' worth of installations, configurations, and tweaking. Is there a solution besides finding all the necessary iso files in another language?
