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967
April 6th, 2016 00:00
Windows XP Pro to Windows 7 Pro....
My father recently passed away, and I have his Optiplex 780. The Proof of License/Certificate of Authenticity on the tower shows the OS to be Windows 7 Pro, and has the Product Key listed. The computer is actually running XP Pro. Is there a way to upgrade to 7 Pro? I'm not sure what he did, but from what I've been able to gather by researching, there was a downgrade from 7 Pro to XP Pro. Can I upgrade to 7 Pro, and if so, how? We are still going through some of his things, but have yet to find any disks. I recently did a clean installation of XP Pro, and had to delete and create a new partition. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I just hate to see the computer gather dust. :/
Philip_Yip
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16.1K Posts
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April 6th, 2016 00:00
Update the BIOS to the final revision A15:
http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER01655390M/1/O780-A15.exe
See Updating the BIOS. This is a legacy (non-UEFI) BIOS:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/updating-the-bios/
Once this is done you should Download a Windows 10 TH2 .iso and clean install using your Windows 7 Pro product key (ensure to select Windows 10 Pro during installation). This should be done on another computer as the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool does not work on Windows XP:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-windows-10-oem-and-retail-iso/
If you have no other computer (Windows 7, 8.x or 10) to run the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool you will have to use the Techbench direct Downloads. See here for details:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-windows-10-th2-and-prepare-a-bootable-usb-on-linux/
Philip_Yip
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16.1K Posts
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April 6th, 2016 15:00
I never gave instructions to use Diskpart however if you have made the Windows 10 Bootable USB and Updated the BIOS and want to Clean the Drive then follow the instructions here:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/cleaning-up-a-drive-format-vs-secure-wipe-ssd-and-hdd/
mimihollowell
4 Posts
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April 6th, 2016 09:00
Thank you so much! I'm in the process of going through the steps listed, and so far, so good!
mimihollowell
4 Posts
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April 6th, 2016 14:00
Well, maybe I spoke to soon, although I'm not sure if I actually have a problem, I'm just being extra cautious.I want to be sure I'm using an elevated command prompt, and when I access it, I see C:\Documents and Settings\Mimi Hollowell. I entered diskpart, and it showed one disk, Disk 0, status: online, size: 233GB, Free: 0. When I entered 0 at the diskpart prompt it gave me the version 5.1.3565 followed by a list of what I'm guessing are commands. I'm leery of doing things I'm not sure about, so I thought I would check back and get your opinion. I really appreciate your assistance.
mimihollowell
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April 6th, 2016 17:00