In order to complete the labs for this chapter, you will need the following equipments:

• PC with at least Windows 7, 2 GB of RAM, 30 GB of HDD, and access to the internet
• PC with Windows 10 Enterprise, 8 GB of RAM, Hyper-V feature turned on, 500 GB of HDD, and access to the internet

So, if you have already assessed the minimum system requirements for installing Windows 10 and backed up your data in your Windows 7 computer, then it looks like you are ready to rock and roll the upgrade process. As explained in Chapter 1, Preparing for Installation, in the Determining and creating appropriate installation media section, usually a DVD disc or a USB flash drive act as the installation media. With that in mind, the upgrade from an existing Windows version to Windows 10 requires an installation media to be inserted/plugged into the computer prior to running the upgrade process. To insert a DVD disc into a DVD drive or plug a USB flash drive into a USB port, complete the following steps:

1. Open the DVD drive tray, insert the DVD disc, and close the DVD drive tray. Wait until the DVD disc has been read.

Or...

Native boot is a method that enables the computer to boot from the virtual hard disk (VHD) without the need for virtualization. It works in a way that adds VHD to a boot loader and boots from it. On the VHD disk, the Windows 10 deployment image is applied. Then, you have to configure your computer to boot from the VHD disk. Once you restart your computer, you will be prompted to boot from the VHD disk instead.

To deploy the Windows 10 image to the VHD disk, complete the following steps...

While you can upgrade from Windows 7 and 8/8.1 to Windows 10, you will not be able to do it from Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. Therefore, migration is recommended for the latter. It is interesting to note that in the first year of the release of Windows 10, the upgrade from Windows 7 and 8/8.1 to Windows 10 was available for free through Windows Update. Table 2.1 lists the Windows versions that can be upgraded or migrated to Windows 10:

Usually, there are two reasons why you cannot upgrade an old version of Windows to Windows 10. First, the old version of Windows (such as Windows 2000, XP, or Vista) is not supported by Microsoft as an in-place upgrade to Windows 10, and second, the computer hardware might not meet the minimum system requirements. So, you have no choice but to migrate your old version of Windows to Windows 10. A migration requires bringing in a new computer where you would install Windows 10. Once the installation of Windows 10 is completed on a new computer, you would want to run Windows Easy Transfer (WET) or User State Migration Tool (USMT) to move stuff from your old computer to a new computer. However, while WET is not available in Windows 10 (it was removed in Windows 8.1), USMT is intended for large-scale automated deployments.

Thus...

Installing from bootable USB associates with clean install. That is because the computer needs to be booted from a bootable installation media and not from the hard disk drive (HDD). As explained in Chapter 1, Preparing for Installation, in the Determining and creating appropriate installation media section, usually a DVD disc and USB flash drive act as an installation media. With that in mind, the clean install requires setting up the boot order in basic input/output system (BIOS) or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), depending on which program your computer uses. To access BIOS or UEFI, different keys on a keyboard can be used, however, that very much depends on the manufacturer of your computer's BIOS or UEFI. The most frequently used keys are Del and F2, although it does not mean that you should not try keys like F9...

Let's say that you have just completed the installation of Windows 10 Enterprise and that you want to access client Hyper-V. Scrolling through the Start menu, you will notice that client Hyper-V is not there. A further search in Administrative Tools does not match the requested result as well. However, knowing that client Hyper-V is part of the Enterprise edition, then the question is how do you add this feature to your Windows 10? The answer to that question can be found in Turn Windows Features On or Off. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. Click the search icon on a taskbar and enter Turn Windows features on or off.
2. Click the best match, which is Turn Windows features on or off.
3. On a Windows Features window, locate and check Hyper-V (as shown in Figure 2.8):