What to Do Before Upgrade to Windows 10? Answers Are Here

Why Do You Need to Upgrade to Windows 10?

If you are a Windows 7 user, then you need to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible, because Microsoft has stopped supporting security updates for Windows 7 and fixing the problems of Windows 7 on January 14 next year.

If your operating system does not have the support of Microsoft security updates, then your computer is vulnerable to viruses or malware, so that the data on your computer is likely to be lost or even your computer can not be started. Therefore, in order to keep your data safe, you need to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible.

If you are a user of other operating systems, upgrading to Windows 10 is also necessary for better user experience. In addition to improved design and greater features, Windows 10 adds Cortana voice assistant, new Edge Web browser, Xbox game stream and more. What’s more, in order to better ensure the security of user data, Windows 10 upgrades twice a year.

What to Do Before Upgrade to Windows 10?

Because the configuration of the computer is different, before you upgrade to Windows 10, you need to do some preparatory work to ensure the smooth progress of the upgrade process. In addition, you need to do some simple protection measures to avoid data loss caused by an unsuccessful upgrade.

Next, I’ll show you how to create a recovery drive, back up your data, and other ways to ensure a successful upgrade to Windows 10.

Create a Recovery Drive

In order to avoid computer malfunction because the operating system is incompatible with the drivers or the computer fails to boot after an unsuccessful upgrade, the first thing you should do before upgrade to Windows 10 is to create a recovery drive.

Recovery drives can help you boot the computer and fix some problems when your computer is in trouble. So how do you create a recovery drive? Look at the following paragraphs:

Step 1: Insert a USB flash drive with much space on it to your computer to continue.

Step 2: Enter create a recovery drive in the search box and click Create a recovery drive to continue.

Step 3: Remember to check Back up system files to the recovery drive and click Next to continue.

Step 4: Read the message carefully, and choose the USB flash drive. Then click Next to continue.

Step 5: Read the warning note carefully that is “Every thing on the drive will be deleted. If you have any personal files on this drive, make sure you’ve backed up the files.” Then click Create to continue.

Step 6: After you have created the recovery drive successfully, there will show the final message “The recovery drive is ready”, and then click Finish.

This is the first preparation before Windows 10 update. You can easily create a recovery drive according to these steps, and after you have created the recovery drive, then you don’t need to worry about that you cannot go back to previous operating system or cannot boot your computer after Windows 10 update.

Back up Your Data to an External Drive

Many people may encounter data loss during reinstalling their operating system. Similarly, when you upgrade the operating system to Windows 10, it may also cause file loss or file damage. Therefore, in order to avoid accidents in the upgrade process, backing up all the important data to the external hard disk is the best way to ensure your data security.

So, how to backup files to external hard disk safely and quickly? I strongly recommend that you use MiniTool ShadowMaker – a piece of professional and secure backup and restore software. You can use it to back up the operating system, disk and partitions, files and folders. In addition, it also supports syncing files to avoid losing data as much as possible.

And the best thing about this piece of software is that it has a 30-day trial period, so why not download it and have a try.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Now I will show you how to use MiniTool ShadowMaker to back up data step by step.

Step 1: Launch MiniTool ShadowMaker at first, then choose Local or Remote to get the main interface by clicking Connect.

Step 2: Click SET UP BACKUP in the Home page or go to the Backup directly. MiniTool ShadowMaker backs up the Windows operating system by default. But if you want to change, then just click Source module to change the backup source.

Step 3: You can click Destination module to choose an destination path. As you can see, MiniTool ShadowMaker supports you to back up your data to five different destinations. However, it is strongly recommended to back up your data to external drive, so you can click Computer and choose external drive, and then click OK to continue

There are three buttons under the Backup page you need to pay attention to.

Schedule: If you are worried about losing data by forgetting to backup during the process of using your computer, you can set the automatic backup here.

Scheme: If you want to manage the space occupied by the backed up files by deleting the specified backup image file versions, then click Scheme can make it work.

Options: You can set some advanced parameters by clicking Options, such as setting encryption mode, shutting down after successful backup, adding comments to backup data, etc.

Step 4: After making sure that you have chosen the right backup source and destination, you can choose to Back up Now or Back up later.

Then you just need to wait for MiniTool ShadowMaker to back up your data successfully.

This is the second important thing you need to do before upgrade to Windows 10. And as you can see, MiniTool ShadowMaker is really a piece of powerful and efficient software to back up files. Besides, you can use it to restore your operating system to another computer with only several steps.

MiniTool ShadowMaker really saves me much trouble of backing up files, and I can use it to sync files and folders, too. It’s so great.Click to Tweet

Leave Enough Space for Windows 10

If you plan to upgrade to Windows 10, then you need to make sure that your system drive has enough space for this to be successfully upgraded. Regardless of whether your Windows 10 is 32-bit or 64-bit, you need to leave a minimum of 32GB of memory before you update to Windows 10.

In order to ensure your upgrade is successful, so what to do before upgrade to Windows 10? You can take some of the following methods to provide enough space for Windows 10.

Extend system partition: If you have unallocated space behind your system partition, you can use the MiniTool Partition Wizard to expand the system partition space.

Delete temporary files and Windows.old: When the system is updated, Windows will automatically save the data on the previous operating system to the Windows.old folder, and it occupies a part of the storage space. In addition, temporary files automatically loaded by Windows will take up some space. So if you delete these things, you can leave some free space for Windows 10.

Uninstall applications: If you have a lot of unnecessary software installed on your system partition, then deleting the software will leave some space for Windows 10.

Upgrade Drivers

If you just update your operating system to Windows 10 without updating the drivers, it may cause the driver to be incompatible with Windows 10, which may lead to the failure of computer boot.

So what to do before upgrade to Windows 10? When you need to upgrade your operating system to Windows 10, you’d better confirm that you are using compatible drivers. If not, you will need to upgrade your drivers, which will help you avoid stability issues caused by computer hardware.

Here is the way how to upgrade drivers:

Step 1: Open File Explorer and right-click This PC to choose Manage.

Step 2: Choose Device Manager under System Tools option.

Step 3: Right-click the drivers you want to upgrade and choose Update Driver to continue.

Uninstall Antivirus Utility

Although anti-virus software can help you avoid virus attack on your computer, it is operating system-centric. In other words, you can use antivirus programs to protect against viruses in Windows 7, but the antivirus software may cause trouble in Windows 10, so the thing you need to do before upgrading to Windows 10 is to uninstall the antivirus utility.

You can reinstall the anti-virus software when the operating system is successfully upgraded to Windows 10. Of course, after upgrading to Windows 10, you may not need anti-virus software, because Windows 10 itself comes with a very powerful built-in anti-virus system.

Disable External USB Devices

What to do before upgrade to Windows 10? If your computer has connected to USB devices, the thing you also need to do is that disable external USB devices. It turns out that smart card readers as well as USB storage devices can confuse setup. So if you are using USB media to upgrade to Windows 10, then you’d better remove external USB devices.

In addition, your external USB devices may be incompatible with Windows 10. So in order to make sure you can upgrade to Windows 10 successfully, you need to remove all external USB devices, leaving only the keyboard and mouse

I finally know the things I need to do before upgrade to Windows 10. And this article really gives me a detailed introduction of how to do before upgrade to Windows 10.Click to Tweet

Bottom Line

From this post, you can know what to do before upgrade to Windows 10. You need to create a recovery drive at first in case that there is a problem appears when upgrading to Windows 10. Then you also need to back up necessary data to external drive to avoid data loss. In addition, there are several things you also need to do to make sure that you can upgrade to Windows 10 successfully.

If you have better suggestions of the things you need to do before upgrade to Windows 10 or have any confusion about this article, you can leave a comment below or [email protected].