Windows 10 Upgrade Hanging On Windows Updates

Hello, I'm trying to upgrade my fresh install of Windows 7 to Windows 10. I've tried both the internet setup and and ISO DVD. The setup starts but hangs at 3% when it's downloading updates.

Any suggestions would be appreciated........

 

Sounds like your Win 10 isn't yet activated?

 

Well I was able to get the upgrade to work after about 15 tries and researching the different errors I was getting. Every solution led to another error........... but I believe the root of the problem was my UEFI bios settings. Here's the story so that it may help someone down the line............ I had Win10 previously running fine, but it was the free upgrade from my valid copy of Win7. A year ago I had posted about a ransomeware infection which caused me to reinstall Win7 and do the free upgrade again. My pc was never quite right after that and at first I had infrequent BSODs that got steadily worse as time went on, and I also got back into gaming. At first I suspected that maybe my motherboard was getting long in the tooth and needed to replaced with something newer, and/or my SATA hd was starting to have irreparable errors. I had troubleshot everything as much as I could. I wound up buying a new case, hard drives and motherboard for my current processor, which I wound up returning and using my existing mb because it was better than the one I had bought, which did not come in the original box, nor did it have any of the accessories that would have been in the original box, but yet I do believe it had never been used, but somehow got separated from the original box............ and one of the screws for the cpu fan mount to the mb was not like the other 3 and didn't reach the threads. And they sent the wrong rear panel plate. All that did not give me a warm and fuzzy so I decided to return it and just use my existing mb that listed in my sig. I installed a fresh copy of Win7 on the new hard drive and got all the drivers installed and all the Windows updates installed. But somewhere along the line during one of the required reboots I got a bios error saying there was no UEFI bootable drive and that I should go into the bios and adjust the settings accordingly. Well in going into the bios it showed the boot devices and my hard drive had the UEFI symbol on it, but yet it wouldn't boot......... so I researched that and found a suggestion to disable Secure Boot in the bios. There was no option to disable Secure Boot, but to change it to Other Operating System, which I did and then it booted. But then when trying to upgrade to Win10 it would only get so far and when it restarted and would only a few percent into finishing the upgrade, it would crap out and revert everything back to the way it was. Let me tell you I tried everything that was listed to resolved that issue, updating the bios, uninstalling the graphics driver, uninstalling the anti-virus, doing a Clean Boot etc, but I would always get the same result when the system would reboot............. finally one of the last error messages I got had a bios reference in it and it occurred to me that the Secure Boot setting might have something to do with it, so this morning I started the upgrade process again and when it restarted I went into the bios and changed that setting back to the UEFI option, saved the setting and exited and the upgrade continued and eventually completed successfully. I surmise that one of the Win7 updates did something to the hard drive that in some was affected how it was seen by the bios and that reversing that Secure Boot setting when I did, allowed the upgrade to proceed and complete. It's also good to note that the new hard drive is a 1 TB SATA, and I was told that UEFI is needed to handle that large of a hard drive. Now why it worked in the beginning when I first installed Win7 and then all of the sudden didn't work, is beyond me. But as for right now things seem to be working fine.

 

Grab a system image while it's working 'cos I wouldn't rate your chance of getting much support given the messy history.

 

Why would you upgrade a fresh install of Windows 7 & not just fresh install Win 10?
"Fresh" meaning you just started with a clean OS install, right? Once you've done the free upgrade, you can install Win 10 directly next time, MS has the activation stored.

 

Because as of today, I only have a licensed copy of Win7 Pro. But this morning I ordered Win10 Pro. I did not know I could do a clean install of Win10 after upgrading to Win10. I'm confused as to why I would even do that.......... This upgrade, like the last one, did not go smoothly and things are still not right. My PC hangs/freezes frequently and more than half the time I have to hit the reset button, which in turns starts the Repair Process on boot which never repairs anything. It could be my motherboard and CPU are just getting old in the tooth and all the updates to Win10 the past 7 yrs is just too much. And/or maybe the 1TB drive is too much for my old motherboard to handle. I am still doing some tweaking though.

 

I'm confused as to why you wouldn't want a clean slate, no underlying Win 7...IDK, maybe a clean install wouldn't have the issues you're having?
Windows 10 will accept any key from Win 7 & 8 as a "digital license" and MS stores that activation so you can reinstall Win 10 back on the same hardware and it will activate.
I have even installed a clean Win 11 and it digitally activated with the win 7 key that I used to install Win 10. Once you have a digital activation on the hardware, MS is allowing upgrades to 11 (on old hardware you have to tweak the install for TPM, etc.).
I'm running Win 10 on a PC "built for XP" according to Dell's website. Old hardware is still viable.

 

I didn't know I could use a Win7 license for Win10.......... But I am sure you are correct in a clean install of Win10 would be much smoother than the upgrade I just did, and that makes me wonder if I just wasted my money on buying a Win10 license.............. ugh........... but thanks for the information.

On a positive note, all the tweaking I've done, and I really can't remember everything I've done, but right now the o/s is stable and I've just gamed for about 5 hours with not a single hiccup, which hasn't happened in almost a year................. Now this could change in 5 minutes, but I'm creating a system restore point asap..........

I know I don't sound like it, but I just retired after 23 yrs of being an IT tech......... which started out on a helpdesk as a contractor for the FAA then supporting one of the FAA systems at a testing and development facility. But honestly I was more of a hardware guy. I just happened to get by the past 23 yrs without having to be too technical............. I guess you could say I'm just technical enough to be dangerous.............