windows 7 support
windows 7 support
Microsoft support ends – yes. Complete support ends – no. AV software, firewalls, browsers, and most games should function. Online communities like this will remain active.
It won’t create any backups; just keep it where it is. However, you’re planning to secure everything in case something fails, and... since you always need a backup—upgrade or not—or risk losing everything due to hardware issues, malware, or accidental deletions, I’d suggest having at least two copies of all your data.
You can do an inplace upgrade. The first step is backing up all your data. Because there is always a chance that the upgrade will go sideways and will fuck you over. I myself have not had the best luck with Windows 10. When I did the inplace upgrade parts of Windows 10 were broken. Though the OS, did function for the most part. Mainly One Drive intergration of broken for me. If you choose not to upgrade then you put yourself at risk for virus's and ransomeware. Also eventually software will stop supporting WIndows 7 entirely. My advice to you if you want to do this properly is to move all your data to an external/secondary drive. Reformat and install Windows 10 properly. Now this does mean loosing programs that are installed, meaning they will have to be reinstalled, but inplace upgrades with Windows have always been iffy at best.
It depends on your setup. Backing up all your HDDs is a good idea, but cloning each one separately isn't necessary unless you want redundancy. If you upgrade to Windows 10 and encounter issues, using a clone drive to restore from a backup should work. Plugging in a clone OS SSD won’t change the system version—your Windows key will still function as expected.
Consider saving your files before proceeding. Then reformat the drive and install Windows 10 from the beginning. After that, add your programs and restore your data. I believe once a key is changed its processed, although I’m not completely certain. Technically, if you duplicate your existing hard drive and encounter problems, you can recreate it and it should function properly.