Jan is trying to fire up an old HP laptop and it's asking for a Windows login password. She doesn't know it. It's Windows 8. Leo says that there are some cracks that can hack a Windows 8 login. But she needs to be careful that she isn't making the problem worse with malware. If she doesn't need the data, the easiest would be to wipe the laptop and reinstall Windows. Then, if she has a backup, she can just restore it.
Jim builds computers, and he's been trying to get a friend's netbook updated to Windows 10. But it doesn't work with it. Leo says that the computer is probably not compatible with Windows 10. It's a cheaper computer that was designed to work only with the older OS of Windows 8. Leo suspects that the storage memory isn't enough to upload Windows 10 and install it. It's just too lightweight.
Eddie would like to update his Windows 8 laptop to Windows 10. Is it still available for free? Leo says no, but he's heard that others have been able to install Windows 10 with their Windows 8 key. So it's worth a try. Here's a great article on all the ways you can still get Windows 10 for FREE - https://www.howtogeek.com/272201/all-the-ways-you-can-still-get-windows-10-for-free/
Gary got Windows 10 and didn't like it, so he downgraded to Windows 8.1. If he buys another computer, can he use the image ID of Windows 8 on it? Leo says he really won't want to do that. Ultimately, he'll have to go to Windows 10 and it's pretty much the same, anyway. It sounds to Leo like Gary didn't have his Windows 10 machine properly set up and he couldn't find anything he needed. Microsoft used to have a free utility called Easy Transfer Wizard, but they've killed it and now he would have to buy one from Laplink.
David is looking for updates to Windows 8. He needs to install it and Microsoft isn't pushing updates anymore. Leo says to go to the Microsoft Update Catalog and search for "kb4012598."
Photo by Lord of the Wings on Flickr via CC BY-SA 2.0
Jake says every time he clicks on a link, it opens to the Windows Desktop, not to his browser. It's likely that Internet Explorer is messed up and it could just be corrupted. Jake could try resetting it. Uninstalling it and reinstalling it is complicated.
Windows 8.1 fixes a lot of problems, so Leo says to run Windows update to version. 8.1. Or even better, if he can still get it free, he should upgrade to Windows 10. He should also update Internet Explorer to the modern version from the app store.
Brenda needs to upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1. Leo says she definitely needs to do that. She says that Windows wants to uninstall Sentinel runtime drivers before installing, but she can't remove them because she hasn't installed them. Leo says it could be due to a program that she used in the past, or it was preloaded in her machine. It's probably from a trial antivirus. She's going to have to reinstall the trialware, and then uninstall it using their removal tool.
Fran's Toshiba Satellite Windows 8 laptop won't support Windows 10. Leo says there's not much she can do about it, it just means there's hardware on it that they didn't make a Windows 10 compatible driver for. Fran at least wants to get rid of the notification from Microsoft to update to Windows 10, though. Leo says that if Microsoft is notifying her to update to Windows 10, then it must be compatible. She could just do the update, and if it doesn't work, she could roll back. She says she's tried the update, but keeps getting the blue screen of death.
Rick is being bothered relentlessly to upgrade to Windows 10. How can he stop that? Leo says that Windows 10 is good and a free upgrade for all Windows 7 and 8 users isn't a bad thing. If he accepts the offer and installs it, he'll still have 30 days to downgrade. But he doesn't have to upgrade if he has Windows 7. If he has Windows 8, on the other hand, he should definitely do it.
Robert wants to buy an SSD to upgrade to Windows 10 instead of using his old hard drive, which runs Windows 8. Leo says that's a good idea. It's far faster. But if he has Windows 8 on there already, he may want to try downloading the Windows 10 ISO and then install it separately. Microsoft will then associate Windows 10 with his computer. He should check out Thurrott.com for more information on how to do a clean install of a Windows 10 upgrade.
