Zippy The Pinhead

Q: Successful Windows 10 Upgrade, 2011 iMac 27", Anyone Else?

Just a data point for everyone out there who is considering an upgrade to Windows 10. How many others who have had a smooth transition are out there?

 

I have a mid-2011 iMac, 27", running OS X 10.10.4 (Yosemite) and I recently reinstalled Windows 7 after the previous Windows 7 installation, which was about four years old, became unstable and crashed. I'm also running BCA 5.1.4, and when I reinstalled Windows 7 I had a USB drive with the most recent Apple drivers for Windows (just downloaded for the Windows 7 reinstall) plugged into the machine, so presumably I am running the most recent drivers for this machine.

 

Regarding the Windows 10 upgrade, normally I am not an early adopter of anything; in this case, my intent was to download the installer and wait until Apple released El Capitan. I figured the possibility of avoiding a future purchase of Windows 10 made it worth attempting. However, when I clicked "Yes" on the "Try Windows 10" popup that I kept getting, I had no idea they would be delivering this upgrade via Windows Update, and there would be no easy way of stopping it. Even hiding the update would not prevent it from downloading, and their promise that I could download and install later really amounted to anytime in the next two days. There was no other option presented.

 

Since the reinstall of Windows 7 wasn't totally done, I figured I would take a chance, instead of possibly paying $119 or whatever W10 down the road. So I allowed W10 to be installed.

 

I'm happy to report the upgrade appears to have went off without a hitch. It wasn't a clean install, but rather an upgrade from W7. I was quite surprised at how painless it was, actually. When I had completed the installation, I was momentarily speechless to find that all my software appeared to be intact, and it seems that I can basically pick up where I left off with my W7 reinstallation. It's the first time that's ever happened in my experience; in the past when I have upgraded Windows, I've reinstalled everything.

 

In any case, they promised I'd get a free copy of W10 Home Edition, but I was upgrading from W7 Ultimate, and it says I now have W10 Pro. So far, so good; I'm posting this from my new W10 installation.

iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)

Posted on Aug 8, 2015 3:45 PM

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Q: Successful Windows 10 Upgrade, 2011 iMac 27", Anyone Else?

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  • by zotrina,

    zotrina zotrina Feb 18, 2016 1:55 PM in response to Loner T
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2016 1:55 PM in response to Loner T

    Loner T, I did this 6 or 7 months ago but it didnt work, in a restart my iMac wasn't able to find "the way" to any of my two OS (OSX El Capitan or Windows10 Pro64 bits). If you try this case I would like to know if you get a successful installation.

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Feb 18, 2016 2:22 PM in response to zotrina
    Level 7 (23,633 points)
    Safari
    Feb 18, 2016 2:22 PM in response to zotrina

    It may take a few days, but I will post back once I get it completed. I suspect that Christian Stueben is correct.

  • by Christian Stueben,

    Christian Stueben Christian Stueben Feb 19, 2016 4:11 AM in response to zotrina
    Level 1 (120 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 19, 2016 4:11 AM in response to zotrina

    @Loner, @zotrina...

     

    > I knew W10 wasn't supported in my iMac

     

    My mac pro 2010/5.1 officially doesnt support w10. But i simply tried it...

     

    For testing, i added a brand new (ahem, yes, used disc), made a bootcamp w7 64 installation, updated all microsoft patches, bootcamp support at last step. GWX resisted to install w10, so i used the media creation tool from microsoft to get a w10 install media. And -guess it- win 10 installed correctly and worked perfect.

     

    The only reason why i switched back to the win 7 disc is my old visual studio that is partly incompatible with w10, asp web pages cannot be tested.

     

    And i am pretty sure, that a new w10 64 license will install over w7 32. Ahem, yes, i didnt test the 32 to 64 update, but it should work. And as i and Loner already sayd MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR DATA BEFORE.

     

    greetings from germany

    Chris

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Feb 19, 2016 5:34 AM in response to Christian Stueben
    Level 7 (23,633 points)
    Safari
    Feb 19, 2016 5:34 AM in response to Christian Stueben

    Christian Stueben wrote:

     

    And i am pretty sure, that a new w10 64 license will install over w7 32. Ahem, yes, i didnt test the 32 to 64 update, but it should work. And as i and Loner already sayd MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR DATA BEFORE.

    I will try this in the next couple of days and see how it goes.

  • by Chris_NL,

    Chris_NL Chris_NL Feb 24, 2016 12:07 PM in response to Zippy The Pinhead
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 24, 2016 12:07 PM in response to Zippy The Pinhead

    Hi there,

    Upgraded Windows 7 to 10 (64bit) on my mid 2011 imac twice in fall 2015. Upgrading went smooth and all looked well but random blue screens of death (bad_pool header) appeared, especially when waking from sleep mode. Rolled back to Windows 7, but inspired by this discussion decided to give it a go again few days ago.

     

    First I reinstalled Windows 7 from USB again, did 200+ updates and then did the MS-upgrade to 10. Windows 10 seemed more stable (even when waking from sleep and after a couple of restarts) and I even had hopes the AMD driver issues had been solved. However, the BSOD's where still there.

     

    Now my problem is twofold:

    - I can uninstall the AMD driver, but the drivers keeps getting installed. First of all I saw the AMD-control panel noticing the missing driver and update it, so I got rid of the AMD-app. I use the Wushowhide tool but can't seem to see the update to block (I only see an AMD sound driver and some Intel updates).

    - Second, removing the AMD-driver leads to an old-school screen resolution (640 x 480?). Which driver can I install that supports the full resolution?

     

    Any other suggestions on getting rid of the BSOD's? I read a post on another site claiming disabling the AMD-control centre and Boot camp assistant in the start-up procedure will solve the BSOD-issues. Any experience with that?

     

    greetings from the Netherlands,

    Chris

  • by kent.w,

    kent.w kent.w Jun 23, 2016 3:57 AM in response to Zippy The Pinhead
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 23, 2016 3:57 AM in response to Zippy The Pinhead

    I have the 27' Imac mid 2011. I also had a 6 years old HP laptop that was used for udpating some home tech, like TV/sat-box configurations etc. with SW not available on Mac. I got a general system board failure so I needed to do something about it. I read about running W10 on Mac and saw that my Imac 2011 was not supported by Apple Bootcamp to run 2011. I also saw successful installation and upgrade reports on internet.

     

    I decided to give it a go. I made a clean install of W10 using Bootcamp 6.0.1 on my 2011 Imac. I just followed the Bootcamp steps, downloaded Bootcamp support files, partitioned the HDD for W10, downloaded ISO onto DVD, installed and Bootcamp support installed after that. Everything works great, all drivers installed, sounds, GPU, Bluetooth, everything. It runs very smooth. I used my W8 pro license to activate W10, since it isn't required anymore to run through upgrades. It worked great.

     

    The only thing I encountered was that I had to plug in USB keyboard and USB mouse while proceeding through W10 to tick the right boxes and sign-in to Wifi etc. during install. Afterwards Apple Magic Mouse worked great and I had to search for new HW in W10 to detect the Apple keyboard (weak batteries at the moment). Once detected, I just punched in the number code on keyboard that W10 gave me and the keyboard was paired.

     

    So, everything works great. I updated W10 as well via Windows update, worked great as well.

     

    Apple supported means nonthing more than that they don't commit to keep track of compatibility for any Mac off the suppored list for W10. That is far from saying that it is not possible to install W10 through Bootcamp.

     

    Anyway W10 is more of a user/feature face lift of W8.1, not an architectural change and W8.1 is supported on Imac 2011 by Apple, so it is likely that several Mac's with official support for W8.1 are likely to install W10 as well.

     

    ...but Apple doesn't write that because they don't want to be held to account since they don't keep track of compatibility any longer for e.g. my Imac 2011 and it may also push some people into a renewed purchase of a new Mac if their current machine is not listed as supported for W10. It's good and healty business to turn a competitor's new advantage into a sales driver for your own business...

  • by zeous73,

    zeous73 zeous73 Jun 30, 2016 6:29 PM in response to Zippy The Pinhead
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jun 30, 2016 6:29 PM in response to Zippy The Pinhead

    Hello,

    I did successful Windows 10 Upgrade on iMac 27" mid-2011. My magic mouse and keyboard wireless perfectly work.

    The only thing that you have to consider is that just install mouse and keyboard drivers from BOOT CAMP 5.0.5033. This version of boot camp is the only one that those drivers work perfect with imac mid 2011. ( you can also fix your Bluetooth showing up on device manager problem through install Bluetooth drive )

    Good Luck!

  • by Thomas Tempelmann,

    Thomas Tempelmann Thomas Tempelmann Aug 7, 2016 1:11 PM in response to Zippy The Pinhead
    Level 1 (59 points)
    Windows Software
    Aug 7, 2016 1:11 PM in response to Zippy The Pinhead

    I had upgraded from Win 7 using the downloadable upgrade tool. Everything went smoothly.

     

    HOWEVER: I now have a frequent issue with the screen: Often, especially if I hold the Option key down during a warm boot to select the startup volume, the screen would then "go wild", as if the video output was programmed wrong - the screen flickers wildly, and nothing is readable. It even seems as if the brightness flickers, too.

     

    When I remotely log in, the desktop is there normally, though, so Windows doesn't even see that there's an issue as the problem is past the image generation.

     

    Uninstalling or re-installing the video driver makes no difference. And the problem begins as soon as the Windows boot loader (classic one, not Metro) starts up, because I don't even get to see the text mode with the blinking text cursor nor do I see the boot menu that lets me choose between Win 7 and Win 10 (I kept a copy of Win 7 on another partition).

     

    A cold boot (i.e. turning Mac off) with presetting the boot volume for Win10 seems to be the only remedy.

     

    Anyone else seeing this?

  • by Loner T,

    Loner T Loner T Aug 7, 2016 1:37 PM in response to Thomas Tempelmann
    Level 7 (23,633 points)
    Safari
    Aug 7, 2016 1:37 PM in response to Thomas Tempelmann

    Are Windows Automatic Updates enabled?

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