Upgrade to Windows 10

My wife's gaming rig is still running on Windows 7, and it's about time to change that. In principle, an upgrade to Windows 10 requires only the download of the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft on the system to be upgraded. However, to save myself the download of several GB of data with my meager DSL connection at home, I've used this tool in my virtual Windows 7 at the office to prepare a USB stick for installation. It took some time to find an active download link for the USB 3.0 drivers compatible with VirtualBox (Intel 7 Series C216 Chipset Family, which Intel has discontinued), but in the end I had my stick.

After uninstalling the antivirus scanner (Avast), I've plugged in the stick, clicked on setup.exe, and off it went. But after 15% installation progress:

Error: 0x8007025D-0x2000C
The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during APPLY_IMAGE operation.

Just below the error message is a link that can neither be clicked nor copied. Now that's usability! In any case, the suggestions on this page aren't helpful at all, but send the users experiencing this error message on the wrong track. Fortunately, third-party pages such as techjourney and the windows club do much better in this respect, in that they have the most likely reason on top of their list: corrupted installation media. And in fact, when I simply let the Media Creation Tool download the files, the upgrade works flawlessly. Didn't even take 3 h including the download, which was much faster then I had expected.

You see how easy the upgrade is – even for someone who hasn't actively used Windows since 15 years. Don't be one of these pathetic figures that are eternally whining and bawling that they have a god-given right to use Windows XYZ until the end of the time, and are very loudly expressing the opinion that Microsoft must be condemned by international (or at least European) law to keep the OS in question alive. Get a grip on yourself, make an update, and deal with it, for Pete's sake. Or switch to OpenBSD or any other one of these geekish systems. You could also buy a Mac, if you insist. But don't act like a newborn.

For us, Windows 10 itself is not entirely new, since earlier this year, we purchased a Lenovo Miix 630 for accompanying my wife on her trip to Japan. We got this 'Windows on ARM' detachable for €444 complete with a back-lit type cover and a pen, 8 GB of RAM, and LTE, allowing her to access the internet from home without the need to search for places offering public wifi. The Miix turned out to be very versatile and fun to use, and it has an almost unbelievable battery life in excess of 20 h thanks to its Snapdragon 835 processor (a mid-range smartphone SOC). What I also like is the rolling-release concept of Windows 10, which guarantees that the device isn't obsolete after at most three years as it's custom for Android gadgets. It's a pity that this interesting concept is so unpopular. Lenovo has already stopped the production of the Miix, and there aren't any others like it (the Surface Pro X from Microsoft comes at more than three times the price).