Interrupting shutdown updates

[#1]

I must admit that when I decided to hold off installing Win 10, I hadn't considered drivers, particularly for printers. My printer is a rather old HP 5550. Now that I have looked for a driver suitable for use with Win 10, it seems there are several HP printers that have 5550 model numbers (Deskjet, Laser Jet, Color Laser, the list may go on), so knowing which one I need could be a problem. According to MS, they have done a remote check on my pc and it should work with Win 10, but what if they haven't checked everything but just done the basics. How would I recover the pc? What if it needs new Dell drivers but MS haven't checked that?
Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!

[#2]

Quote from: penneck

According to MS, they have done a remote check on my pc and it should work with Win 10, but what if they haven't checked everything but just done the basics. How would I recover the pc? What if it needs new Dell drivers but MS haven't checked that?

create a backup of your current OS and if it doesn't work you can then install the backup under a vm or just revert back to your original setup (even if the built in revert to windows 7 doesn't work)
having switched my windows 7 systems to windows 10 I can say all the users are much happier with the new os than they were with the old one, apparently being able to chat with your pc is a fantastic change .... (well I suppose its different to beign considered a loony for talking to yourself)
I know its all subjective, and some things I preferred about windows 7 are more difficult to find or do on windows 10, but on the other hand the inplace install worked well for me (zero errors on 6 out ot of 8 systems, and the two with errors were both beta test units with the same hardware and same driver error)

to make the backup you can use the built in tool under start menu on windows 7, and backup to either a usb drive a collection of dvd's or an exteran hard drive /nas box.  I must confess I made 2 backups one to an external drive and one to a usb stick prior to upgradeing to windows 10 (after it became the official release) but after having no problems I downloaded the iso file of Microsoft and upgraded the other systems via thumbdrive ......

[#3]

nanotm you have far more knowledge on this subject than I do. I have a little knowledge, and you know what they say about a little knowledge.
So the process of installing Win 10 starts with go into Control Panel and run Backup & Restore - something I have never done before. I have three partitions on my hard drive, with my OS and programs on C: and my files and things mainly on E: (the 😧 drive is ancient history and I wouldn't mind getting rid of it, but is small capacity so is not a problem).
Will the Backup save just the C: drive?
Will downloading Win 10 affect the other two partitions?
Does the Backup require the same capacity as whatever it backs up?
If, having installed Win 10, something has gone wrong and Win 10 doesn't work at all, how do I recover the Win 7 backup?

[#4]

I would suggest you get a new hard drive and clone the old c drive onto it, don't make any partitions on the new drive and then do the update to windwos 10 after you unplug the existing hard drive.
if you don't like it hit the message icon next to the time/date display choose settings and the backup/security icon, then backup, and chose restor to windows 7. let it finish and then put your old hard drive back in with evrythign just how you liked it....
the two hard drives I had that contained partitions (old pre 2005 era drives)  both lost their partitions and were turned into  single drive, the info in the partition was unimportant (factory installed recovery partition for windows 7, but I had dvd copies for them anyway) so I didn't care about it....
I would expect that if you were to do the update now that a warning about the partitions being deleted would be displayed during the pre start procedure.

if you want to stay with windows 10 then the easy option is to keep the d partition on the current drive and delete the other two and bingo you have a two drive system, you can even tell windwos 10 to store all your "user files" (documents pictures etc) on the 😧 drive (i'm going to assume that's how its setup under windows 7 now as well)
the good things about the clone drive options are if you hate win10 you can haven't touched your original hard drive, the bad things are you need ot get a new hdd (or ssd) that's at least as large as the curren c drive (for windows 10 its probably  good idea to get at least a 200gb drive anyway, and a 240/250 gb ssd is only £50 in a lot of places right now)
if you don't like it but want the faster SSD under windows 7 then you just follow the same steps to reclone the old c drive
links to how to setup and use an ssd (not in any order) and some others that might be useful
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/149969-ssd-install-transfer-operating-system.html
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/windows-7-recovery-environment-command-prompt/
http://www.tested.com/tech/2341-how-to-move-your-apps-and-user-files-to-a-secondary-drive/
http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?/topic/170202-windows-7-command-prompt-commands/
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/Cc766465(v=WS.10).aspx
after reading all that stuff I made a few changes to the commands they suggest should work and managed to clone the hard drives from 4 laptops and 5 desktops but every time I shut down and restarted the recovery console to do it the drive order was changed and I had to spend 5 minutes scribbling down the changes on a note pad ..... hopefully you wont have the at problem, if you don't currently have in your possession the windows 7 install dvd you should be able to get a copy from the Microsoft website to make the boot dvd required yourself.
if you don't have the blanks then a thumbdrive that's at least 8mb in size should be enough to make a usb version with....again there pretty cheap at the moment.
if your not sure what any of this stuff means you probably need one of the other peeps that's better at explaining it and a post in the main windows 10 thread should generate that