Windows 8.1 Upgrades - What can be kept?

Hello Everybody,

Its been a while since I last posted. Unfortunately didn't pass the exams for Windows 8.1 last year and had to put of retaking them due to a combination of family and personal problems. Now everything has gotten a bit better, I'm trying to pass the exams before the deadline in July. I learnt a lot last year and nearly passed the Configuring exam. I was only a few points away so it still is a realistic goal for me.

One of the problems I get time and time again though is the confusion over what can be kept When you upgrade from different versions of Windows. On the flash card questions from the software promoted by Microsoft, it says you can't keep Windows Settings and applications. In the book promoted by them, it claims you can. In the books it says you can upgrade from Vista (SP1) and in CBT Nuggets I'm sure it said you can only perform a clean install from Vista and XP.

Due to so many resources saying different things, I'm now confused as to what is right and what is not. Can somebody tell me what can actually be kept when you perform an upgrade from XP, Vista and 7 to Windows 8.1 and the upgrade paths please?

As always, any help you can offer is much appreciated

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culpano

Oh this one got me rattled before the 70-687 exam as there was conflicting information and I couldn't work out what was correct.

Remember this first fact.

You cannot perform an in place upgrade to Window 8.1 from ANY previous version of an operating system. In other words you will not preserve your apps even if you upgrade from Windows 7. You HAVE to migrate.

The confusion comes from the fact that a lot of the material out there refers to Windows 8. In this case you can do an in place upgrade from Win 7 to Win 8 thus preserving apps BUT NOT 8.1 !

Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 - yes of course apps are preserved.

If you actually do the upgrade yourself hands-on from 7 to 8.1 you'll see the only option is to keep personal files only or nothing !

Another gotcha which is a change from Win 8 to 8.1 is the minumum screen resolution to snap apps. Read up on it on technet. I actually got a question around this and I'm glad I refreshed my knowledge on the OS requirements.

Hope this helps and good luck on the exam.

EDIT: On your clean install question.....you can clean install from ANY OS as a clean install is a fresh install anyway - the old OS is wiped !

XxNooniexX

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Thank you so much Culpano, this clears things up for me.

I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one struggling to work this one out. Even the TechNet article on this confused the life out of me haha. Thanks for letting me know about the minimum resolution size changes as well, I actually wasn't aware of this so I'm grateful that you've brought this to my attention.

I really hate these exams so I am hoping I can get this one passed by the end of the month. I usually don't mind studying for IT exams but with all the changes they've made that haven't been documented very well, I was sorry to see the return of these two. Hoping I can get these sorted and then upgrade from there to the Windows 10 one though. Praying I can pull this off...

Last time I did this exam I got something like 640 and ended up failing over adaptive styled questions

Any advice you can recommend for passing this time around?

culpano

If you can get a subscription to Pluralsight and do the Windows 8 course and lab against it. I subscribe to both Pluralsight and CBT Nuggets and there is plenty enough detail on there to pass the exam in my opinion.

joeswfc

I always find that if there is any confusion (places saying different things) the best thing to do is to lab it out yourself, then you know for definite which is correct.
I recently did the windows server 2012 R2 MCSA and found issues as most places talked about just 2012 and not R2. So I found similar problems to you as Windows 8.1 is basically 2012 R2.
You can get trial versions of most Operating systems, so I use these and when the trials run out just reinstall it to a different VM.

XxNooniexX

Thank you guys,

@Culpano - Yes I agree. I have used both CBT and Pluralsight for my studies and both were very handy. Seen both sets of the course on CBT and Pluralsights one multiple times. I've tried to lab out as many things as I can, sometimes it hasn't gone in my favour though. In particular Offline Files comes to mind here, I followed the instructions from the videos, enabled offline files but then the " Always Available Offline" option wouldn't appear. I'm kinda stumped as to what I did wrong. Most things I've managed to perform though with the exception of Client Hyper V and a Native boot install to a VHD.

@joeswfc - You're right. I'm currently using a trial of Enterprise in VMware and going through everything it will allow me to do. Can agree with you in regards to the fact that people only seem to focus on creating material for the first versions of these tests, its completely crazy!! Definitely taking your advice on board and I'll keep labbing right up until the end.

Im hoping I can take the exam in the next week or so depending on when I can get a date to sit it. I live in the Middle East and am going to have to do the online version of the exam because I can't make it to the UK before they cancel the course (really angry with all the messing around they've done with this one, cancelling it for long enough for to take a break and study another course and then bringing it back). After already failing this exam once last year... I'm absolutely terrified. I know where I went wrong last time and I've gone into overdrive trying to correct that but I'm kind of at a disadvantage because I haven't had a proper IT job yet and haven't had much experience with networking. I know that I know my stuff though and can pass this eventually if I keep at it, I guess that's what I'm holding onto at the moment.

culpano

Why could you not get client Hyper-V working ? You do need a SLAT processor and obviously have to install 64-bit Windows 8.1.

XxNooniexX

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No clue, when I tried to set it up, the option to enable it didn't show up event though I was using Enterprise. Maybe I hadn't set up my VM properly or something, I'll have to take another look at it. I've watched so many videos on Hyper-V for the exam so when I finally get it up and running I don't think I'd have a problem using it. Think it comes up very briefly in the next exam, I cant remember. I'll make sure I get it working by the time I'm ready for that one though.