How to Check if Your Computer Can Run Windows 10

Microsoft this week announced that the Windows 10 release date is July 29 th , and it also pushed out the Windows 10 upgrade app to all Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users. This utility allows you to reserve your Windows 10 upgrade. But first, you might want to check if your computer can run the new version.

While some people are annoyed by the upgrade utility, it does have more value than just reminding you about Windows 10 and reserving your free copy of Windows 10.

The minimum system requirements (listed below) are essentially the same as Windows 8.1, of course, the minimums are just that, and you’ll want more horsepower under the hood.

• Windows 7 SP1 or Windows 8.1
• A 1GHz processor or faster
• 1 GB RAM for 32-bit or 2 GB RAM for 64-bit
• 16 GB hard drive space for 32-bit or 20 GB for 64-bit
• DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 graphics card
• 1024×600 display

Can My Computer Run Windows 10?

To get a definitive answer if your current computer can handle Windows 10, you need to run the Get Windows 10 app. You know, that annoying icon that just started showing up a few weeks ago. Click the Windows flag icon you see on the system tray.

If you don’t see the Get Windows 10 app icon, read our article: How to Make the Windows 10 Upgrade Icon Show Up.

By the way, if you want to remove the GWX icon after you’ve reserved your copy, or are just annoyed by it, it can be deleted.

When it launches, click the hamburger menu in the upper-left corner.

That gives you more options to learn more about the upgrade, and it also will scan your computer and let you know if it can run Windows 10 and what is or isn’t compatible.

Click the Check your PC link below Getting the upgrade to start the scan.

After you’ve run the utility, you will see a new message Your PC is ready.

In the example below, everything on my main computer is ready for the upgrade.

But if there is an issue with one of your components or software apps, that will be listed, and you can look into it further.

If you have other questions or concerns about the upgrade, check out our article: Your Windows 10 Questions Answered.

Are you ready for the Windows 10 upgrade? Leave a comment below and let us know, or for a more in-depth conversation about it, check out the Windows 10 Forums.

82 Comments

If I don’t reserve a copy of Windows 10, will Microsoft automatically download and INSTALL this version to my computer at a later date? I have automatic updates that are downloaded and installed on a regular basis (usually monthly on a Tuesday) and this happens when I go to shut down my computer . I don’t want Windows 10, at least not now. Please help. Thank you.

I looked for a site to download that shows compatibility for 10 and failed. The only test I see is in the installation.Looks like we may get 10

Windows 10 will NOT download by itself. I believe you have up to 1 year so you can wait. If you download it before hand, you can remove it if your not happy with it.
I got mine yesterday and I love it. You will find your computer is faster also. It’s free and it downloads everything saved on your computer also. Take a chance in a couple of weeks, but make sure your watching when it downloads. There may be a question or 2 for you to answer. Enjoy and good luck Donna.

Windows10 can download by itself. It did on my PC. I had auto updates and such disabled.

I do not have the Windows 10 icon in the Taskbar of my Windows 8.1 Tablet. I have no updates pending. I do not have the W 10 notification update in my Updates History. Should I, or can I expect it to arrive later?

Make sure your Windows Update is set to automatically download and install…which it is by default.

The update you need is described at the following link by Microsoft:

According to the company, it should arrive anytime between now and before the 29th launch.

Is it running windows 8 RT?

Hi Chris.
You have to have the icon in order to get windows 10. Google how to get window 10 and it will tell you. Its fantasic and it saves everything that you have on your tablet. Enjoy

When I click on Check your PC, the window says “This report isn’t available right now”, That is all!

I have three almost identical PCs same basic hardware some slight differences in software. My wife’s 32bit windows 7 machine is said to be good to go, mine has the silly This report isn’t available right now and no way to move the study forward. This is starting to feel more and more like a right mess before it even gets going.

My PC says I am good to go, what I would really like to know though is as I am running Windows 7 SP1 and my scanner and Printer work fine in Windows 7. If I update to windows 10 will I be required to install new drivers for windows 10 Operating system, as a number of manufacturers will not be producing legacy device drivers. So the cost of updating to windows 10 although the OS is free may cost me in terms of having to purchase new hardware that is windows 10 compatible. Sorry I have been unable to find a definitive answer from the product website.

Hi Martin.
You will not be required to install new drivers for windows 10. This is done automatically. You have up to 1 year to try it and if your not happy you can remove it. I have it and I really and enjoying it. Your computer is faster also. Good luck.

You may find that some devices do not have the best version of drivers installed, I have just had to update both my Canon printer drivers as functions were not available when I first moved from 7 to 10.
It may well be worth checking for drivers as a non urgent operation; I obtained better drivers directly from Canon,

I have dual-boot windows7/ Robolinux

I just want to know if there will be any problem when I will upgrade?

Will have no problem, did mine with dual boot. Windows created a dual boot startup option to allow me to select my operating system. I had Windows 7 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro. I upgraded the 8.1.

My computer now boots and gives me the ability to select Windows 7 or Windows 10.

Finally having been stuck on the silly report not available message for more than a week it changed to good to go today. I have no idea why it stuck so long, the PC is on all day while my wife’s PC is hardly ever on and got cleared days ago.
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Martin Beattie,
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If you are cleared for Win 10 this suggests that the software appears to be satisfactory for the upgrade and if it was running well under Windows 7 I would expect it to be OK for Win 10. I had a good scanner that was orphaned after XP with no alternative software available, I know how big a pain these things can be. Fortunately I found alternative software for my film scanner (and an Epson scanner) to work with Win 7 and later.
All may not be lost!

Hi Richard,
Thanks for the reply, I am fairly sure all the Software will be compatible with Windows 10, however its the Hardware drivers that worry me, when I updated to windows 7 I was told that windows would search for the best drivers. In a number of cases it was unable to find the drivers of hardware devices as the manufacturers did not provide legacy hardware drivers to MS for windows 7 OS so you would have to down load a specific windows 7 driver from the manufacturers website. I am fairly sure now that windows 10 will also require specific Hardware drivers compatible with windows 10 and for older devices where the manufacturer thinks it is not worth the development of a new driver for an older hardware device we will be stuck with hardware that will not work with Windows 10. Could anyone confirm?

Between XP and Windows 7 some big changes were made as a result drivers sometimes did not work, though in a few cases work around did. I was given the impression that after 7 the driver model was kept stable. If anyone can confirm or deny that, I too would welcome the news.

I think you are right, all of the drivers between 7/8/8.1/10 haven’t changed except in rare cases

According to Microsoft, you will have downgrade rights so you can just downgrade if the Hardware doesn’t work

I have windows 8.1, if I get the windows 10 upgrade what happens to windows 8.1 on my Drive D? I don’t have enough GB’S on Drive D for both 8.1 and 10 on Drive D partition? Thank You

I have a compaq cq61 laptop which was not compatible with windows8 now i can i install windows 10.. The app released by windows check my pc says “i am good to go..”

Hi Jeevan.
Sounds like your good to go and windows 10 is fantastic. Enjoy

There are many of us with what are classed as ‘small devices’ ie. tablets / phones (actually my tablet is a bit bigger than what MS defines as ‘small’) who cannot meet the requirement for 16 GB free storage. I know this, even though like others I have not been able to get the upgrade icon and compatibility app).

There are rumours but I wait to hear anything clear from MS on how it is going to help us upgrade. It is the upgrade process, not actually running W10, which is the issue, even for my new W8.1 device. We are probably going to have to use the ISO route, which seems much too complicated for me. I have just read a very detailed article on it.

Does anyone has any further info on what is planned?

This article is useless. The upgrade icon is only available to computer running Windows => 7.

I had Windows 8.1 and downloaded Windows 10 Pro insider preview evaluation copy. Will I still be able to receive the complete Windows 10 when it is ready the end of July

You will keep getting Insider builds even after RTM

When I scanned my Windows 7 machine, it said Windows 10 was incompatible due to the integrated graphics (but I forgot exactly what it said, so I tried it again, and this time it said it was OK). Should I buy a graphics card or not. Will I be able to revert to Windows 7?

Some time back, the Windows 10 icon appears and of course I checked to see if my laptop was compatible for Windows 10 and it was. I then reserved my copy for Windows 10 and was sent confirmation of my reservation via email. Just yesterday, I saw I had a few important updates to download in Windows Update and I did the update. I rebooted my laptop and when Windows came back up, the Windows 10 icon was no longer in my taskbar. I find it impossible that my laptop that was totally compatible would become not compatible because of a Windows update. Is this a problem or should I not be concerned?

I forgot to say that I am running Windows 8.1 Home.

I followed all the measures listed and was informed Win 10 would install with no compatibility errors BUT it doesn’t. What is does do is give you an error number as a guide as to why is will not install

Trouble is this “guide” actually tells you nothing !! Obviously there is an incompatibility somewhere. Usually if it is a driver error then the program or hardware doesn’t work until the driver is upgraded.

This has me flummoxed as I have tried to download it numerous times using appropriate steps
ie: removing everything from software distribution/download folder then forcing another download but to no avail !

I had the same problem. Finally a message showed up that my graphics were incompatible as the manufacturer had not updated the drivers. I upgraded my graphics card and drivers, but still cannot install 10 as the compatibility checker still sees my old (on board) graphics! Does anyone know how to reset this?

The update app stated my PC could not be updated due to a non-compatible video card. I upgraded my video card to a Windows 10 compliant one, yet the app still shows the old card. Will this automatically re-scan my system and let me update at some time. I have tried selecting “Check your PC” from the menu and it does nothing. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

I have the exact same problem, upgraded the card and still showing old card details and last update date before i changed the card which was a week ago.

I just checked and now it says I am good to go…. So it takes a couple of days to re-check the system.

Click Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt

Then type:
schtasks.exe /Run /TN “\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser”

This will force a rescan. Be patient, it could take 15 to 20 minutes to finish the scan.

I used to have the GetWindows10 app in the taskbar
i reserved it and after a couple of Windows updates the GetWindows10 app is gone
It still says that Windows 10 is reserved in Windows Update
I dont have any pending updates for my computer
i want to know if it will still download the update or not.

Hi James.
The very first thing that windows 10 does is the updates. Not to worry. Make sure you are watching when it downloads because you may have to click on some things. It takes about one hour to download and everything that you have saved on your computer will still be there after the download. I really enjoy it and I know you will also. There are a few things that are different. When you go to shut off your computer, left click on the white box in bottom left hand corner and click the “POWER“ button. That’s it. Enjoy and good luck.

I’ve been running Windows 7 Professional SP1 Ultimate. I recently got windows 10 upgrade assistant tool but it shows that my PC won’t be able to upgrade because “there are no supported networking devices”. What does it actually mean? My machine is 2.5 GHz Dual Core CPU with 2 GB RAM.

Update reported my graphics card wasn’t compatible – So I fitted a new graphics card which I know has a windows 10 driver and the windows update programme still reports my old graphics card as installed. There must be a file Microsoft has left on the computer with this old information in in. How do I change that?

Same thing happened to me, just wait a couple of days and the tool will re-scan your system and update the installed cards.

Thanks Tim, I’ll try to be patient.

schtasks.exe /Run /TN “\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser”

I click icon on my pc Windows 8,1 after it finished to udgrade it my pc stop to open atall it keep restarting again n again showing no pictures on the scren. What do I do

I have a windows 8.1 computer and when I run the scanner thing for the upgrade it says my computer isn’t compatible.

Iam presently operating with windows 7

I have not “DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 graphics card”.

I already reserved windows 10.

Can i install windows 10 successfully ?

No, you will need to change the video card and then you can upgrede to windows 10

What is video card ? can i download it? send me link if downloadable .

No it is not a download.

The video card is a physical piece of hardware that will need to be changed.

Hello, I have a fairly recent decent Toshiba laptop with windows7. I have tried upgrading to 10 and have had some issues… no cortana, no windows apps, edge does not work (no element found) when I try to open it. The windows icon only ‘works’ when I right click and even then most of the options will not work.

I love the speed of booting and shutting down though in 10…

Any suggestions? I have looked and uninstalled any bit of anti-virus programs that I’ve had with 7. I’ve gone back to previous build 7 a few times and tried going to 10 but same thing happens…

Thanks for any help.

It is not clear why your are having those issues since they are key parts of MS marketing strategy, or as they would rather I said key parts of the customer satisfaction package. I suspect that you might have a damaged download.
I am assuming that you are using one of the supported languages for one of the countries that are currently able to use Cortana, if not you will not get it until it is available in your language or country.

hi
friends
i am booting windows10 os it will goes to upto 96% it was failure how to solve this problem
plz help me frnds

In check your pc option,it coming “This PC will have problems in running windows 10”
in devices it showing the device manufactures have not made this device compatible to windows 10
why is it happening?
will i be able to install windows 10?

in the check ur pc option it coming this pc will have problems in running windows 10.why?
in devices it showing that the manufactures have not made this device compatible with windows 10?
will i be able to run windows 10?
pls answer

Widow 10 will not run on your machine until the hardware listed is changed or manufacturer releases new drivers for your hardware.

I installed W 10 but when I tried to use my scanner, it failed saying some other program was using it. Couldn’t find another program doing that so I uninstalled. Has anyone a solution?

To drive a scanner you will need a scanner program to drive the scanning function. Windows is an operating system think of it as a road on which the cars have been replaced by different cars trucks and whatever else. To get your scanner working you need to make sure that the scanner program is still there. It may have carried over from before or it might not be suitable for ‘the new road’ that is windows 10.
There are some scanner programs available if your present one does not work correctly.

i was trying to install in my thoshiba satellite c640,

each time all installation will happen and at the end say some problem happend and continue restart

finaly i have no other optio to reverse back to windows 7

what to do? a clean install will help?

Do NOT go for a clean install, you will have to pay for that one.
—–
Do check the machine for any possible errors with hardware such as the memory or a shortage of HD space. You can run something like Memtest but you must give it time to complete its full range of tests several times.
—–
Do check that no extras are plugged in such as USB keys, printers or other items unplug them if they are plugged in.
—–
You can down load an ISO of the package – but it MUST be run from within your existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 install to obtain the ‘free update’. Some people have found that it works better than the ‘sort of live install’.
I used this method.
Good luck

Thank you sir, I brought a new memory and replaced, no use, brought a new had cloned it and try ed it, this time it completed install and one second screen come and then went out telling error happend,

I thought it may be a issue with display driver of thoshiba satalite 640

I was surprised that you bought new memory, I suggested that you test the memory you had as that was just one of the possible faults. From what you said it appears that the hard disk has been replaced, is this correct? Are you certain that the clone was a perfectly functioning clone with no errors?
It is very hard to diagnose a situation remotely from limited information. Are you able to operate the machine in safe mode, this will not load drivers and may bypass any problem with them?
If you can get access this way you have several options, but none of them are easy to follow if you are not familiar with fault finding.
You can check out the type of video capability on the machine and research to find a new driver that is suitable.
You can see if there is a better generic driver.
If there are any fault messages in the boot logs, device logs or any of he other logs which will guide you.
There is a whole lot of possible steps that can be taken, but sometimes the next step depends on the results of an earlier step.
Sometimes removing the driver in software and rebooting can allow the driver to be re-installed and clear any issues that way.
I suspect that you may need face to face contact with someone who can test through the possible steps to return the machine to a fully functional state.

than you for such detailed reply, fist i tried to upgrade with old memory and hard disk it went to restart modes in last stage of installation and i had no option to get back to windows 7. did not start in safe mode also

as i was plnaning to change memory and hdd i brought both and did a clone with windows backup only, it worked properly in windows 7 i tried to upgrade again. this time it completed installation and i got the desktop for a while. before i was trying to see different menu system crashed and went to restart modes. i could run it in safemode with out network. but not in normal mode, when starting i could make the audio humming and extended and crashing. in safe mode i could see a yellow trangle in device manager for display. foolishly restarted and system went back to reboot modes and i am forced to restore the windows 7
any way sunday i am planing to have anew instaltion of windows 7 and then upgrade to 10 and see

Anyone know how long we are supposed to wait for MS to push the update to me? I ‘reserved’ my copy weeks ago but have not been told I can go ahead and install….how long is it taking for MS to send notification to go ahead? Thanks all.

Facing Problems After Upgrading to Windows 10 Pro from Windows & Ultimate

my laptop is of the Model “HCL ME ICON L 1015″ with Core i5 2510, 2.3 Ghz processor, 4GB DDR3 1333 Mhz RAM. It was having Windows 7 Ultimate, SP1 (64 Bit) OS installed in it.

2 Months before 29th July, 2015 I got the windows 10 Reserve icon and I reserved it. On 1st August, 2015 I upgraded it to windows 10 Pro through free upgrade offer of Microsoft. The up-gradation was smooth and some of the previously installed applications didn’t work with the new windows 10 Pro OS, but it was all right for me as I reinstalled them after up-gradation.

But to my surprise when ever the laptop reboots (restarts) the windows logo comes and after some time the display over screen becomes black and I can’t see any activity in screen thereafter. Every time I have to press the start button or sleep key on the keyboard and make the laptop to go to sleep mode. And once it goes to sleep mode if I press the same start button or sleep key again , then log in screen appears and it allows me to work further. This start up black screen problem is not there when ever laptop starts from hibernation mode, sleep mode or starting after shutdown.

I had a chat with some of my friends they said its a graphics driver problem, but I installed the latest Intel HD Graphics 3000 driver from intel website, which gave me no solution from this problem.

There is another issue I am facing after up-gradation is that when ever touch pad driver ” synaptic pointing device driver” get installed automatically through windows updates my “WIFI” function (Fn +F2) key doesn’t work and if I uninstall the pointing device driver the wifi function key works and it allows me to use internet through wifi. There are so many touch keys on the keyboard for wifi, sound etc which some times works and some time don’t work. The scroll area on touch pad also doesn’t work.

I am stuck up with this issue SINCE AUGUST 1, 2015. I loved the features of windows 10 and it is faster than windows 7 but the above problems repeatedly makes me too annoyed to use this new OS. I was having zero problem when windows 7 ultimate was installed.

Please guide me what to do. I didn’t find any latest driver from OEM sites (HCL laptop drivers) for windows 10.
Thanking you in advance for a suitable guidance and awaiting for quick response.