Here we go, here we go, here we go... (Win 10 upgrade)

[Armistice]

I have long resisted the urge to upgrade my Win 7 recording PC to Win 10. Never a need...

But now, in order to get the latest and greatest stuff on the Kemper (and it's stuff worth having) I need to update the Rig Manager library/editor (which resides on the PC, not the Kemper unit), to the latest version and that latest version requires Win 8.1 or higher...

TBH I don't even know if I'm still allowed to upgrade it - it's never connected to the net (I can, I just don't) so the constant exhortations to upgrade the OS at all (even Win 7) just pass me by.

Anything I should be aware of before I start this process?

[musicturtle]

I did this with a few of my machines a while back. Pretty simple actually. I used the Windows Upgrade Assistant for the install and it went smoothly.

They say the free upgrade ended years ago but I have found that machines with a valid OEM version of Windows 7 or 8 will still do the upgrade for free.

Windows 10 actually is good. I have had very few issues if any at all running it.

[Armistice]

I have WIn 10 on this laptop and my work PC, so I'm completely familiar with it, but the recording PC is a separate desktop machine.

My main concern is WTF is going to happen to my various recording programs such as Reaper, Slate and a few others if I just do a straight over-the-top Win 7 to Win 10 upgrade. Or am I essentially going to have to reinstall EVERYTHING again once I've got Win 10... which is levels of pain in the arsedness beyond what I can cope with just at the moment...

[rayc]

I have tried to update the computer I'm typing o - the main household machine from 7 to 10 a dozen times...it goes through the process and then, after an hour or so, says it's failed.
Some one mentioned I may need to uninstall my AVG suite to make it work...but that could be a nightmare.
My wife updated her lap top for free - online with no issues at all. Reaper is fine on W10 and such BUT any 32 bit plugs and stand alone may encounter problems. MANY will run no prob, many will "bridge" and run, (but often lose their presets etc), while some won't run. Lottery really.
I may have to take this comp. to a shop and have them do it & PAY big time.

[Tadpui]

I have WIn 10 on this laptop and my work PC, so I'm completely familiar with it, but the recording PC is a separate desktop machine.

My main concern is WTF is going to happen to my various recording programs such as Reaper, Slate and a few others if I just do a straight over-the-top Win 7 to Win 10 upgrade. Or am I essentially going to have to reinstall EVERYTHING again once I've got Win 10... which is levels of pain in the arsedness beyond what I can cope with just at the moment...

All of your data that's in the usual libraries will be preserved (my documents, my music, my videos, anything on OneDrive, etc). But don't count on anything outside of those folders/libraries to be preserved. All of your applications, settings, personalization will almost certainly be wiped.

I'd suggest backing up everything, just in case.

I did an upgrade over a year ago and had to wipe Windows, so I got the distinct pleasure of re-downloading and installing everything. Then I had a drive failure several months ago and had to repeat the exercise. It's not fun, but at least everything is available online. it's made me appreciate installers like Toontrack, Arturia, Native Instruments and the like. it's hell on the internet data cap, but at least everything is retrievable!

[Armistice]

I have WIn 10 on this laptop and my work PC, so I'm completely familiar with it, but the recording PC is a separate desktop machine.

My main concern is WTF is going to happen to my various recording programs such as Reaper, Slate and a few others if I just do a straight over-the-top Win 7 to Win 10 upgrade. Or am I essentially going to have to reinstall EVERYTHING again once I've got Win 10... which is levels of pain in the arsedness beyond what I can cope with just at the moment...

All of your data that's in the usual libraries will be preserved (my documents, my music, my videos, anything on OneDrive, etc). But don't count on anything outside of those folders/libraries to be preserved. All of your applications, settings, personalization will almost certainly be wiped.

I'd suggest backing up everything, just in case.

I did an upgrade over a year ago and had to wipe Windows, so I got the distinct pleasure of re-downloading and installing everything. Then I had a drive failure several months ago and had to repeat the exercise. It's not fun, but at least everything is available online. it's made me appreciate installers like Toontrack, Arturia, Native Instruments and the like. it's hell on the internet data cap, but at least everything is retrievable!

Hokay, so that means basically reinstalling everything... not sure I particularly want to go there at the moment, especially as I may end up with unsupported plug ins and virtual instruments which will never work again which are part of tunes I've created in the past.

I just avoided a damn crisis when I updated the Kemper, which I had to do in two steps, first to one version, then to another (current) version. Updated to the first version to find that it wouldn't work with the Rig Manager software, and then discovered that the only Rig Manager software it would work with isn't installable on Win 7, so just spent a joyous hour or so downgrading both until I found a combo that still works together.

The fear of never being able to again work with old stuff because of the virtual instruments and the like perhaps no longer working on Win 10 has me wondering whether I should archive the machine as is, buy a new one with Win 10 already on it and reinstall Reaper etc and if I have to upgrade various virtual instruments along the way, well so be it - and just start anew. I don't have anything much in progress and simple enough to drag what I do have onto a new machine.

Will ponder.

[Armistice]

I have tried to update the computer I'm typing o - the main household machine from 7 to 10 a dozen times...it goes through the process and then, after an hour or so, says it's failed.
Some one mentioned I may need to uninstall my AVG suite to make it work...but that could be a nightmare.
My wife updated her lap top for free - online with no issues at all. Reaper is fine on W10 and such BUT any 32 bit plugs and stand alone may encounter problems. MANY will run no prob, many will "bridge" and run, (but often lose their presets etc), while some won't run. Lottery really.
I may have to take this comp. to a shop and have them do it & PAY big time.

I've no doubt the machine is ok to do it from a capacity point of view, it's the thought of having to reinstall everything and possibly losing access to plugs and more importantly virtual instruments, so I can never again work on things I've done in the past that's giving me pause...

[JD01]

Mothballing the entire machine would be easiest if the cost doesn’t bother you.

[CeeBee]

I upgraded my ASUS laptop a while back with no problems. Everything worked ok afterwards with no extra installing. ASUS insisted that it wouldn't work on my system as there were no drivers, but all went well. If you do a mirror image of everything you can always go back to square one. The upgrade is also reversible apparently.

[vomitHatSteve]

All of your data that's in the usual libraries will be preserved (my documents, my music, my videos, anything on OneDrive, etc). But don't count on anything outside of those folders/libraries to be preserved. All of your applications, settings, personalization will almost certainly be wiped.

I'd suggest backing up everything, just in case.

It should leave everything in your "Users" folders alone, which includes appData where Reaper config is installed.
It's possible you'll lose the install, but it should automatically find your settings and license on reinstall

As part of your backup, turn hidden files visible and backup Users, making sure appdata made it

[Lt. Bob]

Mothballing the entire machine would be easiest if the cost doesn’t bother you.

can't you just mothball the hard drive?

[Armistice]

Mothballing the entire machine would be easiest if the cost doesn’t bother you.

can't you just mothball the hard drive?

Indeed. Especially since the OS is on a relatively small SSD and it has a 1GB spinner drive where all the data is.

Good thought - except I know there's all sorts of non-OS stuff all over that drive from programs that didn't give you a directory option upon installation, so I'd be up for lots of work if I did that. Frankly I can probably buy a good enough box, new, for about $1k, and start again, upgrade a thing or two, so that's probably what I'd do.

But I've decided not to touch it for now. Don't have the time and it's a lot of work / expense to get access to some overdrive pedals and a better editor for the Kemper. I'll learn to live without it and perhaps pick it up next year, once I've hopefully installed myself in a new home somewhere with a better recording space.

I've got the Kemper / editor talking to each other again after a difficult period yesterday and I'm going to archive all the various versions of both Kemper OS and editor install files - which are really easy to install and can be upgraded / downgraded at will quite simply, so that in the future I can go back and forwards if I want to.

Thought of installing the editor on this laptop - I reiterate that it's the editor that needs Win 10 - the Kemper doesn't need anything, it's proprietary code unrelated to various computer OSs, but it's too hard to work with without the editor program - but once I did that I'd have to use it always and that would be a PITA as well, tying up the laptop unnecessarily.

Thanks for the thoughts all...

[JD01]

Armi, do you own an "classic" pedals? Like a TubeScreamer or Carbon Copy? I'd be curious to see how they sound compared with the Kemper versions

[Armistice]

Armi, do you own an "classic" pedals? Like a TubeScreamer or Carbon Copy? I'd be curious to see how they sound compared with the Kemper versions

No, I don't alas. My only overdrive pedal is a Vox Ice 9 which is sitting in a box somewhere, largely unused. Had an original Boss OD-1 back in the day but I gave it to someone.

Apparently the Kemper "Green Scream" drive "stomp" (in the Kemper effects section) is based on the Ibanez Tube Screamer, but I never had one of them so I don't know what they sound like either. Perhaps I'll get the strat out and try via a Fender profile and that "stomp" and see if I sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan... although it's more likely to end up sounding like Billy Ray Cyrus. I can do that one as it's with the original software.

The thing about this new drive section, which I now can't get, is that they don't model the actual pedals - as in the same knobs/layout etc. - they just have what they call the Kemper Drive "stomp" and you drop presets that model the pedals onto that stomp, but it has the same controls, irrespective of which pedal it is. Like I said elsewhere there's a King Of Tone, Timmy, OD-1, Klon Centaur and a few others. No idea how realistic they actually are though.

Think there's also an OCD there as well as a separate effect, but that'll all have to wait until I resolve the Win 7 issue one way or the other.

[JD01]

Well, I'm very familiar with the OCD. Be interested how that sounds.