Free upgrade from Win7 to 8.1??

[effiecgu]

Yesterday I had a strange talk with a DELL senior support person.
I called regarding a Vostro Laptop that was crashing and giving BSOD's even after clean installs, and following all their guidelines.
When I told him that the computer crashed even during upgrade attempts to Win10, he said "Yes, you should've upgraded to 8.1 first, and then to 10"
I told him I've done ~20 upgrades so far of machines with Win7 to Win10, and I never saw an option to go through 8.1, on the upgrade tool, and he promised me there is the option to do that in one of the screens of the upgrade tool.

Was he right? because I've never seen it.

 

[jzukerman]

Only if the COA sticker is for Windows 8. The laptop may have originally been sold as Windows 7 preinstalled with a Windows 8 upgrade license. If so, then you can upgrade to 8 for free. Otherwise it wouldn't be technically legal. Gray area that you'd only be using Windows 8 as a stepping stone. That said, I think that is moot because as you correctly said, upgrades from Win 7 to 10 should work properly.

I would investigate the BSOD issues more. Have you verified that the hardware is good? Check memory modules, reseat them if necessary, run Memtest86+ on them, run Prime95 or some other stress tool to see if the laptop BSODs when under load. Check fans for debris. Lastly check heatsink and thermal paste if the CPU is running warm. Also check for updated drivers and apps.

It might be worth backing up the laptop and blowing it all away and install Windows 10 fresh directly, or install fresh Windows 7 then upgrade immediately to 10 before installing applications.

 

[nlinecomputers]

You might try to fresh install Windows 10. Nuke and pave. I've seen plenty of infected machines that did poorly during the upgrade that an N&P solved.

 

[effiecgu]

Thanks guys,
The windows version was 7Home, which didn't have upgrade rights to 8. I was only wondering what the DELL person said, about the option to upgrade to 8.1 (as a stepping stone) being built into the upgrade wizard, which I'm sure isn't, because I've never seen it.

Regarding the computer itself, it's still under warranty, so after many talks with DELL, they agreed to replace the motherboard (computer was getting BSOD's with errors in the graphics card right after clean installs, was freezing up etc.)
I hope that will solve the problem.