Win7 updates for upgrading to Win10

[lti]

Re: Win7 updates for upgrading to Win10

This is good to know.

My computer has all of these except KB3068708 (it still has KB3022345 instead) and KB3035583 installed.

KB2952664 keeps appearing in Windows Update, even though it's already installed. Updating the updates could explain that. Also, it won't uninstall. Attempting to uninstall it just causes the date it was installed on to change.

[Per Hansson]

The following is a list I have compiled of updates pushed for the seamless upgrade from Windows 7 SP1 to Windows 10.
The list has two uses, either you want the free upgrade to Windows 10 and then it confirms what updates you need to have installed.
Or maybe you prefer Windows 7 SP1 or you have a company computer where you want to restrict the upgrade to Windows 10.
In the latter cases you should untick the checkbox "Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates" in Windows Update.
Follow this link for a post with more details with pictures of that setting.

[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2952664"]KB2952664[/URL] Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2990214"]KB2990214[/URL] Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3021917"]KB3021917[/URL] Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements (Telemetry)
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583"]KB3035583[/URL] Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 (GWX.exe)
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3068708"]KB3068708[/URL] Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry (Replaces: [URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3022345"]KB3022345[/URL]) 
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3075249"]KB3075249[/URL] Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080149"]KB3080149[/URL] Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry 
[URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3123862"]KB3123862[/URL] Updated capabilities to upgrade Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
[URL=""https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3123862"]KB3173040[/URL] Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1 end of free upgrade offer notification

[URL=https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3161647]KB3161647[/URL] Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: June 2016 (Replaces: [URL=https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3138612]KB3138612[/URL] [URL=https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3135445]KB3135445[/URL] [URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3112343"]KB3112343[/URL] [URL=https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3083710]KB3083710[/URL] [URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3083324"]KB3083324[/URL] [URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3075851"]KB3075851[/URL] [URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3065987"]KB3065987[/URL] & [URL="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3050265"]KB3050265[/URL])

This last update adds the ability to force Windows to not give the option to update to Windows 10 in the local group policy editor.
gpedit.msc path listed below in italics, further explained in: KB3080351.
I recommend you install it because it also addresses an issue in which system performance can be decreased during scans.
And errors you may encounter with Windows Update.

Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update
Double-click "Turn off the upgrade to the latest version of Windows through Windows Update", and enabled the setting.

Please note that Microsoft is constantly revising these updates with the data that the telemetry provides them.
For example KB2952664 is at version 13 as of this writing.
For this reason when you uninstall KB2952664 it might appear that nothing happens because it just reappears again with the only change that the "install date" changes to the current date.
Actually what it's really doing is downgrading from KB2952664-v13 to KB2952664-v12 if you previosuly had version 12 of the update intalled...
This is handled by the WinSxS folder in the Windows directory and during my testing even on high-end machines with SSD's this can take over an hour to complete per update!
For this reason to reduce the size you your WinSxS folder I recommend that you run the following command.
It will remove the files kept to support the uninstallation of Service Pack 1 on your system.
This only applies if you first installed Win7 RTM and then upgraded to SP1, a slipstreamed install will not need this.

dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /spsuperseded /hidesp

This can also be done in the "Disk Cleanup" interface, select to "Clean up system files" and finally "Service Pack Backup Files"
But this does nothing for the hundreds of updates released after SP1, with Windows 8.1 really powerful dism tools were added to control this.
And thankfully atleast a subset was backported to Win7 with update KB2852386.
When you have this update installed you will be able to select "Windows Update Cleanup" which removes all superseded updates.
Meaning if you currently have version 13 of KB2952664 installed but also the former 12 versions it will remove the former 12 versions.
So this way when you uninstall KB2952664 it will not downgrade to the next older version and so on...
It also goes without saying that antivirus programs and the system restore feature greatly slows down this process.
So you might at least want to disable your real time antivirus scanner until the process is done.

Also note that this list is specific for Win7 SP1, there exists two updates for Win7 RTM aswell, called: KB2977759 & KB3163589.