P150EM / XMG P502 advice needed

Hi All, long time no log in.
reason for this is my 7+ year old Clevo P150EM/P502 has been running flawlessly since purchase so no need for advice.

now thanks to win 7 eol updates its time to think about upgrading to windows 10
my worry is drivers. sadly my driver disc just does not want to run anymore.
i have reinstalled os a couple of times and had issues with bluetooth, fingerprint reader and a couple of other drivers so had to source them from elsewhere as the XMG drivers direct from their websiite did not work.
ive messaged XMG Germany asking if the UK team i dealt with still work there but no reply.
i have a win 10 official pro 10 key and wanted advise if it is worth the update and risk compatibility issues.
no expert when it comes to this so can i just do a operating system update so as to keep all files or do i need a total clean wipe and install. tried a system backup and its failed each time.
3720QM
16gb ram
GTX680M

 

@XMG

 

Take an image of the machine beforehand and then experiment, the OS includes a lot of the base drivers, otherwise use the latest you can find for each piece of hardware.

 

Thanks Meaker. do you mean take an image with something like acronis. backups and experimenting is not one of my strong points.
ive attempted backups using built in software but it fails every single time. when ive reinstalled in the past ive just started from scratch.

 

Yes a full image, that way you can restore it. A cheap usb3 external drive does this job well.

 

Hi guys

upgrade to windows 10 went smoothly but there were a few issues.
the most important two are no true cript fingerprint reader anymore and keep safe locker on desktop was deleted in the upgrade as not compatible. also it says this laptop does not support bluetooth but thats no biggie.

my main question is is there anyway round using the fingerprint reader again and is there an alternative to keep safe which i would much prefer to have with a fingerprint access than a password.
thanks

 

Do the drivers install for the fingerprint reader? Windows should be able to use it for logging in if so.

The wifi card is easy to upgrade for cheap. Just make sure to get a mini PCI-e card.

 

Hi Meaker. thanks as always for replying.
its a weird one as on login there is no option to use fingerprint. after searching through all the new things in 10 i found windows hello fingerprint. i tried adding a finger but it says already registered so i just deleted the settings and set them up again and on reboot it now works. thats one thing sorted.

ive had a hunt around for my bluetooth spec and it shows centrino advanced N-6235 in device manager so ive just deleted and reinstalled the drivers. it doesnt show in top left of screen anymore using Fn + F12 but its showed up in active programs on taskbar, so tick, another thing sorted.

so my only other real issue now is the Keep Safe where i kept all my banking info. ive searched the net and there is quite a lot of complaints about it being removed automatically on upgrading to windows 10. im not that bad and did do a full backup and also saved all the docs to my external drive so now not so secure. id like to lock them in some sort of safe with only access using fingerprint. any suggestions kind sir on a free or paid app i can use.

just looked up my paperwork on when i bought this P150EM, jeez it was 8 years ago and its still blindingly fast thanks to the ssd. it replaced my m860tu which slowed down a lot and thats 13 years old and collecting dust now.

 

Bios password protection and drive encryption is the usual protection but you could also password protect the folder. Beyond that there is not much point.

 

ok mate, thanks for all your advice.

 

As a side note for passwords an offline program like keepass is the safest method where you manually copy and paste.

 

i already use avast premier password and dashlane for passwords.
the keep safe i previously used was perfect for word, excel and pdf files with loads of documents that need to be locked away and could just be dragged and dropped and then locked.

 

The other option then is a cloud based option with MFA to store the files.

 

Thanks Meaker. ill look into that.

 

No problem, a lot of small to medium sized businesses like onedrive.

 

Hi Meaker
ill keep this all in one place for now if thats ok and sorry for the mountain of text.

well what a nightmare ive had.
friday evening i extended my avast antivirus premium for 2 more years. they sent the key to the UI which i activated. then i noticed id lost my firewall and the shortcut now showed free version even though before buying i had previous 2 years of premium.
spoke to tech and they suggested a clean delete in safemode. now on 7 this was never a issue but 10 its buggered everything up. once in safe mode the avast clean delete was no where to be found. i then tried getting back to normal mode but for some reason windows did not recognise my password and of course fingerprint wont work in safe mode. long story short is avast wanted £99 for premium support. explaining i would never have had to go into safe mode if it wasnt for their software reverting to free even though the premium key said active and they wouldnt budge. note to self, never use safe mode again in windows 10.
i had to do a total cleaan install with win 7 pro disc then upgrade to 10 again. i lost all my passwords in avast even though i had extracted them but left on desktop DOH!
anyway 24 hours later and a couple of issues that you might be able to advise on.
the control panel for backlit keyboard worked last week after i first upgraded to 10 but now when i click Fn + Ecc it just flickers for a split second but wont open. problem is the default colour is dark blue keys and as im partially blind i cant see the keys as well as when they were set to white light. ive checked the user manual but cant find anything about drivers which i guess are loaded as the control panel flickers.
any idea which driver i need to find to try and get into the backlight settings. also on the number keypad i can turn on/off but none of the other keys work either.
thanks as always mate.

EDIT

noting to see here, move along
tried a hotkey driver repair and still the same. removed and reinstalled hotkey and keyboard backlight is working again.
and to top it off i was searching through the windows.old folder before i deleted them and low and behold i found the extracted password file so im back up and running.

EDIT of the EDIT

and after a reboot the key doesnt work again. at least it stays on white backlight now.

 

I'll usually see things but put an @ symbol before a name to call someone out and notify them.

When you launch control centre you could look to see what the event log says under applications and OS and see if it gives any hints.

 

Thanks @Meaker@Sager
typed control centre in start but nothing opens.
Fn + Esc just flickers the control centre for a split second andFn + / on number pad does nothing.
checked all the drivers for keyboard, hotkey etc and all said no issues.
ill put up with it as at least i managed to change it to white background light now.

 

So no entries in event viewer?

 

sorry but no idea what im looking for in event viewer. im not used to this win 10 malarky as it looks totally different to previous OS