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Upgrade to Win10 with incompatible graphics drivers

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1K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  Rich-M 
#1 ·
Problem: I would like to upgrade from Win 7 32-bit to Win 10. Nvidia says my GTS 450 graphics card is compatible with Win10; Win 10 upgrade assistant says it is not. Can I force the upgrade anyway? Nvidia has a 64-bit Win 10 driver for this card, but no 32bit version. I have contacted Nvidia about this but no reply yet. Thanks for your help.
 
#2 ·
There have been so many Nvidia issues with video card drivers in Windows 10 I wouldn't do it if Windows says its incompatible, especially if you are upgrading.
I have seen too many upgrades fail and then the recovery to Windows 7 fail right afterwards leaving the client with a reinstall of Windows 7.
 
#4 ·
Nvidia says the card is compatible with Windows 10 because they do have a driver for it, but 64 bit only. I believe as time goes by we will see a lot more of this. As 64 bit systems gain in popularity manufacturers will see 32 bit as just not worth supporting anymore.

The upgrade advisor sees that you are running a 32 bit OS and knows that the Windows 10 upgrade must also be 32 bit. Thus the statement that the card is not compatible. 32 bit operating systems must use 32 bit drivers and a 64 bit OS 64 bit drivers.

You have 3 choices (in no particular order):
1. Stay with Windows 7.
2. Do a clean install of 64 bit Windows 10.
3. Buy a video card with 32 bit Windows 10 drivers.
 
#5 ·
I did find a 32-bit Win 10 driver for this card on the Nvidia website (released June 7 this year). Is it possible to upgrade to Win 10 using the default Win 10 drivers and then install the appropriate Nvidia driver? I have the same situation going on with another machine using Win 8.1 and an AMD Radeon card. I also have image backups to fall back on if the worst happens. I have been working with Nvidia on this also, but no joy yet.
 
#9 ·
Nividia said the error message was referring to my "display"; not the "display adapter". I created an upgrade CD using MS media creator and have successfully upgraded to Win 10 32-bit. The default Win 10 driver for my video card seems t work just fine. Thanks to all for your input.
 
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