Missing Upgrade Icon

Many of you have written concerned that you don’t have that little upgrade icon for Windows 10 in the lower right corner of your Windows PC.

So what’s going on? There could be several possibilities, so let’s run down the list.

It could be that your device doesn’t have the latest Windows updates. You need to have updated to Windows 8.1 and have all current updates. Windows 7 must have Windows 7 Service Pack 1 installed as well as the latest Microsoft updates.

For Windows 7 SP1:

KB3035583

KB2952664

For Windows 8.1 Update:

KB3035583

KB2976978

Try running both critical and optional updates and installing them. There’s a good chance you’ll see the icon then.

You’ll only see an upgrade option for Windows 7 Home and Pro and Windows 8 Home and Pro versions. If you’re running an Enterprise edition, there won’t be a free upgrade. Also, if you’re running Windows RT, there’s no upgrade.

Is your device part of a school or business network that’s managed by administrator? You’ll have to check with the IT administrator about upgrades.
If Microsoft thinks your PC might not be able to run Windows 10, you won’t see the get Windows 10 app before July 29. They’ll enable the app after that date.
There’s also a possibility that you aren’t running a genuine version of Windows. The upgrade will only apply to genuine Windows versions.

If none of the above apply to you, Microsoft does offer a fix, but it’s a complicated one that I’m going to copy verbatim from their support site. I do not suggest trying this unless you are very comfortable with technology and doing something like editing your registry.

1. Open Notepad
2. Copy the following text and paste it into Notepad:

REG QUERY “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\UpgradeExperienceIndicators” /v UpgEx | findstr UpgEx

if “%errorlevel%” == “0” GOTO RunGWX
reg add “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Appraiser” /v UtcOnetimeSend /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
schtasks /run /TN “\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser”
:CompatCheckRunning
schtasks /query /TN “\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser”
schtasks /query /TN “\Microsoft\Windows\Application Experience\Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser” | findstr Ready

if NOT “%errorlevel%” == “0” ping localhost >nul &goto :CompatCheckRunning

:RunGWX

schtasks /run /TN “\Microsoft\Windows\Setup\gwx\refreshgwxconfig”

1. Click File, and then Save As
2. In the File name box, change the file name to ReserveWin10.cmd
3. Then click the dropdown next to Save as type, and select All files (*.*)
4. Select the folder you would like to save the file to. For this example, let’s choose to save the file to the C:/Temp folder. Then click Save.
5. Open an elevated command prompt. (From the Start screen or Start menu, type Command Prompt in the search box, and then in the list of results, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as administrator.)
6. Finally, run the file from the location you saved to in Step 6. In this example, you would type the following in the Command Prompt window and hit Enter:C:/Temp/ReserveWin10.cmd

The Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser can take 10 – 30 minutes to run, during which the script will continuously provide status reports that it is running. Please be patient.

If the script is failing in an infinite loop, then you don’t have the necessary prerequisite Windows Updates.

Hopefully one of these will work for you.

How to Get Windows Media Player (WMP) 12 Taskbar Toolbar (Taskband) Back in Windows 7 and Later?

We know "Windows 7" comes with Windows Media Player 12 version which contains lots of new features and also the interface is a bit different from previous versions. But it doesn't provide taskbar toolbar aka mini toolbar which was one of the best thing in previous versions of Windows Media Player. Taskbar toolbar in WMP allows you to access the media player right from the Taskbar. You can minimize WMP window and can access it using the mini-toolbar which is displayed in Taskbar.
If you are also using Windows 7 and missing the good old Taskbar Toolbar aka Taskband in Windows Media Player 12 (WMP 12), here is something very interesting for you.
Today in this article, we are going to share a small and easy to use trick which will help you in bringing back the taskbar toolbar in WMP 12 as shown in following screenshot:

Here are the step-by-step instructions to enable WMP 12 Taskbar Toolbar in Windows 7:
1. Actually Taskbar Toolbar or Taskband is stored in a DLL file called "wmpband.dll" which is found in "Windows Media Player" directory present in "Program Files" folder. Microsoft removed this DLL file from WMP 12 folder, that's why the toolbar no longer exists in Windows 7.
You can copy this DLL file from WMP 11 folder present in Windows Vista to Windows 7. If you don't have access to a Vista system, you can directly download it from following link:

Download

2. Once you download the above ZIP file, extract it and you'll get the required DLL file for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions.
For 32-bit (x86) users:
Copy the wmpband.dll file present in "32-bit or x86" folder and paste it to "Windows Media Player" directory present in "Program Files" folder. Just type %programfiles%\Windows Media Player in Explorer addressbar and press enter and it'll open the "Windows Media Player" directory.

For 64-bit (x64) users:
Copy the wmpband.dll file present in "64-bit or x64" folder and paste it to "Windows Media Player" directory present in "Program Files" folder. Just type %programfiles%\Windows Media Player in Explorer addressbar and press enter and it'll open the "Windows Media Player" directory. You'll also need to copy the same DLL file to %programfiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player folder.
3. Now right-click on Computer icon on desktop and select Manage, it'll open a new window. Now go to Services & Applications -> Services. You can also open the same from Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Or you can directly open "Services" list by providing services.msc command in RUN or Start Menu search box.
Now right-click on "Windows Media Player Network Sharing" service and select "Stop". It'll stop the service.

 

4. Now you'll need to register "WMPBand.dll" file.
First open Command Prompt as administrator using the steps given here. Now type following commands one by one and press Enter:

regsvr32 "%programfiles%\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll"
regsvr32 "%programfiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmpband.dll"

5. Start "Windows Media Player Network Sharing" service again using Services Manager.
6. That's it. Now run Windows Media Player and minimize it. Now right-click on Taskbar and select "Toolbars -> Windows Media Player" option and ready.