Simply download Windows 10 and select the “Upgrade This PC Now” option and follow on-screen instructions to upgrade to Windows 10. Additionally, you can download and run Microsoft’s Windows 10 Update Assistant. This Update Assistant will automatically scan your computer and suggest the best version of Windows 10 that you should install on. This time, when it loads, you’ll see a drop-down menu where you can select the edition of the Windows 10 ISO you want to download. Select an edition, and then click “Confirm.” Select your preferred language and then click “Confirm.” Finally, click either the 32- or 64-bit to start the download.
One method of knowing if a downloaded program file is safe to install is to compare the file checksum (also called a hash) before running the executable.
If you belong to the category of users who tried to download Windows 10 ISO with the help of the Media Creation Tool, because you wanted to create a bootable USB drive for installing Windows 10 for example, then it's not improbable that the creation of the installation media after the download fails. Perhaps a power failure occurs at some point, and it's reasonable that you don't want to.
Verifying the checksum of a file helps ensure the file was not corrupted during download, or modified by a malicious third-party before you downloaded it. If it was infected with malware or other malicious software after the checksum was originally calculated, you will discover the change when you calculate the new checksum.
The checksum is a long string of numbers that looks like this:
This hexadecimal number is unique to the installer .exe file created by the author. If anyone has altered or tampered with the file that you downloaded, the checksum will be different on your computer.
![Windows Windows](/uploads/1/1/8/7/118758361/272052339.jpg)
Verifying Your Download Windows 10
NoteFor maximum system security, always verify the checksum of any software you download from the Internet, before you run it.
How to check the checksum of a file in Windows
Many utilities can verify the checksum of a file in Windows. Below are our favorite options, the Checksum Calculator, an easy to use and compare checksum utility and the FCIV command line utility from Microsoft.
Checksum calculator
The Checksum Calculator is a free file checksum calculation utility that supports the most commonly used file checksum algorithms, such as md5, crc32, and sha1. The Checksum Calculator can also batch process multiple files and is an easy to understand and use Windows program.
Downloading and installing the checksum calculator
- Download the Checksum Calculator.
- Run the executable, checksumcalculator_setup.exe.
- Follow the prompts to install the program.
Using the calculator
- Open the Checksum Calculator if not already opened after the install.
- Click the Browse next to the file box and browse to the file you want to check. In our example, we are checking the checksum of the windirstat1_1_2_setup.exe file.
- Select the type of Checksum you are calculating. By default, the Checksum is set to MD5, in our example below we've set the value to SHA1.
- Click the Calculate button.
- After clicking Calculate, a result is shown in the Result box. To compare the values with what's shown on the web page or documentation, copy and paste the checksum into the Compare box and click Verify. If both values match, you'll see a message box indicating that the values are the same.
Using the Microsoft FCIV utility
Unfortunately, no version of Microsoft Windows comes pre-installed with a checksum utility, but Microsoft has released a command line command perform a checksum. In our example, we'll be downloading, installing, and using the Microsoft FCIV (File Checksum Integrity Verifier) to check the WinDirStat installer file. WinDirStat is a great free utility for checking what files and folders are occupying space on your hard drive.
Downloading and installing Microsoft FCIV
- Download FCIV from Microsoft.
- Run the executable, Windows-KB841290-x86-ENU.exe.
- Click Yes to accept the license agreement.
- The installer asks where you would like to extract the files. It's convenient to have it in the same place as the WinDirStat installer, so we recommend you extract it to your Downloads folder. Click Browse, highlight Downloads, and click OK.
- Click OK to extract the files.
- Click OK to close the installer.
If you copy the fciv.exe file into your C:Windows directory, the command works from any directory or drive in the command prompt.
Using FCIV
- FCIV is a command-line utility, so you need to run it from the Windows command prompt. Open a new command prompt window now. In Windows 10, you can find it under Start menu → Windows System → Command Prompt. You can also open it from the Run box if you press Win+R (hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and press R), type cmd, and press Enter.
- Change to your Downloads directory or the directory containing fciv and the file you want to compare. At the command prompt, run:
- The checksums provided on the WinDirStat use the SHA1 algorithm, so we need to use the -sha1 option when we run FCIV. For example, to verify windirstat1_1_2_setup.exe, use this command:
![Windows 10 verifying your download link Windows 10 verifying your download link](/uploads/1/1/8/7/118758361/448260942.jpg)
FCIV will spend a few moments calculating, and then provide output like this:
The checksum is the long hexadecimal number on the last line:
That hexadecimal number is the SHA1 checksum for your file. Check to make sure it matches the checksum on the WinDirStat website:
- See our fciv command page for further information about this command and its syntax and options.
How to check the checksum of a file in Linux
In Linux, the checksum of a file can be checked using one of the following command line commands depending on the checksum the author used for comparison.
- The MD5 checksum is verified using the md5sum command.
- An SHA224 checksum is checked using the sha224sum command.
- An SHA256 checksum is shown using the sha256sum command.
- An SHA384 checksum is shown using the sha384sum command.
- An SHA512 checksum is verified using the sha512sum command.
Additional information
- See our checksum page for further information and related links.
Sometimes you need to check your network speed in Windows 10. The information buried a bit but you can get there in about three clicks. When you need to know the raw specs of your network connection, here’s how to do it. Microsoft seems to have moved this recently, sometime in 2018, so I’ve updated this for the current builds of Windows 10.
Depending on your network driver, it was sometimes easier to get this in previous versions of Windows. Sometimes all you had to do was hover over your network connection icon. But this method also works in Windows 7, even if you have a featureless network driver.
Check your wireless network speed in Windows 10
There are several ways to do this. That’s often the case with Windows. But this is the fastest, least roundabout way I’ve found so that’s the one I’ll tell you about.
Right-click the Wifi icon in your system tray next to the clock. It looks like a beam emitting toward the top of your screen off to the left a little bit. Select Open Network and Internet settings, then click Change Adapter Options. Double-click your wireless network interface. (On older versions of Windows 10, you would select Network and Sharing Center and click the blue text labeled Wireless Internet Connection.)
The connection speed is usually about the sixth line down. The line below that will tell you the signal strength. You can click Close when you’re finished.
Over time I’ve stumbled upon at least three other ways to get to this information, but many of them are confusing and hard to remember. I like this method because it only takes a few seconds and the hardest part to remember is to right-click the icon. In Windows 10, the advanced stuff usually seems to be a right-click away, rather than a left-click away.
Check your wired network speed in Windows 10
To be honest, I probably use this to test random network cables more than for anything else. Usually there’s printing on the cable to tell me if it’s CAT5e or CAT6, but not always. And, admittedly, sometimes a cable goes bad to the point where it won’t work for gigabit anymore, but still works fine at 100 meg.
Whatever your reason for wanting to do it, checking your wired network speed is much like checking wireless speed. Right-click on the wired networking icon in the system tray next to the clock. The icon is hard to describe but resembles a stylized RJ-45 plug like you’d find on the end of an Ethernet cable. Select Open Network and Internet settings, then click Change Adapter Options. Double-click your wired network interface. (On older versions of Windows 10, you would select Network and Sharing Center, then Click the blue text labeled Local Area Connection.)
The connection speed is usually about the fifth line down and will read something like 100 megabits or 1 gigabit. I hope you won’t be seeing 10-megabit speeds anymore in 2017, but I guess anything is possible. You can click Close when you’re finished.
Check from a command prompt
You can use the command wmic NIC where “NetEnabled=’true'” get “Name”,”Speed” to get your connection speed, and this command works for both wired and wireless connections.
For wireless connections, you can alternatively use the command netsh wlan show interfaces to display your transmit and receive rate and other details about your wireless connection.
If you find yourself using either of these very often, you can always save one or both of them as a batch file with the pause command at the end. Then save it someplace you can reach quickly and easily.
Check your network performance
Windows 10 Verifying Your Download Progress 0
What if you do need to check your actual network performance? There are utilities finding and measuring your network’s peak performance. But you can get an idea how your system is doing right now by bringing up Task Manager (the fastest way to do that is to hit Shift-Ctrl-Esc), then click on Performance, then click Ethernet or Wi-Fi, whichever you want to measure. Then you can watch your network performance over the last 60 seconds. Click Open Resource Monitor for a more detailed view that lasts longer and lets you see what processes are using your network. You can use this to watch the impact that streaming video or music or web browsing has on a large file copy, for example.
Further reading
Network problems aren’t necessarily harder to figure out in Windows 10, just different. If you’re having trouble connecting to a wireless network, here’s help on systems not meeting network requirements or Windows saying it can’t connect to this network.
Here’s some help if your gigabit Ethernet card is only connecting at 100 megs.
And finally, I hope you’ll also check out my guide on how to optimize Windows 10 for better performance.