After half a year of trouble-shooting occasional audio stutters and crashes with my upgraded Windows 10 64bit 1607 from Win7 (with support advice for fixes from AMD blaming RME/Freslogic, and Steinberg) I threw in the towel.

Got fed up with checking drives for errors, memory hardware testing, even cleaning the PC from dust, especially the memory chip slots with cleaning alcohol to boot,all sorts of driver updates & testing, even buying a new SSD and a Freslogic 4x controller USB 3.0 card. All thanks advice from RME, Steinberg and other experts.

PS: A lot of gamer sites were blaming AMD, NVDIA and Windows updates, this all due some freaky windows update I think happened end of last year on my system.

So I now downloaded a Fall Creators ISO, as some of you fellow forum supporters had no problems with it, and installed it fresh .... 1 full day of work and still a lot of plugs and softs to reinstall .... seems running quite stable so far.
PS i took out a lot of privacy related MS sh*t out with Win10Privacy, OOSU10, and DisableWinTracking.exe .... By what a drag to block edge from hijacking my Foxit PDF reader settings, and Firefox as main browser ....

TIP Don't buy this recommended expensive EaseUS Todo PCTrans, it sucks, and screwed up in the process probably due my mistakes since it is probably too complicated for a one time user like me. Just backup the needed necessary drivers, INF folders, user folders and do it all manually .....

Funny sideline: I bough 2 legit Windows 10 Pro licenses off Ebay two years ago ... they wouldn't be accepted anymore by my former 'upgraded' Windows 1607, but only after a while. And behold, this current fall creators version does LoL - beats me.

Only problem i found sofar that this Windows version needs 20 seconds more to shut down .... maybe anyone has a tip? - F

I'm glad to read that it worked out for you.

You're a brave man!

Good luck!
Noel

I initially upgraded my Windows 7 machine using the in-place upgrade process to Windows 10 (to get the free upgrade). However, once you do that and register with Microsoft, you are free to re-install with the Win10 media, as Microsoft knows your machine now.

I had some issues with the upgraded system, so once I did the full re-install, found all the right drivers, and got it working, I've had very few problems. One of the big problems the re-install solved was getting Kontakt to work properly.

This morning I took the plunge and installed the Windows 10 1803 Spring Update. So far no problems. BIAB and other audio apps all seem happy.

It can be a bit complicated, especially for a one-time user like yourself. But it sounds like you did a great job backing up your necessary drivers and folders manually.
Regarding the slow shutdown, have you tried updating your drivers or checking for any programs running in the background that could be causing the issue? Or check up alternatives at reddit windows keys legit. It could be worth checking out.

Time to do a full drive backup Fiddler with Macrium Reflect Free.I see you only mentioned drivers, or did you mean drives?