You should only D/L from Microsoft site! Yep, I've done it and having no problems (knock wood). You can upgrade, and if you don't like it, you can return to your Win 7 or 8 within 30 days. Just do a restore. Software programs that are not recognized will need updated drivers--go to the manufacturer site. I had uninstalled most of my old software programs for embroidery, but found I'd left behind a couple--the upgrade did the driver updates for me. I do have some programs that were made for 32bit processor, and they did not work in the Win 7 anyway because it's 64bit. I bought a rebuilt Win 7 with 32bit just for my embroidery programs. I only went to 10 because I feared support would be discontinued for 7 & 8.