Windows 10: Can I run the Windows 10 tech preview after the end date?

As you are at such an early stage of installation, if you do want to be rid of the reserved partition when reinstalling Windows 10, you can do it at the early part of the procedure by selecting the "customised" option and removing it there. You will, of course, then lose the recovery procedure, but this is more easily accomplished by using one of the image programs - for example, as Mike Hawthorne suggests in his post.

 

Hello, this my first post,though I have been viewing this forum for ages.
I did not know this,and I find it hard to believe that an important part of an official statement was accidentally left out.
I am running 10 TP on 2 8.1 machines and 2 XP machines.
Installing it obliterated the OS's and I would be annoyed to be left high and dry after the RTM is released.

 

You can't blame Microsoft for that... They gave many many warnings to back up your existing OS, and that you shouldn't run it on a production machine. If you went ahead and did it anyways, and didn't back it up.. that's on you.

 

Is this confirmed? Does this mean you can't claim a W10 license using a valid W7/8/8.1 license that isn't installed? Considering ISOs will be available it would make sense if this is a viable option.

 

As with anything from MS concerning upgrade/update/get free 10, nothing is ever really confirmed until it happens. Here is the best picture so far. It appears that if you want to keep all your apps/progs without reinstalling everything, you can. Or, get the ISO, whenever that would be available. But I would guess to get the ISO you would need to be on a valid system, just like being on 8.1 to get the ISO.
Windows 10 Upgrade Path and Process

 

Hi

I'd just ad that I'd still make the partition at least 100 Gigabytes, my Windows 10 install is 63 Gigabytes and I don't have any of my third party software installed on my C:\ partition.

When it upgrades to a new version it can run into problems because it copies the Windows Old files to the C:\ drive which adds another 30 Gigabytes or so.

I've seen messages from people who had the upgrade fail because they didn't have enough free space.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm pretty sure that I will have to reinstall Windows 8 at some point to upgrade to the final version.

Mike

 

Wow.. that's a lot. I have a clean install of 10049 and I don't use anywhere near that amount of storage.
Mine:

 

Hi

I've even gone through it removing things to keep it this small.
And I have all my software installed on D:\.





Part of the problem depends on what you are running I have things that just default to saving data in C:\Users with no option to move it elsewhere, i.e. game saves etc.

My Pagefile has been moved to another drive as well.

But having an extra 30 Gigabytes isn't going to cause any problems.
My C:\ drive is almost full at the end of a version update, before I remove the Windows.old files.

Mike

PS. I got curious as to where the space is being used.
My Users, Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders only total 10 Gigabytes.
But my Windows folder alone totals 29.1 Gigabytes.





I originally did a clean install of the first version and have been updating it since.
I guess it may be time for a new clean install for the next version.

 

Using Tree Size, sorted by size..... All my apps included, cleanmgr hs been run. I think this is fairly typical, unless you've got a bunch of images/vids. Running 10049.

 

I've seen the upgrade path, that's why I'm hoping for the chance to perform a clean install with an ISO using just a valid license. When you said 'you MUST have a valid Windows 7 running at the time of the free upgrade' I presumed you had read information that meant just that.

 

I have never seen a requirement that the OS had to be running on a PC. Just that you needed a key to get the free version of Win10. My understanding is that MS wants to convert as many old OS licenses to the new one, Win10.

 

Thats why I asked Jeff, I hadn't seen anything to the contrary so wondered if I was missing something.

 

I don't think you are.. All I think MS wants is the key and you get the new OS. I could be wrong.. but that's what I understand so far.

 

Here is the info for free media center on windows 8 that came with the key.

 

This is how I think a clean install of Windows 10 is going to work. If you have a newer computer Windows 10 will find the key in the bios and when finished installing it will be activated. If it's a older computer you'll have to type in the key from a qualifying OS. I remember when you could do a clean install from a upgrade disc just by putting the disc from the old OS in the drive. If I remember correctly Windows would look for a certain folder or file and if found you were good to go. I also think all you needed was the folder or file on a disc and it would work. I don't think you can do that now.