Windows 10: Clean Install of a free upgrade of win 10

Hi,

I'd like to do a clean install of my win10.
But it's a free upgrade version.

I can't find a step by step guide to do it.
Only guides for fresh installs of a regular win10 version.
I'm afraid to do something wrong and lose the right to use this licence.

Thank you

:)

 

Clean Install Workaround for Vista

You may remember this news story on techPowerUp! a couple of days ago relating to the lack of clean installs when using the Upgrade Editions of Vista, which required an old OS to be installed. However, Paul Thurrott has managed to find a workaround for this issue, which ironically lets users do a clean install Vista without any previous version of Windows, albeit a little tedious. Here are the steps:

• Boot from the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD as normal
• When prompted for a product code, leave this blank
• Select the version of Vista you have purchased and let Vista install
• When you boot to your desktop for the first time, run the Vista setup from Windows
• This time enter your product key
• When asked whether you want to do an Upgrade of Custom install, select custom and choose a clean install
• Windows will now install for a second time and you should be able to activate it

Remember, these steps are only advised for use in order to achieve a clean install of Vista, it is only legal to use the upgrade editions if you have previously purchased the appropriate version of Windows.

Source: DailyTech

 

Win 10 clean install question

Hello everyone,

my brother in law has bought a new computer yesterday still with win 8.1 on it, which he'll be upgrading to windows 10. I'm guessing non pro edition. So far I've determined that if you want to do a clean install after the upgrade you don't use an updated productkey, rather microsoft registers somehow your hardware id and auto activates.

Now here's my worry, the computer isn't coming with an ssd, and I'm building that in tommorow, and I want to do the clean install on the ssd understandably.
My question is, will this alter the hardware ID in such a way that Win 10 won't activate anymore. I know there's a 30 day grace period to fix things, but I'd rather get everything right straight away.
I'm also wondering if I can just format the former system drive after win 10 has been activated on the SSD or if this will screw up some activation logging file or whatever other important stuff they've somehow left on the older installation.

If it doesnt activate it would mean I'd have to get into contact with microsofts help desk, which I reckon will be extremely hard to reach anyways, and my experience with them hasn't been great sofar.


Thanks in advance for any light shed on the matter. I'm sure more people are debating a form of this conundrum.

 

Win 10 clean install question

So I spend the day yesterday installing the computer, using a prepared usb key with windows 10 on it.

I got it all sorted in the end but I'll share my fails anyways so others might learn:

Do not try to do a clean install win with win 10 home N, when you come from a machine with just win 10 home. It won't activate *Wink After reinstalling with the right copy, it was already activated right away after the first boot, didn't even have to initialise it.

There hasn't changed a whole lot in making clean install compared to older versions of windows, it's slightly better streamlined, though being asked at 3 different stages to enter a product key when it's not needed during install seems a bit annoying.

Further more it would be lovely if Microsoft finally learned to ask ALL questions regarding preferences updates and whatnot in one go, so you can then go away from your computer and come back to a fully installed/updated system including reboots.. Not impossible I would say.


There's still some little bugs, like when I installed realtek audio drivers, they'd go into an infinite loop asking for reboot and install the driver. And as a PDF reader isn't in the list of standard programs to select, foxitreader keeps saying it is not the default reader for pdf's even though I had said yes to the question 3x. If this fails to get file associations for PDF's I do hope Microsoft will fix this asap.


Thanks for the fast answers earlier guys, it gave me the confidence that all would be well, even when I cocked up the first install with the N version.