Windows 10: clean reinstallation on OEM machine and possible upgrade

Hi

I may have to get a new laptop (see other thread in General...).

When I buy a laptop with an OEM (home) version of windows 10 can I do a clean reinstall by using the media creatiom tool/iso route using the OEM key?

Can the OEM Home version of Windows 10 be upgraded to Pro?

In which order should these operations be performed?

Thanks again in advance for any help.

:)

 

Windows 10 (upgraded from windows 7) to New machine

What if I no longer want to use the machine the OEM copy of Windows came with? My OEM machine has been upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 through the Microsoft free upgrade process. Presumably this remains a legally licensed product. Shouldn't I then
be able to transfer the upgraded Windows 10 license from the original machine to the my new machine? If so, what is the process to perform the transfer?

 

Possible to sysprep an upgraded Windows 10 image, on an OEM machine?

Previously, I have been able to install the OEM build of Windows 8.1 on an OEM system (in this case a Lenovo laptop) and then sysprep and capture the image in order to use it as a base image for deployment on other similarly licensed OEM laptops in my enterprise
environment.

However, if I perform an upgrade to Windows 10, sysprep the machine, and then capture and try to redeploy the image to another machine in a clean zero-state (or even the same machine), the post-deploy process prompts me to enter the license key for Windows
10, rather than reading the system motherboard to identify that the system is a qualifying OEM upgradable to Windows 10 system.

So is it possible to perform a sysprep of an upgraded Windows 10 system, or do I need to have new base install media from the OEM that contains a valid activation key?

 

Yes, you can clean install. The license should already be active and registered automatically with MS and so you have nothing to do when clean installing, its all taken care of.

The official upgrade route is here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ng-home-to-pro

I would imagine that once your PC is running Pro and activated that you can then clean install again at any time.

 

Windows 10 Home-to-Pro upgrade isn't cheap if I remember rightly - if you were buying a new laptop it might be better to look for one with Pro already installed. Is there a particular reason you wanted Pro?

 

The only reason would be bitlocker. But not sure that would have made the problem I am having now any less likely or any easier to solve.

Graphics driver failure followed by unbootable system

 

Some Windows 10 Home machines come with 'Device Encryption' which is a cut-down version of Bitlocker. The hardware has to meet certain requirements (such as booting from a non-rotational disk) - basically I think it's intended for tablets and laptops which might get stolen. But you're talking about a reasonably high-spec laptop, or a tablet to get that.

I saw your other thread - I don't know the answer I'm afraid, although my first step would definitely be to de-crypt the disk if possible (is there a command line in option Truecrypt you could use?). Bitlocker has more chance of working than Truecrypt, although there was an update a couple of months back which broke my graphics driver so I had to type in the Bitlocker password 'blind' until I got it sorted. I gave up on Truecrypt when they didn't support Windows 8.