Windows 10: Clean WIn 10 Pro Install

Got a new dell with Win 10 Pro. I am putting in a new SSD and want to do a clean install.

Is this the correct MS download?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

It downloads the media creation tool. Then options are Win 10, Win 10 Home, and Win 10 N. I assume Win 10 is the pro version. I just want to make sure.

If it is not the correct tool, where do I find that?

thanks,

:)

 

Windows 10 clean install will not activate

Hi Don,

Thanks for the reply. I have upgraded from my original Win 7 Pro OEM version to Windows 10 Pro and it successfully activated within Win 10 Pro. I then created a Win 10 Pro USB boot disk from the media creation tool within the newly activated Win 10 Pro environment.
After performing the clean install with the Win 10 Pro USB stick and booting from it I performed a clean install and skipped entering product keys until the end -- still no activation. After attempting to correct my corrupted files with a scan (which did not
help) I performed another clean install -- still no activation. I ended up reinstalling my Win 7 Pro OEM that came with my Dell Vostro 3550 and re-updated my system with the latest Win 7 updates until the Get Windows 10 application appeared. I then simply
upgraded to Windows 10 Pro and now I am activated. Since I upgraded from a clean Windows 7 (with latest updates) to Windows 10, I am leaving it as an upgrade (with no clean install) as this current Win 10 Pro installation is as fast
as a clean install (unlike after the initial upgrade which was very sluggish). Hope this helps.

I am afraid to do a clean install. I think I shall do it at a later stage when things are not so crazy with the activation servers. Would be great to hear if people have performed a clean install (as in my case) and successfully got activated as Microsoft
indicates would happen.

 

Upgrade to Windows 10 Home Single Language, version 1511, 10586 keeps failing

Thank you for the reply. As I said I can do a clean install of Win 10 pro, what I, or Windows update, can't do is install pro or home without doing a clean install. I get this "You can't keep Windows settings, ..., because you're installing an edition of
Windows that's different...". I looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and do a clean install.

BTW my PC had Win 8.1 pro and Windows updated it to Win 10 pro.

 

You want just the plain Windows 10. It will contain both the Home and Pro versions and will either install the version it finds a product key for in Bios or will ask you which version you want to install.

 

I setup the media and did a clean install; however, it appears it does not install any drivers to include network drivers (neither hard or wifi). Is this normal? This is a new Dell precision 7710.

Previously, I would install the network and most other drivers.

This one with no network driver installed, it sets up a regular account and not an ms account.

Any ideas, or do I now need to manually install the network driver?

 

Need to manually install the network adapter driver. Do you still have the old hard drive? You can boot the computer from that. Make a folder called DriversW10 (or whatever you want). From an elevated ("run as administrator") command prompt run:

DISM.exe /online /Export-Driver /Destination:C:\DriversW10

That will export all the drivers that are not included by default with Windows 10 and you can manually upgrade drivers for any "unknown devices" in Device manager by simply pointing the "browse my computer" to the DriversW10 folder on the old hard drive (you can also create the folder on an external drive/flash drive).

 

i wound up installing the one network driver once in windows and then windows update started its thing. Still surprised it did not have the driver. I tired this on a dell M6800 a few weeks ago. Same scenario and it installed the network driver on its own.

 

It depends upon which network adapter is in the computer. Might also want to look at the display adapter in device manager and make sure it is not Microsoft Basic Display Adapter.