Windows 10: Complex Question: Potential Loss of Profile Win 7 to 10 Clean Install

If this is not the appropriate place to post this question, please forgive me and tell me where else it might be better suited.

I have two PCs for which I prepared a Win 7 image using Sysprep to move the users folder to another physical drive.

At the time, my Win 7 OS was placed on an SSD which I had partitioned into C: for the OS and D: for virtual machines.

So, it was for this reason that my data drive, a HDD, with the users folder would be volume label E:

I would separately back up the SSD and the HDD using Acronis.....so far so good.

On several occasions I had to restore the OS....no problem.

Not using the virtual machines, I decided (foolish me,) to delete the D: partition on the SSD.

When my wife's PC had problems I tried to do a restore of the OS only to find no matter how I reassigned the letters using diskpart in the Win PE environment.....I could not get into windows because the user profile was lost....why? ....because Windows decided that it was really pissed off at me for deleting the D: partition and no matter how I tried with diskpart....Windows said....well you get the idea.

However, I figured out what to do....I simply created a small D partition on the SSD and Windows 7 decided to play nice.

As everyone knows, my love affair with Windows 7 must come to an end shortly. I plan to create a new image with Win 10....which brings me to the following question.

I want to get rid of the D: partition on the SSD.

First Question: If I do that and leave the E: data drive as E: will Windows 10 with a clean install and sysprep script for E: find the drive....or
alternatively, can I assign the letter D: to my data drive and when I run Sysprep with a script for D:.....will that work.

Second Question: Somehow, I do not think this will work. I just picked up a Dell Laptop Lattitude....brand new and did a clean install (which was quite a problem.....see other post...,.Dell Latitude Clean Install Problem. It would be nice if I could use the backup image I created for the laptop and try to use universal restore to deploy it to the other PCs....any thoughts (It has only one SSD partitioned to C: OS and D: users?)

:)

 

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.

 

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.

 

Clean Install Win 10

Where to begin? The computer is a fully compatible, legally installed Win7/64 machine. Some people can't just run out and replace a machine because of a few file errors. There are no annoying nags to upgrade. Why stay with Win 7 when Win 10 is clearly
superior and might not be free for much longer?

As noted "Having tried unsuccessfully to upgrade due to Windows Update errors that nobody has been able to fix it"

is the reason for the new HDD and hopefully a clean install.

In place upgrade (tried many times) always runs and dies at 98% so that route is a dead horse.

All that being said thanks for the info that the original activation key will allow a clean install. All I needed to know.

Question

• 
  
  

Applies to

• Windows
• Windows 10
• Download, install, & activate
• PC

9 views Clean Install Win 10


JC

asked on

Question

• 
  
  

Applies to

• Windows
• Windows 10
• Download, install, & activate
• PC

9 views Clean Install Win 10


JC

asked on

Having tried unsuccessfully to upgrade due to Windows Update errors that nobody has been able to fix it"