Windows 10: Upgrading Win 7 to Win 10 Versus Clean Install

I am running windows 7 and downloaded the free windows 10 upgrade back when Microsoft offered it and stored it on my drive. I installed it, registered, then reverted to 7.

Now as I understand it, this install file is an upgrade version to be put on over windows 7. But what happens when I do that, and someday will need to get a new hard drive and a clean install - how would I be able to clean install with an upgrade copy of windows 10?

:)

 

Clean install with Win 10 Upgrade

Wow, talk about a hassle just to have a dual boot clean install of Win 7/8 along with Win 10.

Using the steps you mentioned, I'd have to do the following:

1) Get my old HD that I have and connect it to the PC.

2) Clone my current HDD to the old drive to back up everything, then disconnect the back up.

3) Do the upgrade to Windows 10 within Win 7.

4) At some point make the ISO DVD.

5) Reconnect the backup drive and clone from it back to my work HDD. That way everything is restored the why it was.

6) Now at this point I *should* be able to do a clean install dual boot of Win 10.

Is MS going to pay me for all the time with this take???

As a beta tester since Win 95, I find this process insane. MS use to send a complementary install disc to all the testers, and later with Win 7 you could just download the ISO and make a disc, but they were all full versions that allowed you to do a clean
install from the beginning...no upgrade required.

 

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 Upgrade as a Clean Install?

I registered today for the Win 10 Upgrade, but when the time comes to install it, I don't want to have to install it over-top of Win 7, but have it on its own partition as a Clean Install.
I currently have my HDD divided into separate partitions: Win XP, Win Vista, Win 7 Ultimate, and Win 10 Build 10130 Preview.
Even though I use Win 7 90% of the time, I have it setup like this because I have certain programs and phone programming drivers that will only run properly with XP, Vista, or Win 7.
Hopefully with the free upgrade, we can do a clean install on another partition without having to buy the OEM Disc.