Windows 10: Windows 10 Fresh Installs

Hoping that someone has worked this out. I manage over 100 laptops. We use W10 Home on the laptops because the laptops are not on the domain at HQ. When I have an out of warranty HDD failure, I want to swap the old HDD with an SSD and perform a fresh install of W10 on the SSD. I keep running into issues with the bios or windows licensing stopping me.

It's all honest, even willing to pay for a Windows licence if I have to...how is it done?

Thanks

:)

 

How is fresh installs of the windows 10 via upgrading being handled.

Will ISO media be provided for the final release?

Yes, you will be able to download ISO media for Windows 10 RTM.

Please note, you might have to download the appropriate edition of Windows 10 for the version/edition of Windows you are upgrading. If you upgrade to the wrong edition, ie. Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 10 Pro, you will have to purchase a license
for Windows 10 Pro or go back to Windows 7 Home Premium and upgrade to Windows
10 Home.

What
are the editions of Windows 10 available?

Resources: How
to: upgrade from previous versions of Windows using Windows 10 ISO file

Ref:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/wiki/insider_wintp-insider_install/frequently-asked-questions-windows-10/5c0b9368-a9e8-4238-b1e4-45f4b7ed2fb9



Also

How to: Upgrade to Windows 10 if you are on a slow or metered Internet connection?

Tips: Create backup media for future needs.

Microsoft recently noted the following options available:

With Windows 10, you can create your own recovery media and back up the pristine state of the operating system and preinstalled software. If things go wrong and you are unable to refresh or reset your device successfully, you
can boot the device using recovery media and reset to the prior pristine state.

Source:
http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/16/how-windows-10-achieves-its-compact-footprint/

Also, you can retrieve the .ESD file from the root of the drive in the C:\Recovery Image folder and create your own bootable copy which you can use for reinstallation purposes.

etc

 

How is fresh installs of the windows 10 via upgrading being handled.

Hypothetical Problem, looking for a realistic answer.

I have an older machine, say Windows 7 Pro upgrading to Windows 10.

It completes the reserved upgrade.

It upgrades to Windows 10 (when released).

The Free Upgrade Period is over.

Something occurs and the machine is formatted.

What happens?

Does one install Windows 7 Pro again, complete all the updates and it allows the machine to update to Windows 10?

OR

Is the machine stuck at Windows 7 Pro again?

Moved from Windows 7-Windows update

 

Windows licensing should not be stopping you. When you upgrade a computer from a properly activated Windows 7/8/8.1, a digital entitlement gets stored on Microsoft activation servers. The digital entitlement is matched to the unique hardware ID of that computer. Simply upgrading from a HDD to an SSD should not affect the unique hardware ID. When a fresh install of Windows 10 is done on that same computer the hardware ID is sent to Microsoft activation servers where it is matched to the digital entitlement stored there and retrieved, activating Windows 10.

Here is what I would suggest:
First make sure your computers are activated with a digital entitlement and have the generic Windows 10 Home product key. Running a 10586 build of Windows if you go to the activation screen under settings, updates and security, it will say activated with digital entitlement. Run showkey plus from this forum:
Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

Verify the Windows 10 product key is the generic key for Home:
YTMG3-N6DKC-DKB77-7M9GH-8HVX7

If your computers are activated with a digital entitlement and using the generic product key, then I would suggest putting that generic product key in a pid.txt file:
Windows Setup Edition Configuration and Product ID Files (EI.cfg and PID.txt)

[PID]
Value=YTMG3-N6DKC-DKB77-7M9GH-8HVX7

The pid.txt file gets saved in the sources directory of the Windows 10 install media. That will cause Windows 10 to install Windows 10 Home and not ask for a product key. It should then activate when connected to the internet by retrieving the previously stored digital entitlement.

Can't help with the bios issues.

 

Thanks for the knowledge. I've give that a shot!