How to clean-install a Windows 10 upgrade

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	TOP STORY How to clean-install a Windows 10 upgrade
	By Fred Langa The current, free, Win10 upgrade is meant to convert an existing Win7 or Win8 setup to Win10, while retaining the user files and as much of the existing settings, software, and customizations as possible. But if you know how, you also can use the upgrade to give your PC a totally fresh, from-scratch start; you’ll get a clean install that can’t carry over any potential problems from your current setup — no errors, no misconfigurations, and no junk.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/how-to-clean-install-a-windows-10-upgrade (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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I had a system built for Win 10 last winter – my old system was 5 years old and slowing down (I later learned that it won’t upgrade to Win 10, graphics driver issue that Nvidia no longer updates) I didn’t want a Win 8 or 8.1 system which was all you could get in stores, so I had HP build a machine that I customized with Win 7 Pro. After a few months that system began randomly rebooting – I posted here about that, worked with HP for more than a month, sent the machine back and had a defective motherboard replaced. But SFC showed a corrupt system file, iesysprep.dll, I had to reinstall the operating system 5 times, twice from separate OEM recovery disks. In researching this issue, I found that it only happens with the “pro” version of Windows and found discussions about it going back to 2010 and Vista. Microsoft knew about it, but couldn’t help, HP knew about it – there was a discussion going on WHILE they were building my machine about it. I did get one BSOD while installing, but even then a reboot brought the system up and everything worked, including IE though I don’t use that as my main browser. Every time SFC showed that one corrupt file. I hoped that the Win 10 upgrade would fix that by replacing the system files, unfortunately, the upgrade didn’t, still showed the corrupt file. But, after I burned an .iso to disk and booted up from the drive, a clean, lean installation, I finally got what I wanted in the first place, that corrupt file gone. Windows did a great job of activating, I tried to manually enter the product key from the upgrade but it wouldn’t let me, so I skipped that step and found when the install finished that it had activated itself in the process. It was worth it to get a clean installation of the new operating system, which I actually like a lot. There were some quirks – it turns out that my free firewall, Comodo Dragon, though it said it was optimized for Win 10 was not and I found a lot of people with the same issue, I dumped that and chose another firewall and the errors stopped immediately, it is nice to look at the event viewer and see no problems! :^)

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In the “The fast, easy, Reset clean-install method” is there any reason not to choose the option “Keep my files”?

Also, does it really keep all my files including stuff in folders like c:FTM?

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With the relatively frequent release of “New Builds” of Windows 10, I suspect it would be wise to create a new Windows Installation DVD or Windows USB flash Installation file from the WMCT after each new build …or am I wrong?

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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I did a bare-metal install of Win7, activated it, and then upgraded to Win10 with the “keep nothing” option.

How much cleaner is the bare-metal install of Win10 than that?

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I did a bare-metal install of Win7, activated it, and then upgraded to Win10 with the “keep nothing” option.

How much cleaner is the bare-metal install of Win10 than that?

I tried that first too, but found that just the upgrade alone, though I told it to keep nothing, did keep some things anyway, when I installed FireFox my bookmarks were there and, of course, that corrupt system file. What else it kept I’m not sure, but when I did the installation from the .iso disk, I had nothing left, when I installed FireFox, I had to recover my bookmarks, etc., from the backup I’d done. What I liked about the clean install is no bloatware as one will surely get if one purchases a new machine with Win 10 OEM on it from Best Buy or Dell or wherever. I liked that part. :^)

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I can make the needed DVD. But the computer (running Win 10 Home on an originally 8.1 computer less than 6 months old) will not boot from the DVD. I tried the get-arounds provided in the article . Telling the computer to use the DVD drive and restart did not work either.

The DVD with the Win 10 iso burned on it works if I run setup.exe on the DVD.

My question is this: Can I run a clean install of Win 10 from the DVD from within my present Win 10 computer without rebooting? This sounds so simple that I am concerned that it won’t work or surely the experts like Fred would have already suggested it. Does the installation process need to reboot the computer using the DVD during the process? If so that could be the thing that voids my simple scenario. Comments wanted, with thanks to all.

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I have followed the above instructions for the media creation tool the past six weeks without success. When I try to download windows 10 onto a USB or DVD from the media creation tool, I get the download to 100%, but when it tries to verify the download I then receive a “Something happened error.” This has happened on both by desktop PC and my laptop. Does anyone know how to fix this?

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Hi Fred, what a timely and useful column! As we say in West Texas, I’m rasslin’ with a clean install of Win10 right now. I am converting from Win7x32 to Win10x64 and want to upgrade from using BIOS/MBR to UEFI/GPT. My hardware supports UEFI/GPT but I’ll be darned if I can figure out which BIOS settings to change to switch to UEFI, and boot from the USB flash drive into the UEFI environment for installation. I’ve changed the obvious settings (“legacy boot” to “UEFI” and “change boot sequence to USB first”) and studied your article “How to solve UEFI boot and startup problems” but your BIOS differs from mine and my manufacturer does not supply detailed instructions on which settings to change. Attempting to boot from the flash drive always returns the message “Invalid partition table.” This message seems absurd because I created the flash drive with the media creation tool. Suggestions?

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Hi Fred, what a timely and useful column! As we say in West Texas, I’m rasslin’ with a clean install of Win10 right now. I am converting from Win7x32 to Win10x64 and want to upgrade from using BIOS/MBR to UEFI/GPT. My hardware supports UEFI/GPT but I’ll be darned if I can figure out which BIOS settings to change to switch to UEFI, and boot from the USB flash drive into the UEFI environment for installation. I’ve changed the obvious settings (“legacy boot” to “UEFI” and “change boot sequence to USB first”) and studied your article “How to solve UEFI boot and startup problems” but your BIOS differs from mine and my manufacturer does not supply detailed instructions on which settings to change. Attempting to boot from the flash drive always returns the message “Invalid partition table.” This message seems absurd because I created the flash drive with the media creation tool. Suggestions?

I am not sure if the Media creation tool always makes a UEFI bootable Flash drive. If is not UEFI bootable and you have set your firmware to only boot UEFI that would explain it. You could try to boot in bios mode to check.

Update to above, W10 USB should be UEFI bootable I am still not sure about a W7 one.

If you give us your mother board model we can perhaps help with settings.

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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For safety’s sake, first make note of your Win10 product key. It’s easy to find using free tools such as NirSoft’s Produkey (site) or the hideously named Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder (site).

Warning: As with all “free” apps, select Custom Installation when the setup program offers it; then deselect any unrelated or tag-along software or toolbars that you don’t want installed.

Still pointless:

There is no need to know your Windows 10 product key, read the following ‘Understanding Product Activation in Windows 10:
How to Activate and resolve common Product key issues in Windows 10

(Especially since all Windows 10 Home/Pro upgrade keys are generic/identical.)

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I upgraded my HP Pavilion laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I would like to add a SSD & put Windows 10 on it for increased speed. Will I run into problems activating Windows 10 since my original hardware configuration will have changed?

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I upgraded my HP Pavilion laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I would like to add a SSD & put Windows 10 on it for increased speed. Will I run into problems activating Windows 10 since my original hardware configuration will have changed?

The general consensus is that only a motherboard replacement is likely to trigger the necessity of a phone activation:

What if something changes with your hardware?
If it’s something major like a motherboard replacement, its hardware ID will no longer be the same. … If you do this yourself, you will need to phone activate.
Windows 10 Tip: Associate Your PC with Your Free Windows 10 License

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For several weeks I’ve had system freezing and lockups. After doing a RESET-KEEP MY FILES the issue continued. (BTW a poster above asked if this option keeps stuff outside the User’s folder. I had two folders in C: but they were removed.) Today I had some time, so tried to trace it. Chkdsk stopped at 13% and sat there for five hours. Testdisk reported no partition – even on a deep scan, and so couldn’t repair or rewrite the partition. On another PC, the procedure above – to create a boot dvd – worked : at least until until I tried it to boot the PC. – No boot – nothing! Nada! File Explorer showed an empty dvd. Tried again with another dvd from a second system with the same result.

Used a XP Home OEM cd to delete and recreate the partition and then deep-formatted the drive. No errors now, but how to get Win 10 back.

Fortunately had a usb drive with build 10162, so booted and installed that. What a rigmarole, but during the process 10162 was upgraded to 10240 with all updates and no trouble with activation. I’ve got my Pro, permanently-activated pristine copy, back.

Perhaps the trouble was due to my disk/partition errors. Who knows.

One thing, though. This process is NOT for the faint-hearted.

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I had customized my Windows 7 so much that the Windows 10 upgrade forced me to do a clean-install.

I had changed my “ProgramFies” directory to “E:apps”. And my APPDATA directory to “D:_CUserscecilAppDataRoaming”. And “TEMP” to W:TEMP7″. And a few other things. I prefer a minimum on the C drive.

The upgrade to Windows 10 gave one choice not grayed out: Clean install. I went ahead and it erased the “E:apps” directory. Thank you.

Anyway, my video card drivers did not work with Windows 10. I did not notice any “Revert to Windows 7” button. So I used drive images to restore Windows 7 after 3 days. I just hope my Windows 7 license is still healthy. :confused:

cecil

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My clean install of Win10 went great. I did it a few days ago but your article is real good, nonetheless. I have an HP ENVY 17 laptop that came with a 1 TB HDD and 16 GB Ram running Win8.1. Already upgraded to Win10 via the normal route. Good thing about 17″ Laptops is they usually have room for a 2nd hard drive. Found a SSD online, 250 GB for $90 to fill the void. (and another $30 for the mounting hardware.) After a few tries my new SSD was up and running as K: or some such. At first I wanted to copy my old setup, but in the end decided to go for a fresh install on the new SSD. So after rebooting on my USB drive with the ISO from M$, I was able to select the partition to install on and things went smooth and fast. When asked for the Product Key, I chose the skip-till-later option twice and have not been asked for it since. After rebooting, the OS Boot Manager came up and asked which partition I wanted to boot from, I chose the new one and completed setting up my software. It was great, all the drives living and working together in harmony, all my files available for copying to the new drive, as I chose, Most of my media, safe and sound on a seperate partition of it’s own on the TB HDD. I then rebooted and chose the old Win10 partition to boot from and went through it looking for stuff I forgot. Couldn’t find recent installs for a few things so downloaded them to the new drive directly, but didn’t run them of course. Once satisfied I had everything I needed, I rebooted into the new install and deleted the old Win10 partition and created a new one in it’s place. The boot manager no longer comes up, and the lock screen appears so fast it scared me. I had to re-add my fingerprint to login but did not have to load the Mfg’s fingerprint reader software. Everything is running like a champ so I have no complaints.

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Very interesting piece, but what do you do if you cannot get to 1st base, ie install Windows 10?

I’m struggling with a “Bricked” PC that would not upgrade, or wind back

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I produced a high quality 3 Gig bootable Windows 10 iso file with its own product key just like you would purchase at the MS store. This is why we subscribe to Windows Secrets. Very pleased.

Thanks Fred!

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Next, you guys need to do: How to roll-back to Windows 7/8/8.1 after Windows 10, then: How to do a clean install of any OS after Windows 10 *****, then: How to get FREE THERAPY after Windows 10 Experience

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Have you run the Disk cleanup tool or deleted any any system files by hand? Has it been more than a month since your Windows 10 upgrade? Windows 10 often deletes old files (like C:Windows.old) after 4 -5 weeks to make free space. This will complicate reverting back to the previous version.

It’s also possible to go to Microsoft Recovery : “https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/home” and get your old version there. You will have to have your old product key. There might be a way to use one of those product key recovery tools to find your Windows 7/8/8.1 Serial number.

You can get a free download of Win 8.1 Windows Installation Media Creation Tool: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media — you might have to call Microsoft for phone activation.

Windows 7 resources here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

**** **** **** ****

To revert to an earlier install or repair your OS.

open the Start menu.

select: Settings

you will see: Update & security

select: Recovery

You should see:

– “go back to Windows 7” (or Win8 or Win8.1, Microsoft will ask you why you want to go back)

– “Reset this PC” (if your PC isn’t doing well this might help)

Click the Get started button and select one of these.

**** **** **** ****

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I was being facetious, dude. I know more about Microsoft Windows than any human being should have to.

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@ wavy

Thanks for your offer to help. Here’s a cellphone snap of my BIOS screen showing the option to switch between “legacy” and UEFI boot. I’ve got a Dell Latitude E5430 notebook. The BIOS screen does not provide any information on the mobo, nor does the Dell support website address my issue. I’ve also tried creating a bootable flash drive from the Win10 ISO with Rufus set for ‘GPT Partition Scheme for UEFI’ without success. Will appreciate any suggestions.

42053-bios_zps6c8fv1cg

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Before you do this, I would make sure I could get all of the drivers and stuff for chipset and modem and a few other things. I show that manuals/drivers for a lattitude E5430 are here: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-e5430/drivers

*You MUST back up anything that you want to keep on that Hard disk before you do this, deletes all the files and reformats the whole disk!*

This stuff is fun, but it can be a little challenging if you’ve never done it. Your notebook could be down for quite a while. It’s entirely up to you.

Insert USB or DVD. Click ‘install now’ — Now, what you want to do, is right when you get that Windows Setup box, it says “which type of installation do you want?” you need to select “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)” — next you get a box that says “where do you want to install windows?” select “Drive options (advanced)” — now you’ll see little rows listing the partitions. Like: Drive 0 partition 1: system reserved 350 MB ….. you can select the partitions by moving up and down, they are highlighted blue.

Select each of those partitions and delete them one at a time. Then click “format” and then click “new”. The windows setup box will fill up with 3 or 4 new partitions. That gets rid of the old MBR and replaces it with a GPT table. Click next and it will start installing windows.

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Hi Fred,

I have some questions regarding upgrading to Win 10.

I have some small business clients with multiple identical Win 7 laptops. My current process when a laptop needs to be rebuilt is to clone a Win 7 master disk (effectively just a master image) and put the rebuilt disk in the laptop. Win 7 activates OK because the laptop has an OEM license and of course the image was built on this hardware in the first place. No problems.

I now find that the laptop model is not supported for Windows 10, even though it runs Win 7 Pro and qualifies for a “free” upgrade. The manufacturer specifically states it is currently “not supported”. It just happens to be Lenovo and their model T410 and T420 series but it could be anybody.

My attempts to get the Win 10 upgrade on one of these machines has been unsuccessful. A month after reserving my copy, it is still waiting and I suspect it will never happen because it is unsupported by the manufacturer. Looking at forums, it seems that these models have had problems with video drivers and even the dvd drive, possibly more.

Am I right in assuming the upgrade will never happen at least until “somebody” gives the go-ahead because the required drivers are now available?
Who knows how long this will take, if at all.

Further, if it is ever successful, what will happen with Windows 10 activation?
I’m guessing it won’t activate if I put a new Win 10 “image” (ie disk) on a new laptop and it won’t recognise the Win 10 entitlement based on the fact hardware has changed etc and it won’t get a unique Win 10 key.

What do you think?
Will it ever upgrade?
If so, will I have to abandon this technique and instead run the upgrade separately on each machine to get a new Win 10 key?

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Have you tried this Lenovo update? http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/migr-73695 — It was released on 9/3/2015 and I think it is optional, but it may
make Windows 10 work for you. You might execute the update on one of your Thinkpads and see what happens. After installing this update you might just complete the winows 10 installation over the internet automatically, which is a good idea. I’ve known a few folks who just let the Win10 upgrade process run it’s course, sometimes it takes a couple days. If it doesn’t work because of hardware issues, it seems to revert to the old Win7 or Win 8 install with no ill effects.

It looks like the device you are talking about is listed there: Supported Systems – ThinkVantage System Update is supported on the following systems:
Lenovo 3000 C100, …
Lenovo 3000 J10…
*All ThinkPad*

I would download the README file first and check it out as well.

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@ wavy

Thanks for your offer to help. Here’s a cellphone snap of my BIOS screen showing the option to switch between “legacy” and UEFI boot. I’ve got a Dell Latitude E5430 notebook. The BIOS screen does not provide any information on the mobo, nor does the Dell support website address my issue. I’ve also tried creating a bootable flash drive from the Win10 ISO with Rufus set for ‘GPT Partition Scheme for UEFI’ without success. Will appreciate any suggestions.

42053-bios_zps6c8fv1cg

I don’t see any other settings in the manual with the exception of Trusted Platform Module. I don’t know the consequences of changing this.

BTW Have you actually done the inplace upgrade that gets you a MS recognized PC?

I have heard of Rufus but have no experience with it.

I am converting from Win7x32 to Win10x64

Missed that the time around. You do know that you don’t get to change the bittedness for free? Have you comfirmed your machine IS 64 bit capable?
You did try the media creation tool, right?
What is the file system on the USB, should be Fat32 IIRC.

I have been trying to remember how I did my W7 UEFI USB drive. (My W10 TP USB does not UEFI boot) I believe I used the last method @http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/15458-uefi-bootable-usb-flash-drive-create-windows.html

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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You do know that you don’t get to change the bittedness for free?

You can if you upgrade first and then clean install:

How to Switch From 32-bit Windows 10 to 64-bit Windows 10

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Feedback ….
I have been participation in the “Win10” insiders prog for about 5 months, the Dell Laptop had been upgraded from Win7 Home to Pro to Win 8 to Win 8.1. The win 10 Upgrade was flawless and rock solid up till Build 10532. Stared having all kinds of problems (even though “sfc /scannow” showed no problems.)I had no access to settings, Universal Applications was blank, etc. Did a few suggested fixes with no results!

Bit the bullet and tried Reset this PC doing exactly as you suggested … took a few hours (6) to (system seemed to be hung up but everyone said just wait) complete. Looked like a successful clean install .. that is till ACTIVATION didn’t happen. First call to TS using SLMGR said servers down, three days later .. was told had to go back to Win 7 or 8 and do reinstall and start over. 10 days later told the same thing.

Crossing fingers the other 4 computers keep running .. FYI sfc /scannow says each of the other 4 computers have “some kind of error” but are running flawlessly and are ACTIVETED.

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@ tannin

I’ve got five Dell laptops that have been stripped to bare metal and rebuilt with a variety of Windows flavors several times. The only new twist is switching from MBR to GPT. I have Win10 up and running flawlessly on two older models that do not support UEFI. My problems are (1) getting the Dell BIOS settings tweaked for UEFI/GPT and (2) getting the computer to recognize and boot from the flash drive containing the installation files for a GPT setup.

@ wavy

Yes, I’ve already done the in-place upgrade and had zero problems performing a clean, fully-activated MBR installation. (I understand the bittedness issue and used the workaround referenced by BruceR.) The project would be finished if it weren’t for switching to UEFI. I know it can be done, but I cannot find adequate documentation for the Dell BIOS settings or figure out how to create a proper bootable flash drive for GPT. Aargh!

Here is a link to Rufus, which would probably create the proper USB for installation if I knew which settings to choose.

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@ tannin

Here is a link to Rufus, which would probably create the proper USB for installation if I knew which settings to choose.

I am still working on this, I do not have a UEFI bootable W10 USB but I do have a UEFI bootable W10 installation. It is not needed to boot UEFI to install UEFI. IIRC I used diskpart to make the SSD a GPT drive after using the clean option and then Formatting NTFS. I will search for that.
In the mean time look at: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2376-usb-flash-drive-create-install-windows-10-a.html

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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BTW any body know how to force the MCT to use a local iso rather than down load another??

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Why would you need another ISO?

Joe

--Joe

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Why would you need another ISO?

Joe

If that was directed to me , I don’t know
that is the point.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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If that was directed to me , I don’t that is the point.

cccc

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Why would you need another ISO?

Joe

The point was not to get another iso it is to not have to get another d/l, use a local copy to build a bootable usb.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Well just for kick I tried a UEfi w/ the creation media booted UEFI no problems, Used the windows media creation tool.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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If you have an ISO you can upgrade any PC.

Joe

--Joe

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If you have an ISO already you can build a bootable USB.

Joe

--Joe

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If you have an ISO already you can build a bootable USB.

Joe

OK I have not yet found instructions for W10, in W7 some files had to be renamed and a directory copied. The new USB has 32 and 64 bit installs on it so it is an improvement….

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Just an observation, after I upgraded my Windows 7 Pro computer to Windows 10 Pro, I did a clean install and there is a noticeable difference in how well it runs. True, I had to re-install all my programs, but I’ve been happy.

One other observation, when you get to the point in the installation where it asks if you own the PC or the company does, I could only get it to keep going if I selected that the company does. It gives you dire warnings about how hard it is to change it later, but I had no problems in setting my PC up as just a local user.

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Although the article is based on Win7, this article contains the most Dell-specific configurations settings for switching to UEFI that I have been able to find. It is based on a Dell E6410 laptop. Mine is an E5430, so it’s close enough. Why doesn’t Dell make this kind of information available about their own BIOS?

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Just one thing: With Windows 10 evolving fairly rapidly and continually at present, the installation ISO gets out of date quite quickly. I made mine about 6 weeks back and used it to update Win 8.1 on a second PC of mine yesterday. It took just under 5 hours to check for and download updates as part of the pre-installation procedure!!! So it seems it may be better to download the media creation tool each time in order to ensure you have a recent disk for Win 10 repair/recovery purposes.

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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Just one thing: With Windows 10 evolving fairly rapidly and continually at present, the installation ISO gets out of date quite quickly. I made mine about 6 weeks back and used it to update Win 8.1 on a second PC of mine yesterday. It took just under 5 hours to check for and download updates as part of the pre-installation procedure!!! So it seems it may be better to download the media creation tool each time in order to ensure you have a recent disk for Win 10 repair/recovery purposes.

Are we sure the ISO is changing to include Updates?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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@wavy: One would certainly hope so (not for every patch, but certainly I would expect a new “version” with every new build of Win 10)

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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@wavy: One would certainly hope so (not for every patch, but certainly I would expect a new “version” with every new build of Win 10)

Hope yes
expect no

I do not recall W7 isos changing, with a SP yeah not Patch to patch. Of course my memory may be a bit fuzzy….
And that is not necessarily relevant.
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Re your article on doing a clean install of Windows 10 after having done the upgrade, when Windows Setup asks you to insert your Windows Key code, click skip this step. Tere is no need to use a windows key anywhere during setup. I have done this on both my laptop and my desktop and when installation is complete both installations said they were activated.

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Re your article on doing a clean install of Windows 10 after having done the upgrade, when Windows Setup asks you to insert your Windows Key code, click skip this step. Tere is no need to use a windows key anywhere during setup. I have done this on both my laptop and my desktop and when installation is complete both installations said they were activated.

… which is what the article recommended.

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