I installed W10 on my W7 machine the first day it was available but I reverted back to W7 after two weeks due to video driver problems. Now I plan to install 10 again on a brand new hard drive in the same machine and I'm hoping that I can switch hard drives back and forth while I work the video problem out on the new hard drive. But it occurred to me that how will I install 10 on a new hard drive without an operating system to upgrade. Should I install W7 on the new hard drive then upgrade to 10, or is there a better way to achieve a clean install of 10?
Len
Use gatherosstate.exe to generate genuineticket.xml file from Windows 7. After clean install of Windows 10 on new hard drive, copy the .xml file to the right folder on the new hard drive and reboot to activate.
Once you saw 10 activated from the original upgrade you will no longer need to worry! The MS activation servers keep a record of the original hardware profile and adding in a new drive won't effect anything to see a clean install of 10 take place. If you were only now planning an upgrade the guide NavyLCDR is referring to would instruct on how to retrieve the GenuineTicket.xml you would copy and paste into a specified location once the fresh 10 install was on. Then you simply restart the system to see 10 activate. Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 blog
In fact at this time and likely in a few days the latest 10586 build may be available for the Media Creation tool download there which now allows you to enter your 7 key and if found valid and not screened as "already in use" 10 will activate by key. That is the Threshold 2 build without any evalution build watermark being the indicator there.
Thanks for your help. I've used the media creation tool to setup a USB flash drive, can I boot to that and install W10 on a blank new hard drive? And as I understand it, since I previously upgraded to W10 on the same computer I shouldn't have an activation problem, right?
Len
Correct.Thanks for your help. I've used the media creation tool to setup a USB flash drive, can I boot to that and install W10 on a blank new hard drive? And as I understand it, since I previously upgraded to W10 on the same computer I shouldn't have an activation problem, right?
Len
Correct.Thanks for your help. I've used the media creation tool to setup a USB flash drive, can I boot to that and install W10 on a blank new hard drive? And as I understand it, since I previously upgraded to W10 on the same computer I shouldn't have an activation problem, right?
Len
Thanks again for all your help.
Len
San Diego
You;re welcome! You shouldn't have any problem as far as the activation goes. Once you see the 10 install completed and you arrive at the desktop for the first time simply go into the "Start menu>Settings>UPDATE & SECURITY>Activation" and see for yourself. You should find it was already activated during the last stages of the installation itself when connecting to the MS servers to record the hardware profile ID. Once matched with the previous upgrade the activation is instant!Thanks again for all your help.
Len
San Diego
