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[parkdale]

Found this link for upgrading Windows 7 to 10 without overwriting your current 7 installation... and onto clean harddrive

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-first.html

Robin

[Chrysalis]

wow, so they cracked how microsoft activates on upgrade's.  I can see pirate's jumping with glee

But yeah thats a great guide as clean install is always best.

[guest]

I suppose its a change - most of the tips & tricks I've seen for Windows 10 are to prevent it ever getting on your machine

[HPsauce]

wow, so they cracked how microsoft activates on upgrade's.  I can see pirate's jumping with glee

Maybe not, it's a way of doing a clean install (instead of an upgrade and of the exact same version) on the same hardware that you already have a valid, activated, upgradeable copy of Windows on.
So, as such, would they really care?

I'd guess there are some hardware identification checks in the activation process as well, so wholesale cloning won't work. Certainly not in the long run even if you get away with it initially.

I have, back in W7 days, some upgrade kits (from XP/Vista). You can happily install these as a clean install rather than an upgrade - indeed MS tell you how to do it as you have to for XP! Most (if not all) of the copies I have installed have now upgraded to W10 with no issues.

[guest]

As it happens this is completely pointless - good tip but useless in the near future

Windows 10 build 10565 ("Insider" release programme) includes the ability to use a Windows 7 or 8.1 product key when you're making a clean installation. Edit - it apparently works as well & I'm told was supposed to be there long before now but had "issues with activation reliability".

Somehow MS always seem to bugger up clean installs (on upgrade products) at the start. I remember that Windows 7 family pack (3 licenses for £60) didn't have a mechanism for a clean install without a "qualifying version of Windows" being present on the hard drive. The answer to that was to install (but not activate) Windows 7 on a clean disk, then "upgrade" Windows 7 to Windows 7 and activate. Lunacy on wheels

[HPsauce]

Well I had both straight and family pack versions of W7 and never had a problem doing clean installs. 
Anyway, good news about build 10565, presumably the ISO is available somewhere, or will be soon.

[guest]

http://winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media-128512

If you bought an upgrade family pack (Home Premium) then it must have been later than mine (2010/early 2011) although I'm pretty sure that was the last upgrade family pack MS did. We digress....

Re Windows 10 - I don't believe you'll get an ISO, just what is dumped onto (sometimes unwilling) Win7/8.1 users now with a software stub to boot/install but I'm not on the "Insider" programme.

[HPsauce]

You can download a Windows 10 ISO here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 though I've no idea what version that will give you at present. I got 10240 (which I'm still on) when I did it some months ago so probably still that.

[digression]My W7HP family pack tells you on the packaging (and inside) that you need to do a custom (clean) install if upgrading from XP.
I've always done that irrespective of the system I'm upgrading from, usually on a brand new (larger) hard disk and entered my product key during setup. No problems ever.

That said, I have always unticked the automatic activation box and ensured I'm happy with the system and have installed all updates BEFORE triggering activation.
One system I had to wipe and reinstall due to hard disk (RAID) problems and, being apparently number four on the same key (it wasn't), had to do the phone activation. Again, no problems.[/digression]

[Chrysalis]

The stable version will be 10240 until they do a stable update.

Seems microsoft have now backed down on two things then they should have got right from day 1.

The ability to disable specific updates and the ability to clean install over win7/8.

[guest]

[digression]
One system I had to wipe and reinstall due to hard disk (RAID) problems and, being apparently number four on the same key (it wasn't), had to do the phone activation. Again, no problems.[/digression]

That's because you used a different hard disk in the RAID array - same thing here & I had to phone in. As soon as I said RAID the guy immediately said that a new disk in the RAID array = new RAID array signature for activation purposes as that is/was one of the triggers for piracy (mirror disks/etc).

Anyway this isn't relevant to the new issue of "Tiles" so we'd best stop