How-To Geek
How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10, the Easy Way
The Windows 10 upgrade process drags old files, settings, and programs from your previous Windows system to your new one. If you want a completely fresh system, though, you have a couple options.
This is particularly useful if you’ve purchased a new Windows 10 PC and it includes manufacturer-installed bloatware you don’t want. Or, you may need to perform a clean install on a computer without an existing Windows system after installing a new hard drive. Of course, you’ll miss out on the good pre-installed apps, like the free DVD player program that comes with many PCs. However, you can always install VLC to get DVD playback or use one of the more fully featured Windows Media Center alternatives.
Previously, Microsoft forced users to upgrade to Windows 10 before they could start fresh and do a clean install–which was annoyingly complicated and time-consuming. Now, things are much easier, since you can activate Windows 10 with a Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 key.
Option One: Create Installation Media and Install Windows from Scratch
The classic method of performing a clean install is still our go-to option with Windows 10. You just need to download and create installation media, either on a DVD or a flash drive, and install it from there.
Download the Windows 10 media creation tool from Microsoft. This tool will download the correct Windows 10 installation files for your system, and help you create an installation DVD or flash drive. Start it up and select the “Create installation media for another PC” option to create installation media.
Be sure to select the correct type of installation media for the copy of Windows 10 that’s licensed for your PC — Windows 10 Home or Professional. (If “Windows 10” is the only option, you can safely use that and it will detect what version you want.) You should also choose your language and select whether you want the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows here. Most people will want the 64-bit version, but you can create installation media that includes both, and the installer will automatically select the most appropriate one when you use it to install Windows on a computer.
Install Windows 10 from the installation media like you would any other operating system. Restart your computer with the USB drive or DVD inserted, and boot from that device. This may require you change a setting in the BIOS, access a boot menu, or use the “Use a device” option in the advanced startup options on a modern Windows 8 or 10 device that includes UEFI firmware instead of the traditional BIOS. Select “Install Now” once the Windows installer starts.
Next, you’ll see the activation screen. What you do here depends on your situation:
- If you’ve never installed and activated Windows 10 on this computer before, you’ll see the activation screen. Enter your Windows 10 key here. If you don’t have one, but you have a valid 7, 8, or 8.1 key, enter it here instead.
- If you’ve ever installed and activated Windows 10 on this computer before, click “I don’t have a product key”. Windows will automatically activate once it’s installed.
The second situation works because of how Windows 10 activates PCs. When you install and activate Windows 10 on a system for the first time, the installer confirms that you have a “genuine Windows” system installed and registers your hardware with Microsoft’s servers. After that, you shouldn’t have to enter that key again on the same PC–Microsoft will recognize your hardware the next time you install Windows 10 on that machine, confirm it’s registered, and automatically activate itself.
Go through the setup process normally until you see the “Which type of installation do you want?” screen. Select the “Custom” option to ensure you’re performing a clean install and not an upgrade install.
Partition your system drive however you like. If you just have a single Windows partition, you can tell the installer to overwrite it. If you have many partitions, you could delete them all and tell Windows 10 to install itself in the unallocated space.
After you log into your new, cleanly installed Windows 10 system, it should automatically activate itself after you connect to the Internet.
To ensure it activated correctly, open the Start menu and click on Settings. click the Update & Security button, and go to the “Activation” tab.
Verify that you see “Windows is activated” here. Also, note the edition of Windows 10 you have installed — either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. Most people will receive the Home edition as part of the free upgrade from 7 or 8, but you’ll get Windows 10 Pro if you previously had a Professional edition of Windows 7 or 8 installed.
When we reinstalled Windows 10 Pro on our computer, it activated immediately. But, if Microsoft’s activation servers are overloaded, so it may take some time before your system activates. If it’s not activated, you may see information here that can help you activate.
Some people report having to reboot several times, while others have just waited. The following command can force an activation to occur if it’s not happening automatically after going through the steps above. First, open an Administrator Command Prompt by right-clicking the Start button or pressing Windows Key + X and selecting Command Prompt (Admin). Type the following command and press Enter:
slmgr.vbs /ato
Many people report having to run this command several times. if you see an error message, try rebooting and running it again, wait and run it again, or just wait and let Windows activate automatically. Microsoft’s servers may be overloaded at the moment you’re trying to activate.
Option Two: Perform a Reset and Remove Everything
If you’ve already upgraded to Windows 10 and want a fresh install, there’s an easier method. You can use the Reset feature to reset your Windows 10 system back to a fresh state. If you installed Windows 10 yourself, this should give you a fresh Windows system in no time.
There are a few caveats, however: this method isn’t ideal for every situation. If you purchased a computer that came with Windows 10, for example, this will likely bring back the bloatware that came with your Windows 10 PC. (There’s a way around this, but we’ve yet to test it ourselves.)
In addition, some people have reported that it won’t fix some system corruption issues, in which case you’d want to perform a real clean install using Option One above.
To reset your Windows 10 PC, open the Settings app, select Update & security, select Recovery, and click the “Get started” button under Reset this PC. Select “Remove everything.” This will wipe all your files, so be sure you have backups.
Microsoft’s free upgrade offer depends on your PC’s hardware so it may not activate properly if you’ve swapped out hardware inside your PC. You may need to call Microsoft and complete the phone activation process, explaining what happened, if you changed the PC’s hardware after taking advantage of the offer. The phone support line can give you an activation code that will allow you to activate Windows 10, even if it won’t activate automatically. However, you may have to provide additional information.
Technically, the free Windows 10 upgrade (as well as OEM copies of Windows and pre-installed copies of Windows 10) aren’t supposed to be transferred to a separate PC. But often, the phone activation process will let you do it anyway, so it’s worth a shot.
Image Credit: Brett Morrison on Flickr
First, you probably want to wait a month or so to see how the public release plays out for everyone else. Give them a chance to shake out any bugs.
After that, it should be (relatively) trivial for a two-man team (or even one person) to just run the regular upgrade process on each machine over the course of a few nights.
If you want to do a clean install on each computer instead, that would require a bit more work. At the very least, you'll need to add in a step for backing up user profiles and data on each computer (and restoring that data after the install).
Beyond that, the process depends on what (if any) special mechanisms have been put in place by Microsoft to facilitate bulk free upgrades for businesses. If there are none, you'll more or less have to follow the article's process on each and every computer.
Create install media.(Strictly, you only need to do this once and you can re-use the media on all your PCs. If you want to run more than one install at a time, you'll have to make a few copies.) Back up user data. Install the upgrade as normal. Make sure product activation has completed. Perform the clean install & re-activate Windows. Restore user data.It seems like a lot, but again it should be relatively little trouble for one or two techs to do this for 40-50 PCs over the course of a few nights. You'll want to start small, like a half-dozen or so on that first night, to get a feel for how the process works and see if there were any problem areas you forgot to cover in your procedure. After that, a dozen or more per night should be very doable - especially if there's two people working on it.
Thanks @Jacob_Zinicola - seems like a good plan!!
Simple enough, I don't mind going round to each workstation and upgrading them to Windows 10. I will have some sort of back up in place in order to restore their profiles after. So this free Windows 10 offer isn't available for Windows 7,8 & 8.1 Enterprise - is this true?
I read this in an article but the article was written a few months ago.
It depends.
I just installed Win10 RTM a few weeks ago. Because of this, I'd rather not do a clean install. Any idea if the steps below would work?
1) Image current Win10 RTM install2) Install clean Win8.1 and activate3) Run Win10 upgrade inside Win8.1 to generate hardware hash/key4) Restore Win10 RTM image5) Reactivate Win10
Would the system recognize the hardware key/hash after the restore?
Is your RTM build already activated? If so, you're done. There's no need to go through that process. If it's not, then what you're suggesting sounds reasonable.
From what I read, anyone that did an upgrade installation on the Insider program already has their computer registered with Microsoft's Activation server. There's no need to re-install just to activate Windows, because that was done the first time you did an upgrade installation.
On the other hand, if you never did an upgrade, and you installed an Insider build to a clean system, then you'd need to go through the process you just described.
Hello all, I thought this was a great article. Wanted to pass on what I thought was funny but scary at the same time. I downloaded and was using the Windows 10 media creation tool that did not work. Here is the screenshot of the error.
From the article:
Is this really true? From what I've read, Windows 10 activation will connect with your device ID, not with the hardware.
This also happens if you're running 32-bit Windows and try to install the 64-bit upgrade (or vice-versa)
@dbugdan
Appreciate that. I ran the tool again after receiving that message and completed just fine. Too much coffee I guess. Thought it was hilarious...
Well, the article says that Windows 10 activation is tied to your PC's hardware, which contradicted to what I've read (that it's tied to a device ID saved in Microsoft servers).
So, for example, let's say you changed a hardware part (graphics card, hard drive, etc) after you upgraded to Windows 10, I'm assuming that you can still activate after a clean install, regardless of hardware change?
I would prefer to purchase a retail version. We all know there is no such thing as "free" from Microsoft.
Seems I didn't read the article properly.... I have skipped the step where it asks for the product key (as per the instruction I missed) and I'm just going through installation. Will report back if any further issues/ if it completes successfully. However I still am curious about what Microsoft deems as being the "original device" when re-installing. Is it the motherboard? I don't plan to replace this but am curious
I don't know what to do right now, I was trying to upgrade my friend's Windows 7 to Windows 10 but it shuts off at 25% when installing and recovers windows 7 immediately. I've read in other websites that I have to create an installation media to avoid that problem, but then I won't have the key because I never got to install Windows 10 at first... For some reason my college's dreamspark page isn't letting us get any product right now, so I can't get a license from there either...
When upgrading my laptop to Windows 10 Pro (64-bit), I came across this neat little trick online for finding your Windows product key...
Paste this into notepad:
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))
Function ConvertToKey(Key)Const KeyOffset = 52i = 28Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"DoCur = 0x = 14DoCur = Cur * 256Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + CurKey(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255Cur = Cur Mod 24x = x -1Loop While x >= 0i = i -1KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutputIf (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Theni = i -1KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutputEnd IfLoop While i >= 0ConvertToKey = KeyOutputEnd Function
Then save as type to "all files", change the name to "productkey.vbs", save it and open it.
This gives you your new Windows 10 product key, which you can write down and save for future reference. Should you ever need it. Such as when doing a clean install.
Contrary of what is mentioned in the article it will b.t.w. flawlessly upgrade on a windows 8.0 system, provide a key and activate. (at least it did on mine)
Not unless you want to pay M$ $200. ONLY way to a clean install is upgrade FIRST, then wipe the disk and clean install it.
Yes, the support rep claimed there was no way to accomplish a clean install on an upgrade and suggested I buy Windows 10 retail.
I was able to restore Windows 7. Microsoft "support" promisedd call-backs but did not do as they promised. I had to figure this out on my own. Windows 10 should be marked as a beta version, for installation only by trained technicians.
I just want to say Thank You for posting this article! My hard drive died a month after installing Windows 10, and I thought I was stuck because I don't have a copy of Windows 7 which came only pre-installed with my system.
I downloaded the Windows 10 ISO, followed the prompts for a new install on my hard drive. Not before long, Windows 10 activated itself and I'm back in business.
You can do the clean install and activation in one step. No need to upgrade first. You even have the option to preserve your personal files (profile). I used the 'Media creation tool'. Of course, make a backup just in case something goes wrong.
For now, that should only be true if you're doing a clean install on a computer that didn't come with Windows 7 or 8.1.
Why would doing a clean install be considered a "loop hole"? People have been doing it for ages, so there's no reason it shouldn't be allowed for Windows 10.
Think about it: you have either a Windows 7 or 8.1 machine --> you get to upgrade for free --> Once you've upgraded, you decide to do a clean install, so you can start from scratch. The only difference now is that you have a bare-bone Windows 10. What reasons would Microsoft have for not allowing that?
Now, I have no idea why yours wouldn't activate, (did you make sure to upgrade first?) but I know for certain that you do not need to waste your money on a whole new key in order to do a clean install.
Yes I did perform and activate the upgrade first, over a month ago matter of fact, after doing a clean install just last week, a week later and no activation, forced or otherwise.
I am talking about a clean install, reformatting of the HDD and reinstalling the OS from scratch, not a system reset.
Hm. That does seem strange. If you'd like, you can post this in the Computer Help section, and we could try to help you out.
Many, many people have gone through the "upgrade, then re-install on a wiped drive" experience, and it's worked. I've done it myself - twice. More than a few people have called Microsoft to get their activations fixed after a clean install. Others have used tools to extract the key from the registry.
Perhaps the rep is misinformed. Perhaps the official policy and the effective policy are different.
Heinlien's Razor says something like "Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."
You don't know this is intentional. It's more likely that with everything, this rep just missed a meeting or fell asleep in a rushed training session.
Informed or misinformed two separate reps gave me the same answer.
BTW - Exactly what tools can one use to extract the key from the registry? I'm not talking about extracting the generic key used for the upgrade either.
That's a good question. I'm using MSDN keys on most of my machines, although the machine I'm on right now is using an upgrade key.
Let me see what I can find out.
As it turns out, @raphoenix posted a VB Script to do this for past versions of Windows. Let's see if it works again....
http://www.howtogeek.com/206329/how-to-find-your-lost-windows-or-office-product-keys/
I just tried it and got a key that looks legit, and two different systems gave me two different keys. I'll need to test this on my home PC's with their known keys to tell you for sure.
'Windows.old', indeed. I get your point and I respect it. For me, better to delete a folder than to buy a product key.
Once you do the Upgrade First on a machine, then you can Clean Install either system again.
The old Windows System with the original old key or the new Windows 10 System using the skip key procedure.
@geek Thanks for the update on the article, Lowell! I am going to bookmark it, for sure.--P
Well, then...thanks for reopening the thread, and thanks to @WhitsonGordon for updating the article. --P