Best way to upgrade Win10 to Win11 but as a fresh install on a new drive?

m_c · 22 Dec 2025 at 23:00

My Googlefu is failing on this.

All the bits to give my desktop a bit of an upgrade should be here this week, which includes a new NVMe drive, and I want to update from Win10 to Win11 onto the new drive with a fresh install.

What do I need to do to transfer my existing Win10 license to a fresh Win11 install?

Quartz · 22 Dec 2025 at 23:22

I'm not sure I follow you. You want to update the old W10 but do a fresh install? That doesn't make sense.

To best upgrade the existing W10, clone the old drive to the new one, place the new drive in new system, let it boot and update itself, then perform an upgrade install. Note that the free upgrade period may have expired so you may need to buy a new license key.

m_c · 23 Dec 2025 at 00:04

I'm still getting the Win11 upgrade nag screen, so I was hoping to do a fresh install of W11 on the new drive.

Or should I let the existing W10 install upgrade, then do a fresh install on the new drive, so I know the license key is working?

InkZ · 23 Dec 2025 at 00:11

It usually saves your license to your Microsoft account so you'll prob be fine. You've got a new drive, so just throw it in and install it. Worst case, you've still got the old install.

Tetras · 23 Dec 2025 at 00:23

m_c said:
I'm still getting the Win11 upgrade nag screen, so I was hoping to do a fresh install of W11 on the new drive.

Or should I let the existing W10 install upgrade, then do a fresh install on the new drive, so I know the license key is working?

With a key that is already registered to Windows 10, you should have a digital license tied to the board. You can check that in Windows 10.

Unless you sign in with your Microsoft account, then it'll be tied to the account and the device.

If you do a fresh install of Windows 11 (with a digital license), it should just recognise the machine and automatically activate, but if you're keeping the old drive then you can always return to the old install and do the upgrade.

m_c · 23 Dec 2025 at 00:23

InkZ said:
It usually saves your license to your Microsoft account so you'll prob be fine. You've got a new drive, so just throw it in and install it. Worst case, you've still got the old install.

I'd forgotten that licenses are linked to your MS account now.
Hopefully get the new bits installed over the next week, and see what happens.

m_c · 25 Dec 2025 at 01:40

Well that was pretty pain free.

After spending a couple hours rolling around the floor wedging an AIO cooler in (had to remove then reinstall the fans with the cooler in place), CPU, GPU, and NVMe in, the only snag I had was I forgot to plug one of the motherboard power cables back into the PSU.
Oh, and then figuring out how to get things to boot from the USB stick.

Once that was done, took about 15min for Win11 to install, signed into my account and Win11 was activated.
Now just the joys of downloading and installing all the software I need to use, but I can work on that over the next few days.