Clean installing Windows 10

[Joe!]

Hi there,

I plan to upgrade my entire build, the only thing not changing is my graphics card. I planned to clean install Windows 10 on my soon-to-be boot drive, an SM951 - However, I have been reading how to clean install Windows 10, and it seems I have to upgrade my current Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, and then reinstall it yet again on the new boot drive, is this true?

I did plan to avoid installing Win10 on my current drive and then just do an entirely fresh install on the new system, but apparently that isn't possible. I have also heard about people having to phone up Microsoft after changing motherboard, is this also true?

My two Windows keys are for Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 8 Pro, both are legitimate retail keys. Any help would be appreciated.

If I do have to install an OS on my SM951, and then install Windows 10 on top of that, will my Windows 7 installation have to have all of the latest Windows Updates installed, or will I not have to bother with that?

 

[FatRakoon]

No, you can happily do a clean install of Win 10.

I have done upgrades on 7, 8.0 8.1 and 10 as wel las a clean install of 10 and I have had no issues ( other than one laptop thats been a real bugger )

 

[Vertigo]

You have to upgrade first and activate before you can do a fresh install as otherwise it won't recognise the machine and thus won't activate and you'll have no product key to enter.

If your current licences are retail then this should convey the same rights on the upgraded Win10 licence so you'd be entitled to change the motherboard and re-activate (unlike OEM) but I've yet to see the details of how this works. A call to MS activation may be required but shouldn't be an issue. If anyone has any more concrete info on this process for retail upgrades I'd be very interested.