Do i have to upgrade Win7 to Win10 before a clean install?

Ugley_Matt

Ugley_Matt

Ugley_Matt

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I've currently got Win7 on my PC. I'm getting a new SSD and want to move to windows 10. Do i have to upgrade to 10 first, then put in the new SSD, clean install 10?
Or can i just do the clean install and use my win7 key.

I'd rather only do the clean install and skip the upgrade
 
If it were me I would install 7 onto a spare drive, activate.
Use the Microsoft Media Creation tool to download their latest .iso image.
Do the windows 10 upgrade from within the Windows 7.
make sure this new Windows 10 is fully activated.
Then Microsoft will have all you hardware logged into their servers and you will be able to extract the files from the downloaded .iso image onto a properly formatted USB drive and do a fresh install of Windows 10 onto you new SSD.

You can swap out the drives but updating the major bits will un activate the free upgrade.

Doing all this onto a spare drive saves your existing Windows 7 files from getting "fekked" up. Just in case.

having said that I think the new Windows 10 images allow to be installed on a legit Windows 7 key. Do NOT quote me on this though.
I would think if this did work you would still need to do the Windows 7 to Windows 10 free upgrade first.
 
from what I've read (not tested it yet) the latest version of the windows 10 iso which is downloaded via the tool allows you to clean install, you just need your win 7 code for the upgrade.
 
Download the appropriate Win 10 iso for your current version of windows.Burn to disk or create bootable usb drive with Rufus.
Generate a genuine ticket of your current installation by:

1 Copy gatherosstate.exe from the sources folder on the Windows 10 iso to the desktop of your current Windows installation.

2 Run it on your current genuine Windows install. It'll output GenuineTicket.xml. Save this on a USB drive.

3 Then do a fresh install with your Win 10 iso, skip entering any key during the setup procedure and at the very end.

4 Once Win 10 is installed make sure your internet connection is not connected then Reboot w10.

5.Copy GenuineTicket.xml to C:\programdata\microsoft\windows\clipsvc\genuineticket\ of your w10 installation and reboot again.

6.Connect online & it should activate. May need a second reboot to complete the activation.

As pointed out preferably do a fresh install to a new hard drive so as you still can revert to your previous o/s if wanted later by simply putting the old drive back.
 
All the above seems very complicated. I recently did a clean install of windows 10 and just installed like you would 7.

Used the Microsoft media creation tool to get the ISO from the same PC. Made a bootable USB and formatted the drive during the windows 10 install and entered my windows 7 key during installation.

Don't see why a new drive would be different to a formatted drive
 
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