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#11
If you wait until next month, the November or "Fall Update" is supposed to allow doing a clean install and activating with a Win 7 or Win 8 Product Key. http://www.howtogeek.com/232176/what...0-fall-update/
If you wait until next month, the November or "Fall Update" is supposed to allow doing a clean install and activating with a Win 7 or Win 8 Product Key. http://www.howtogeek.com/232176/what...0-fall-update/
This'll mostly be a distinction without a difference, but...
If it comes with a decimal 32GB of HD space, Windows will report it as 29.8GB. (The usual 1e9/2^30 gigabyte definition difference.) I don't know how much of that would be needed for the Windows restore partition. I believe that the disk really is a "32GB" one.
What I'd probably try if I owned such a machine would be:
Image the drive. (I own Acronis True Image. Macrium Reflect Free might be a good alternative.)
Prepare the files for a clean install without a prior activation (post #2).
Clean install 10, wiping all the partitions on the drive.
(But that's just me.)
When Windows Setup has no space, it suggests to connect another drive with at least 9GB free to continue. Just connect a flash drive with enough space and proceed with the upgrade. No need to touch any partitions.
You don't need a key, just click Skip during setup. To be able to activate Windows 10, you must either upgrade your previous version to 10, or create an activation token as described in this post and use it to activate a clean-install. If the USB used has not enough space or some access error interrupt the process, it will fail. To make sure, format the USB drive as NTFS so it can save large files over 4GB, if there is anyone. Also make sure it has at least 10-12GB free. Oh yes, disable your antivirus during the upgrade so it won't try to block anything.
Create a Factory Recovery Drive - remove the factory image partition > upgrade to windows 10 via the setup media on a USB
By running Setup.exe from USB while booted into Host win8.1 OS
Once the Windows 10 Upgrade is activated - you can Clean install windows 10 at any time during the life of that PC