Change drive at clean install - activation question

I started a separate thread with some questions on clean installation to change from Windows 7 to Windows 10. However I have an additional specific question.

I currently have an ASUS motherboard (p9x79 Pro) and am running my operating system on a spinning drive and using the ASUS cache which uses a 128GB SSD drive to cache the operating system disk.
I would like to dump that arrangement and run the operating system on a larger SSD drive (they are cheaper now). Ideally I would do this at the same time as moving to Windows 10 so that I only have to install once.

My question is - if I go for a clean install to Windows 10 can I put this directly onto a new clean SSD drive - using my old windows 7 key to activate it (it was an OEM key I bought when I built the system) or will I need to clone the Windows 7 system onto the new drive before installing?
The motherboard will not be changed.

Dave

What I would do is do an upgrade of the Windows 7 installed on the old drive and staying on the old drive. Make sure and have a Windows 10 Digital Entitlement Activation showing for Windows 10. Then swap the drives and do the clean install to the SSD and skip entering any product key.

Thanks for your quick response - I could try that but was advised against upgrading as my existing set up has was sysprep'd to move Program Data and User data onto a separate partition (same disk). I was told the upgrade would fail with that arrangement. I tried moving them back but that process ended up with some data moved and some not.

I suppose there is nothing to stop me trying - I can always use a system image to go back to where I am now

Dave

Dave

In that case, I would use the getosstate.exe and genuineticket.xml method for a clean install. The xml file should to work for installing on either the HDD or SSD.

Thank you - I will give that a go

Dave

I just don't quite trust entering a Windows 7 product key to activate Windows 10 on a computer that has never had Windows 10 on it before, even though it is supposed to work. The xml file method has worked well for me and only takes a couple minutes.

Ztruker said:

This works perfectly, I've done it with a Windows 7 key and a Windows 8.1 key, both to computers that had never had any version of Windows 10 installed on them. No need to jump through hoops any more.

Running one program that takes 10 seconds and saving 1 file doesn't take much effort to jump through that hoop, if entering the Windows 7 product key works - less than 1 minute wasted. If it fails for some reason - at least 1 1/2 hour re-installing saved.

Ztruker said:

disconnect from the internet so no activation takes place, copy genuineticket.xml to the new install then connect the internet and activate.

You only have to do that part when Windows 10 tells you that your Windows 7 product key is not valid for activation.