New
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8 gb thumb drive--downloading WIN 10 to it now.
Great. Please ask any questions from this tutorial before starting.
Windows 10 - Clean Install - Windows 10 Forums
I recommend you choose the custom install, and then you can delete all existing partitions, so you can install to a completely unallocated drive. I suspect you had partition size problems, which were preventing you from upgrading. Installing this way will set proper partitions for you.
I'm about to go out in an hour or so for the rest of the evening myself--in spite of the heat and may suspend activities then. But I will ask if I have any Q's and you can reply tomorrow. I do have access to another pc while this one is transitioning. Thanks to everyone for the advice and guidance.
All's well that ends!
But, how did I get there? Going back to window #4 above, I downloaded "Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First", printed it, read it thoroughly twice, and started, doing steps 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. At step 7 it says do a clean install... Assuming this meant from the USB drive created in step 2, I went there, clicked on Setup and away we went. I NEVER saw steps 8 through 12. Instead, it looked just like all of my other failed attempts, until I came to the screen that had two bullets to check that said something to the effect that 'save all apps and data'. I unchecked everything, got a warning that said that everything would be erased and lo and behold, WIN 10 is now the OS on this pc. Amazing, perhaps I should have done that earlier when I was attempting an upgrade from 7 to 10.
I hope my experience is helpful to others and I want to thank SIMRICK and NAVYLCDR for your guidance and help.
Consider this issue successfully SOLVED.