Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10532 for PC Insider

meebers said:

What if we want to do a clean install?

Same as RTM - your hardware is registered. I did clean install of 10532 after breaking it and it activated fine.

meebers said:

What if we want to do a clean install?

The whole paradigm has changed. If you upgrade to Win10 from a duly licensed Win7/8.1, it causes your machine to be 'registered' with MS servers (a hash code is generated from certain elements of your hardware). From that point on you can clean install new builds and they will automatically activate. I have done several clean installs of Preview Builds - during installation I just skip the product key entry. It automatically activates.

If you never upgraded from a valid 7/8.1 system, your Preview Builds won't activate, but there will be a new one coming along before the current one expires. But remember, the free Windows 10 deal is based on an upgrade from a valid 7/8.1 system...

sgage said:

The whole paradigm has changed. If you upgrade to Win10 from a duly licensed Win7/8.1, it causes your machine to be 'registered' with MS servers (a hash code is generated from certain elements of your hardware). From that point on you can clean install new builds and they will automatically activate. I have done several clean installs of Preview Builds - during installation I just skip the product key entry. It automatically activates.

If you never upgraded from a valid 7/8.1 system, your Preview Builds won't activate, but there will be a new one coming along before the current one expires. But remember, the free Windows 10 deal is based on an upgrade from a valid 7/8.1 system...

That is correct.

But if you were an Insider (without legit 7/8.1) before the Windows 10.10240 release, you will be activated when upgrade to any later Insider builds so far.

In my case, w10 will not auto install on my W7 machine after I reserved a copy back in June. It tries every day but fails. I never get the ok to install. Now I will install a clean version 10532 on that machine to check if the failures are due to a hardware problem, I think not but have to check. Activation is uncertain.

meebers said:

Activation is uncertain.

Activation is certain. If you've not upgraded it to 10 before (or had an earlier preview build running) it will not be activated. Get the 10240 ISO and try doing an upgrade.

meebers said:

In my case, w10 will not auto install on my W7 machine after I reserved a copy back in June. It tries every day but fails. I never get the ok to install. Now I will install a clean version 10532 on that machine to check if the failures are due to a hardware problem, I think not but have to check. Activation is uncertain.

I would suggest you first to install Build 10240 and get it through and activated then do anything else later. You can download 10240 ISO and mount it to upgrade to see if your hardware is compatible. Seems like this is your door to go any further.

Started from 10240 I hardly heard machines that incompatible to 10 can upgrade to the new Insider build without hardware upgrades.

jyusa said:

That is correct.

But if you were an Insider (without legit 7/8.1) before the Windows 10.10240 release, you will be activated when upgrade to any later Insider builds so far.

Are you sure about that? It may be that the builds activate, but they are going to expire, so it's really moot.

sgage said:

Are you sure about that? It may be that the builds activate, but they are going to expire, so it's really moot.

That's what I mean "So Far". Don't know what MS will decide it later!