Reinstall Barebones Win7, Then Online Upgrade to 10 for Clean Upgrade?

This question applied to the free online upgrade from Win7 or 8 to Win 10 that was offered and probably now applies to the Accessibility upgrade that is still being offered. So let's say I currently have Win7 and it's slow with adware (It hasn't been maintained properly - some folks don't know how). So if I had a Win 10 install disk I'd wipe the hard disk and install 10 fresh.

So I have a "messed-up" Win7 I want to upgrade. Question: Could I wipe the disk, reinstall Win7 with product key, activate it. And then go strait to the Accessibility upgrade and get Win10? Not even spend the time to update Win7, just do the Win7 reinstall and go strait to the Win10 online upgrade(?)

It seems to me this would give me a cleaner Win10.

Thanks.

During the free offer period one needed Win7 w/SP or Win8.1 to qualify.

There is no "clean upgrade", upgrade implies there is an Operating System installed. The Win7 Upgrade discs had to be run from within Windows, would not boot. I have such a 3-pack Upgrade copy with 3 installs available that I haven't used yet.

leegold said:

So I have a "messed-up" Win7 I want to upgrade. Question: Could I wipe the disk, reinstall Win7 with product key, activate it. And then go strait to the Accessibility upgrade and get Win10? Not even spend the time to update Win7, just do the Win7 reinstall and go strait to the Win10 online upgrade(?)

It seems to me this would give me a cleaner Win10.

Thanks.

Do you have a handicap that requires you to use Accessibility features of Windows? Here's what I would do if I were you. Clean install the Windows 10 that matches your version of Windows 7. Skip entering the product key when asked during install. After install finishes go to the activation screen under settings, updates & security. Change product key. Enter your Windows 7 product key to activate Windows 10. Just make sure you have installed the version of Windows 10 that the Windows 7 would upgrade to.

cottonball said:

Hmmm...

Thought I read some info in this forum where you can no longer Get Windows 10 tool to upgrade from within Windows 7, 8, or 8.1, but, it is still possible to download Windows 10 installation media from Microsoft and then provide a Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 key to install W10.

Isn't this still possible? ??

Please correct me if wrong!!

Did you read my post #3?

simrick said:

Navy is correct. Actually, I just did this to a W7 machine this past Sunday night. I clean installed W10 Pro using the W7Pro key and it was activated even before I hit the desktop.

I did the same last week only with a Retail Win7 Home Key, also activated before getting to the desktop. Curiously, this PC pre Anniversary update, had point blank refused to upgrade even after a clean Win7 install or clean install of Win10 and after trying every "fix" on the Web, always ended up with the dreaded "Something Happened" message.
Conclusion is that post Anniversary ISO's have fixed something or are now compatible with that PC's hardware!

I don't know if the old "upgrade now" tools work on Windows 7 or 8 any longer or not. You can still upgrade Windows 7 or Windows 8 by either mounting a Windows 10 ISO file and running setup.exe (preferred method) or running setup.exe from a DVD or USB flash drive made from the ISO file (or MCT).

Or, if the Windows 7/8/8.1 product key has not been blocked from automatic online activation by Microsoft, just the product key can be used to activate a clean install of the matching version of Windows 10 for the first time. After it is activated the first time, no product key will be required on subsequent installs.

If the Windows 7/8/8.1 product key has been blocked from automatic online activation by Microsoft, then the easiest and only way that I know of to get the upgrade is to actually install Windows 7/8/8.1 and activate it over the phone with its product key then upgrade to Windows 10. After that, subsequent clean installs of Windows 10 will not require any product key. And, yes, only the barebones install of Windows 7/8/8.1 is required - just enough to boot - no updates are required and not even all the hardware needs to be working.

Ever since the beginning, SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 were only required for the upgrade to Windows 10 to occur from Windows Update. SP1 for Windows 7 nor Windows 8.1 were never required to do a manual upgrade from an ISO file, DVD or USB flash drive.