Changing my MOBO etc. will that KILL my W10?

cereberus · 01 May 2017

fdegrove said:

Hi,
@Cerberus, yes, you are correct. I am confusing a few things.... Getting old too.

Cheers and apologies,

No need to apologise :).

alphanumeric · 01 May 2017

fdegrove said:

Hi,

MCT will create the ISO file for you with an install.esd file (as opposed to an instal.wim file). Mount the iso file on a W10 machine, slect all files and copy these to a USB stick of at least 4 Gb.
That will then be bootable from a UEFI system.

Boot from it and install W10. As for activation, easiest way is to first remove the old machine from your licensed devices list by going to "Settings" > My Microsoft account and use your MS account to log on to the new system.
In theory it should activate all by itself using the digital license from the removed device.

Cheers,

Just mounting the ISO and copying the files to it is no guaranty it will be able to install in UEFI mode. If said thumb drive is formatted in NTFS a lot of PC's will not let you install in UEFI mode. They want fat32. I prefer to do it all in diskpart and mark the partition as active to make it truly bootable.

cereberus · 01 May 2017

alphanumeric said:

Just mounting the ISO and copying the files to it is no guaranty it will be able to install in UEFI mode. If said thumb drive is formatted in NTFS a lot of PC's will not let you install in UEFI mode. They want fat32. I prefer to do it all in diskpart and mark the partition as active to make it truly bootable.

Partitions do not need to be marked active in UEFI mode as it does not use that.

Simply do as Fdegrove says, with caveat added that USB stick should be formatted as FAT32.

fdegrove · 01 May 2017

Hi,

Simply do as Fdegrove says, with caveat added that USB stick should be formatted as FAT32.

Yes, I forgot to add that. AFAIK no UEFI system can boot straight off of a NTFS file system unless UEFI contains conversion drivers in ROM.
EFI does not care about partitions being set to "Active" or not.In fact I very much doubt it will then boot when "Secure Boot" is enabled in EFI.

Cheers,

alphanumeric · 01 May 2017

cereberus said:

Partitions do not need to be marked active in UEFI mode as it does not use that.

Simply do as Fdegrove says, with caveat added that USB stick should be formatted as FAT32.

My thumb drives do double duty, UEFI and Legacy. My old beater desktop PC won't boot from them if I don't mark them as active.

orbeavhawk · 01 May 2017

I want to THANK U ALL for taking the time and trying to HELP a "neighbor" ..... me and the good fella that will do the install for me are grateful !
michael

TisJester · 02 May 2017

cereberus said:

Why would you bother going through this convoluted route when you can create a bootable usb stick suitable for legacy bios or uefi using the media creation tool. Come to that, you can download the iso direct.

Why? because when I used the Microsoft Media creation tool to create the USB boot disk it did not do the UEFI method to install.. It went with a MBR and BIOS install..
So I looked up why this would happen found that using Rufus with a Microsoft ISO file was a way to work around this issue.I also find that Microsoft will ONLY let you download the Media creation tool if you access the download page via a normal windows machine. I like a bit more control over what I am doing so I used Chrome UA spoofer to tell Microsoft I was on an android device. This then took me to the direct ISO download page and I was able to then download the ISO file I wanted..
I used this ISO with Rufus to create a working UEFI Windows 10 Install USB boot disk.
Are there other ways? possibly sure..There are many Guides out there on how to install Windows 10 on a PC I was not trying to write a guide, but to give some insights into what worked for me.

The main take away is as long as you have your Current windows installation tied to your Microsoft account then you can activate it on any new PC hardware swap.. No need to buy a new or Retail licences for hardware upgrade.

How you get there is up to you..

fdegrove · 02 May 2017

Hi,

Using this tool is so much easier:

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techno...-download-tool

Cheers ,

orbeavhawk · 02 May 2017

So: "If you've already added your Microsoft account to your device, you'll see Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account on the Activation page."

This is true in my case. IF understand the gist of what I have been told here...I think it is the consensus that I may be able to get by using my resent install of W10 we though we will be replacing the mobo CPU.....is this CORRECT?

Do you think it would be wise to purchase a Retail Copy of W10 Home, just in case, and then IF we don't have to use it I can return it for refund afterwards?

TKS michael

NavyLCDR · 02 May 2017

@orbeavhawk,

Since you have a digital license linked to your Microsoft account, you should be able to use this to activate Windows 10 on a new motherboard/CPU:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...troubleshooter
Click on the link for "You recently made a significant hardware change"

and
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530

I would not purchase a Windows 10 Home retail "just in case". If you can't activate it right away using the activation troubleshooter, then just use it without activation until you can either contact Microsoft and get them to activate it for you or purchase a product key.