Clean Install Windows 10  

Dawn121988 said:

All finished now just installing and then updating thank you for the help everyone.

Great news.

Hello Gadgety,

Answers inline below:

Gadgety said:

Hello Brink/Shawn,

I need to install Windows 10 on my old motherboard. This is sort of a laundry list of questions I have, and it will serve as a to-do list to accomplish the W10 installation.

I put together this computer more than 10 years ago, and it's been a long time which means I've partly forgotten what and how I did it. In the meantime standards have been changed and upgraded which complicates matters. The motherboard uses American Megtatrend's BIOS CMOS which I assume is the so called Legacy BIOS and the PC is presently running Windows 7 Pro SP1. I've bought a Windows 10 key quite a few years ago, but never installed. Part of the reason was having software I'm not sure will run on Windows 10, some related to peripheral equipment. I figure I will have to dual boot, but I guess I could also run a Windows7, to the extent that I need it, as a VM?

If it's Windows 11 Pro, you'll have Hyper-V available for a Windows 7 VM.

The CPU is an LGA1366 Intel Xeon, with 24 GB memory. It really is a dual set up, but I never installed the second one. I saw somewhere that up until v. 2004 of Windows 10 it was OK to install it on an LGA1366, but then it changed. I believe this may have to do with TPM?

Since the hardware is old there will probably be a few work arounds prior to installing W10, one which relates to TPM. I've seen that there are various ways to accomplish this, one of which is a registry edit, or using RUFUS etc. This needs to be done prior to trying to install W10. What is your recommended way of accomplishing this?

No worries. A TPM is not required to install Windows 10. Only for Windows 11.

You can install Windows 10 with or without UEFI support depending on if supported and enabled by the motherboard.

I guess I will need a Microsoft account. It's unclear to me what this means, as in how is that different from having a hotmail account, a One Drive, or (previously) a paid Skype account. I must have had a Microsoft account, surely, for all of those?

You can install and set up Windows 10 with either a local account or Microsoft account (email address). A Microsoft is not required unless you want to use Microsoft services like OneDrive and Skype.

All the harddisks are full, and that includes the C: drive which contains the present W7. Quite a while back I installed a new 1TB Samsung SSD which I intended would be used to install W10 to. It's blank and is presently not being recognized by Samsung Magician and there is no drive letter assigned, although the device manager sees it, and so does the BIOS. Magician also states that TRIM has been enabled So I guess I will have to get a drive letter assigned before I can install Windows 10? That's hurdle number one. This is done through Windows Disk Management? Do I have to initialize it? Format? I believe I need to set MBR partitions as well, I guess? Or is this done by Windows 10 during installation? I've seen others with the same problem. Someone suggested using Rufus to change the drive format.

The drive you want to use to install Windows 10 on will get completely wiped during installation at step 14 or 15.

I saw somewhere I need to disconnect all drives except the one to be the new Windows drive. Format this drive as MBR. It looks like this formatting is done the W10 installation? So I need not worry about not having a drive letter assigned? This will done by the W10 installation? Since all drives will be disconnected, how does the system know which letter to select?

You'll want to disconnect all drives except the drive you want to install Windows 10 on. This is only done to be extra safe making sure installation doesn't install anything or use another drive by mistake.

I saw that I needed to uninstall any third party virus protection. Does that include Malwarebytes?

No need since you are installing from bootable installation media.

Once that is done I need to create a bootable ISO from a USB stick, so download W10 and then create the stick, is that done with RUFUS? If yes, I need to download that as well.

I need to change the start sequence in the BIOS so boot from the stick.

You do need to create a bootable Windows 10 installation USB, and boot from it to start the process to clean install Windows 10.

This is all detailed in steps 1 to 5 to help.

I've seen someone say they recommend removing all RAM sticks except one, mainly due to the BIOS, because otherwise the installation gets stuck in a constant loop. I don't know if this is true.

Not true.

Other than the above I believe it's just to follow your installation procedure. One caveat may be that the product code doesn't function. Then I'll be stuck. Can I exit the procedure in case the code doesn't work?

If by some chance Windows Setup will not accept the product key to activate Windows 10, you will still be able to continue on using the I don't have a product key link, and just activate later when able.

Gadgety said:

Thank you for your helpful reply! I'm still unsure about item "I will have to get a drive letter assigned before I can install Windows 10? That's hurdle number one. This is done through Windows Disk Management? Do I have to initialize it? Format? I believe I need to set MBR partitions as well, I guess? Or is this done by Windows 10 during installation?" to which you replied that the drive will get completely wiped. Since the drive is blank that's not a problem. My ignorance concerns the new disk not having a drive letter currently. Will it get that once Windows 10 is installed on it? Or do I have to initialize it, or assign it through Windows Disk management prior to installing Windows 10?

Thank you again!

No problem.

If you are using a single disk and not a partition shared on the disk, then you can just wipe the disk step 14/15, and then select the unallocated disk to install Windows 10 on. Everything else will automatically be handled.

You will indeed need to reinstall all software again after a clean install since a clean install starts you over from scratch again.

Gadgety said:

Thank you!

- - - Updated - - -

Well, this didn't work out, ran into trouble right away creating the bootable USB-drive. I downloaded the MediaCreationTool *exe file from Microsoft and clicked through the menu according to your excellent instructions. Create USB flash for another PC, unchecked the "use recommended options..." selected language and edition, but there's no option to choose media, although I have inserted a USB drive. Instead it says the C: drive is full, which is correct. It doesn't follow the description on Msft's own website either. I guess perhaps Rufus will be less rigid? Perhaps I should format the USB drive to NTFS?

Does the USB flash drive show up in File Explorer > This PC or Disk Management?

Gadgety said:

Yes it does. Disk manager says it's 100% free and also no errors.

You could try formatting the USB, and see if it you are able to select it afterwards in MCT.

If that fails, you could try Rufus.