Windows 10: Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First  

mrki13 said:

Hello, I've tried to search this thread but couldn't find the answer to my question so here it is...

Is it possibly to perform an upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit version to Windows 10 Pro 64-bit version using this method?
Will the GenuineTicket.xml file created on 32-bit version work for activation of 64-bit version?

The reason why I'm doing this because I got another pair of RAM modules and I want to be able to fully use them (4GB total).

Thanks :)

Hello mrki13 Welcome to the Ten Forums!

If you were changing brands of memory within the first few months that 7 was freshly installed you would need to call into MS to see 7 reactivated as I had to here back in 2010! With 10 however as well as being well past the first six months with 7 MS automatically allowed for hardware changes as expected upgrades on things like cpu, memory, video, sound cards, etc, except for the change of the mother board would see a grace as far as no need to call in.

With the upgrade direct from an already activated 7 to 10 you would see an instant activation without even entering a product key and no need for the xml file. The GenuineTicket.xml is created so you can avoid any need to see an upgrade but simply put on a nice fresh clean installed copy of 10 without the worry of buggy upgrades!

Quite commonly seen when going from 7 to 10 being 3 versions newer the upgrades will end up seeing a good bug or two where this option avoids the need to follow the upgrade with either a second upgrade to repair or clean install to fix what comes out broken. The method deployed in the guide here will still work while by the time you go to copy the xml into the specified location the upgrade from 7 would have already been activated! Simply go to Start>Settings>Update and Security as soon as the upgrade install is finished and has arrived at the desktop for the first time to check the Activation section.

Initially last summer for the first few weeks activation would be taking some time since the MS servers were bogged down quite a bit with 10 being new. At this time however the traffic is considerably lighter. :)

The one thing I have to see made clear is in regards to your initial question.

Is it possibly to perform an upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit version to Windows 10 Pro 64-bit version using this method?

The direct upgrade is obviously out of the question since a clean install would be required to replace the 32bit Ultimate install with the 64bit Pro install which would need to be a 64bit clean install. That is where the xml file will be required. The alternative of course would be seeing a dual boot if you are concerned over losing some programs having a similar situation here for the time being. Only the 7 Ultimate install on the now second OS drive is the 64bit Windows.

It worked! :)

Thanks again DavidE and Night Hawk.

What have I accomplished in a single step (or at least without the upgrade process):

1) Switched from Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit to Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
2) Added 2GB of RAM to the system (4GB total)
3) Swapped hard drive for an SSD
4) Kept Windows 7 installation intact so I have the option to boot to it as well (dual-boot) but it's no longer genuine

I followed the method described in this tutorial but with some additional steps!

While still running Windows 7, I added 2GB of RAM to the system and new SSD (and formatted it too) so they are present in the system while I create genuineticket.xml.

Before I created genuineticket.xml I made 2 bootable USB drives using Media Creation Tool from Microsoft. The reason why I needed 2 bootable drives is because you have to use 32-bit version of gatherosstate.exe to work on 32-bit OS. Once I created genuineticket.xml, I also made a backup of it and simply followed the rest of this tutorial and that was it!

Fantasssss tic!!! It works doesn't it?! And you save a few headaches of ending up at first with the possibly buggy upgrade install you would end up needing to replace anyways!

It's definitely the "Winning Ticket" when using this approach over the 10 step nightmare originally seen last summer when trying to debug the initial upgrade to 10.