
On a Mac/Linux at this stage, it just offers for you to download the individual ISOs. If you do this on a Windows machine, the options are different to doing it on a Mac/Linux. Clean installing a Windows 10 install with Windows 10 Pro will fail to activate – and you will need to do another clean installation.

Home versions of Windows 7 auto upgrade to Windows 10 Home, whereas my Windows 8.1 was Pro and therefore auto upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. You need to remember which version of Windows 10 you have before using the media creation tool. Select the version you require – in most cases it will be just Windows 10. Grab a USB stick – depending on the next option will depend on the size and visit the Official Microsoft Windows 10 ISO. To install, you need to create some media.

Would this affect activation? Let’s Get Started This laptop was previously running the 32-bit edition of Windows 10, and I wanted to change that to the 64-bit edition. So I put this to the test – with one additional twist. As long as the hardware doesn’t change too much, then Windows 10 should recognise your setup as an existing customer and auto activate. It is tied to the hardware it is installed on. Would I have to install the previous version and then upgrade to Windows 10? When you get the free upgrade to Windows 10, it doesn’t give you an installation code so what do you do when you need to re-install it? Both Windows machines run very well under Windows 10 with only 2 GB of RAM, and the Mint machine runs beautifully.Ī recent hard drive failure meant I needed to reinstall Windows 10 on one of the machines, and this caused me some concern. One was running Windows 7, one was running Windows 8.1, and the other runs Linux Mint Xfce. My children have three identical aging laptops – Stone MR-055 Pentium Dual Core machines. Couple that with highly optimising it, it means it runs well even on very old hardware. Gone is the hideous monstrosity of ‘the interface formally known as Metro’ from Windows 8 as Microsoft blends the tile features with the classic look and Start Menu Windows users are all used to and it has done a great job. While Windows 10 might be shrouded in woes about privacy and tracking – it is still nonetheless a free operating system for most – and by all accounts a good version.


When Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be available free to those running Windows 7 and 8, it was a big shock. I take my son’s Windows 10 laptop with its ‘free upgrade’ version and do a clean install, with a twist.
