How To Download And Install Windows 10 Pro For Free

I have tested this scenario multiple times on hardware that originally shipped with Windows Home and was upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. After the upgrade was complete, I used a bootable USB flash drive containing Windows 10 setup files to reinstall a clean copy of Windows 10 Pro, skipping the option to enter a product key as part of setup, as shown below. When prompted, be sure to choose Windows 10 Pro as the edition to install. 10 product keys, meaning they could be entered during installation to activate the free license, without the need to upgrade first to "activate" the hardware with Microsoft's activation servers. The upgrade offer was marketed and initiated using the "Get Windows 10" application, which was first downloaded and installed via Windows Update in March 2015. Third-party programs were also created to assist users in applying measures to disable GWX.

After you complete the steps, repeat the instructions to backup the remaining accounts . In addition to making a copy of your files, it's also a good idea to create a list of the installed programs with their respective product keys to know the apps you may need to reinstall after the installation. Older blog but I will take a chance and post my problem. One partition is windows 10 Home 64bit and the other is windows 10 pro 32 bit. When I had a hardware failure I replaced the mainboard with a board that was very close to the original in the sense of chipsets and CPU.

Used my original Graphics card , FAXmodem , Hard drives, and memory. When I powered the system I went to the 64 bit partition first. It activated using the "replace hardware recently" option. I have a second retail win 7pro disc package with valid key but when I enter it, It just keeps saying I can't have two different versions on the same machine basically. If you already have a backup of the device and files. The computer is configured to start from a USB flash drive, and non-essential peripherals are disconnected.

Then you can skip this part and jump to bootable media creation and a clean install process. We upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 late on October 22, 2019 with no problems on my SSD boot drive . From starting the process to seeing the Windows 10 splash screen for multiple users it took one hour and 30 minutes; including the initial small download and the following large download from Microsoft. Quite frankly many of my apps seem snappier in response and performance. Creating a dual boot on a Windows machine is straightforward. Briefly, start the setup from your installation media, install Windows 10 on the partition you designated for it, and choose which operating system you'd like to launch the next time you're booting your computer.

We've previously outlined the steps for installing a dual boot for Windows 8 with Windows 7 and the process essentially hasn't changed for Windows 10. The installation process of Windows 10 has two main parts, including the setup and out-of-box experience . In the setup process, that's where you will select some of the basic settings, and you'll find the options to erase the hard drive, configure the partitions, and clean install Windows 10. The out-of-box experience happens after the setup is complete, and it's the stage where you'll configure your settings, such as region, network, account, privacy, and other settings. Picking the right media type on the next screen is less obvious than it seems, as there are merits to both direct USB installer creation and the more flexible Win10 ISO images.

The ISO version also comes in handy when installing Windows 10 to a virtual machine for a test drive using software like VirtualBox. Other critics argued that Microsoft should not have triggered any downloading of Windows 10 installation files without user consent. As of the May 2019 update, the minimum disk space requirement has been increased to 32 GB.

In addition, on new installations, Windows permanently reserves up to 7 GB of disk space in order to ensure proper installation of future feature updates. Extended support until January 13, 2032The original release of Windows 10 receives mainstream support for five years after its original release, followed by five years of extended support, but this is subject to conditions. Microsoft stated that these devices would no longer receive feature updates, but would still receive security updates through January 2023. Microsoft will continue to support at least one standard Windows 10 release until October 14, 2025.

Getting hold of the Windows installer is as easy as visiting support.microsoft.com. Whether you've paid for Windows 10 already or not, anyone is allowed to download a Windows 10 ISO file and burn it to a DVD or create installation media on a USB drive for free. Once that's done, you can boot from your installation media and load Windows 10 onto your PC. During installation, Microsoft asks for an activation key. You can skip it, but eventually, Windows will start alerting you that your install isn't activated. In March 2016, some users also alleged that their Windows 7 and 8.1 devices had automatically begun upgrading to Windows 10 without their consent.

In June 2016, the GWX dialog's behavior changed to make closing the window imply a consent to a scheduled upgrade. It was concluded that these users may have unknowingly clicked the "Accept" prompt without full knowledge that this would begin the upgrade. The OS restricts software installation to applications obtained from Microsoft Store; the device may be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro for a fee to enable unrestricted software installation. As a time-limited promotion, Microsoft stated that this upgrade would be free on the Surface Laptop until March 31, 2018. Windows 10 S also contains a faster initial setup and login process, and allows devices to be provisioned using a USB drive with the Windows Intune for Education platform.

Many would argue that downloading Windows without paying for or already owning a product key is ethically wrong. That said, Microsoft has made this process easier over various Windows iterations and lessened the limitations and nagging that happens when you don't activate. The company isn't trying to close this loophole, probably because it's more interested in driving user numbers. I've even seen well-known vendors and Microsoft partners do press presentations with watermarks on their desktop.

If your Windows 7 or Windows 8 license is not activated and you are not interested in purchasing a license, then your options are limited. Microsoft offers a 90 day trial of its Windows 10 Enterprise edition. Windows 10 Enterprise is normally distributed under Microsoft's volume license program for large organizations that deploy Windows 10 in bulk. It's a full-featured edition of the operating system but in this case, it's really an evaluation version of the software.

Users must register before they can download and install the software. This option is perfect for those users who are running Windows Vista or never had a genuine license, to begin with. After you've successfully performed a Home-to-Pro upgrade, you can file that product key away. Your upgrade is now a digital license, attached to your unique hardware. If you perform a reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft's activation servers will recognize the hardware and activate Windows 10 automatically.

Once you complete the steps, the computer will start from a USB flash drive to proceed with the clean installation process. If you don't have a product key or you're installing Windows 10 on a new hard drive, make sure you've linked your Windows 10 digital license to your Microsoft account before you start the installation. First make sure you have a full backup of your data since will be installing on top of the existing data.

You can download the Windows 10 media from the Windows 10 .iso download site and then set the computer to boot from the flash drive. Typically, I find this is often the hardest part of the process — finding the combination of keys that allows you into the bios to force the system to boot from the flash drive. AfterWindows 10 is completely installed, you'll be presented with the new desktop and all the new features.

At this time, it's a good idea to go to Windows Update using the Settings app to check for updates. Also, go to Device Manager to confirm if the computer hardware is working correctly, and you don't need to reinstall any driver. Select the USB flash drive option and pick the attached device you'll be using as the installer. While the installer itself is less than 5 GB, the extra space will come in handy for the next step.

For now, the media creation tool will format the flash drive, download and transfer the installer, and make the USB bootable. Select "Create installation media for another PC" and click "Next." Language, edition and architecture options follow. Pick the appropriate edition for your product key and stick with 64-bit variants unless you absolutely require 32-bit for legacy reasons. This edition is designed for "special-purpose devices" that perform a fixed function . For this reason, it excludes Cortana, Microsoft Store, and all bundled Universal Windows Platform apps .

Download the appropriate version for your machine, i.e. for a 32-bit or 64-bit architecture. Launch the EXE file you downloaded, select Create installation media for another PC, and click Next. Choose your Language, Edition , Architecture, and when you're done click Next. On Windows 10, a clean installation defines the process to wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch with a new setup when the device is having problems. For instance, this method can resolve memory, startup, shut down, apps, and performance issues.

In addition, a fresh install can improve battery life, and it's perhaps the best approach to eliminating viruses and other types of malware. Go to the VirtualBox website, and download the latest version of Oracle's free, open source software. Go through the installation process, and then launch the application. Press the "New" button, and name your virtual machine.

Make sure your "Type" is set to "Microsoft Windows," and your "Version" is set to "Windows 10." Just make sure you match the x64 version with a 64-bit VM, and the x86 version with a 32-bit VM. Microsoft offers several ways to download Windows 11 manually. One is to use the Installation Assistant app, which you install on your PC to trigger a normal upgrade install via Windows Update. The second is to use the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool, which automates the process of creating a bootable USB install drive or downloading an install ISO file. Once you have a USB drive, you can either boot from it to perform a clean install or run the Setup app from within Windows 10 to do a normal upgrade install.

You can also burn the ISO to a DVD, but installing from any USB drive, even an old USB 2.0 drive, will be much faster, so you shouldn't do that. Finally, you can just download an ISO file directly from Microsoft's site. Starting with Windows 10 version 2004, Microsoft will require new OEM devices to use 64-bit processors, and will therefore cease the distribution of x86 (32-bit) variants of Windows 10 via OEM channels.

The 32-bit variants of Windows 10 will remain available via non-OEM channels, and Microsoft will continue to " feature and security updates on these devices". This would later be followed by Windows 11 dropping 32-bit hardware support altogether, and thus making Windows 10 the final version of Windows to have a 32-bit version. The new Start menu takes after Windows 7's design by using only a portion of the screen and including a Windows 7-style application listing in the first column. The second column displays Windows 8-style app tiles. Myerson said that these changes would occur in a future update, but did not elaborate. Windows Phone 8.1 would share nearly 90% of the common Windows Runtime APIs with Windows 8.1 on PCs.

How To Download And Install Windows 10 For Free Windows 10 received generally positive reviews upon its original release. It may take some time in downloading Windows 10 files from the internet. So it depends on your internet speed that how much time will it take. If you are using a pirated or cracked version then it may ask you to enter the product key. Otherwise it will not ask for any product / license key and upgrade process will go smoothly.

After completion of download, click on the 'Install' button. Keep updating Windows 1o as and when updates are released. This is my preferred way of installing a new OS, if I've committed to upgrading the operating system. Downloading an .ISO file allows you to simply tuck it away like any other document on an external hard drive. If you'd like, you can burn it to a DVD or save it on a USB key, too. With Windows 10 or Windows 11, though, you don't need to.

Simply right-click the .ISO file, select "Mount," and Windows will simply treat the file like a virtual DVD in a disc drive. You'll be able to kick off the installation process in one easy step. Best of all, you only need to use the older product key one time.

As mentioned previously, to use installation media created with the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool, you will need a Windows 7 or Windows 8 product key to activate Windows 10. If you have a newer computer with the product key embedded on the UEFI BIOS, you can run your old Windows version and Windows 10 next to each other, and Windows 10 should activate automatically. With the installation files prepared, you can proceed with installing Windows 10. You can either dual boot the OS or run it inside a virtual machine. The latter is less tricky to set up, but since virtual machines require extra resources, they can be buggy and thus won't give you a smooth Windows 10 experience.

If your system barely meets the minimum requirements of running Windows 10, you're better off with a dual boot. After you complete the steps, Rufus will download the ISO file from the Microsoft servers, and it'll create the bootable media to perform a clean install of Windows 10. Once you complete the steps, the tool will download the files and create an installer with the latest installation files, which you can then use to start the device and configure a fresh copy of Windows 10. Follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows 10. You'll be asked to perform a few tasks, such as connecting to Wi-Fi and choosing some preferences.

If you choose Upgrade, you'll preserve existing apps and files. Alternatively, users who want to migrate their files, apps, and settings can purchase a copy of Windows 7, upgrade their current installation, and only then upgrade to Windows 10. However, a clean install will save you time and money and help you to start with a fresh installation. Most computers made in the last 10 years or so will support booting from USB flash drives. Windows 10 requires a 4GB or larger flash drive to use as the install disk, with an 8GB drive costing from as little as £4. As well as making the installation process faster, using a flash drive means you'll be able to use the drive for other purposes after you've installed Windows.

There are also plenty of slimline laptops out there that don't have DVD drives. If you want to create a bootable DVD drive, you'll need to download the Windows 10 ISO file. This file is also useful if you want to create boot media whenever you like. First, from a non-Windows PC you can justdownload the Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft. You'll most likely need the standard 'Windows 10' ISO, which includes the installation files for the Home and Pro versions of Windows 10. To create installation media, you have two options.

First, you can download the ISO file to a computer and then use our instructions to create boot media. Secondly, you can run the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and get it to create the boot USB drive for you. The latter option is the easiest, so that's the method we'll focus on first. The downside of this tool is that it leaves your computer and hard drives in their current state. As this tool is built into Windows 10 and already has a copy of all the install files it needs to do its job, it's quicker and easier than performing a full, clean installation.

For most people, then, this option is going to be the best one to start off with. It's not difficult to use the tool, but there are a few options, so we've put detailed instructions in our guide on how to reset Windows 10 to factory settings. Windows 10 is available as a boxed product, and also on a USB flash drive, for those who want to buy it outright. If you've already got Windows 10 installed, you may be able to make things easy for yourself by reading our first installation note.