download unregisters copy of How to install a fresh copy of Windows 10 using a USB drive. A quick and easy guide to install Windows on your PC. If you are out in the market to buy a new PC, you usually get a copy of Windows 10 pre-installed. However, a number of retailers sell laptops and desktops without an operating system. There are also times when your existing system is so clogged up or has so many unnecessary programs and files that you just have to do a fresh install of Windows. While it used to be quite a task with the earlier versions, installing Windows 10 is actually a piece of cake. Now since CD and DVD ROMs are fading away from systems, we have compiled the steps to install a fresh copy of the OS using a USB drive. Not only is it easy, it is also the fastest method. Create Windows 10 Installation Disc. has made the process of installing Windows quite simple thanks to the introduction of the Media Creation Tool. Using this tool, one can create a USB drive to install the latest version of Windows on a new PC or just have the installation drive handy in case your existing machine starts to malfunction. The first thing you will need is a USB drive with at least 4-5GB of storage, so its better you get an empty 8GB drive. Next, head over to Microsoft’s dedicated webpage for Windows 10 downloads and download the Media Creation Tool. Plug the USB drive and fire up the Media Creation Tool. Click on the license agreement, after which you will get the option of upgrading your current system or creating installation media. Select the second option and hit next. The tool, by default, will be set to download the same version of Windows that you are running. If want, you can change the default language, edition of Windows 10 (Home or Pro) or the architecture (32 or 64-bit), by deselecting the checkbox labeled ‘Use the recommended options for this PC’. Note, you need to have the correct license key for the corresponding version of Windows that you are downloading. Be careful, as the key for a 32-bit Windows 10 might not work for a 64-bit version. Once you have decided that, click on next to select whether you want to create installation media or just download an ISO file. Of course, we want to install Windows using a USB flash drive, so select that option and move to the next step. You will now be prompted to select the USB drive which you want to create into a bootable Windows installation disc. Select the correct drive letter and click next to start downloading Windows 10 which will be on your USB drive. Installing Windows 10. Once you have created the installation disc, it is time to install Windows. If you are reinstalling Windows, make sure you have backed up all your important data. It is advisable that you make a copy of your files on an external drive. Switch off your system completely and insert the USB disc which you just prepared. Now turn on your system and boot into the installation drive. If there is no operating system on your PC, it should load the setup for Windows 10 automatically. If you had Windows 10, or any older version of Windows installed, make sure the system boots into the Windows 10 installation drive. You can do that by selecting the right bootable device. You bring the prompt when your system is booting by hitting the Boot Menu key which is usually Esc, F2, F10 or F12, depending on your system’s make. You should get a list of all bootable devices on your system. Select the USB drive which should load the Windows 10 installation process. Just follow the steps to install the OS and make sure you format your primary drive where you will perform the fresh install. You get an option to perform a partition of the drive. It is advisable that you give a minimum of 70-100GB of storage for the installation, or if you have a dedicated drive for Windows installation, then no need to perform a partition. The steps are pretty straight forward and you will be guided through each and every setting to finalise the installation. In the final steps, you will be asked to log in to your Microsoft account which is pretty useful as it syncs most of the that you saved when you last used Windows. In case you don’t have a Microsoft account, we advise you make one. How to reinstall Windows 10 from the cloud. You can now refresh Windows 10 from the cloud if your local OS image isn't available or working right. You've run into a problem with a Windows 10 computer and you'd like to try resetting it to see if that fixes the issue. With past versions of Windows 10, you were forced to reinstall Windows from your PC. Normally, that process should work fine, but if the local Windows image ever got damaged or corrupted, you'd be out of luck. SEE: Windows 10 hacks (TechRepublic Premium) More about Windows. With the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (aka Windows 10 version 2004), you can reinstall Windows from the cloud as an alternative to a local reinstallation. As this option downloads a fresh copy of Windows from the cloud, you don't have to worry about reliability issues. Let's cover the steps. First, you'll need the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. To check, go to Settings and then select System. Scroll to the bottom of the System screen and select About. If the Windows version says 2004 or higher, you're all set. If not, go to Update & Security and then to to see if the Feature update to Windows 10, version 2004 appears. If so, and you wish to update, click the Download And Install link. Now, let's say a point has come when Windows isn't behaving or working properly and you believe your only recourse is to reset your PC. Go to Settings and then Update & Security. Select the setting for Recover and then click the Get Started button ( Figure A ). Figure A. At the next screen to choose an option, select the option to Keep My Files, assuming you want to keep all your personal files ( Figure B ). Figure B. Note: This option will remove your installed apps and customized settings. The next screen asks how you would like to reinstall Windows. Select the option for Cloud Download ( Figure C ). You will need at least 4GB of free space--and probably more--for this option to work. Figure C. At the next screen, confirm your settings and click Next ( Figure D ). Figure D. The next screen tells you what resetting the PC will do. Click Reset ( Figure E ). Figure E. The refresh of Windows will now download. Your PC then automatically restarts and runs the reset process. After Windows has been reset, you're placed at the Lock Screen and then the login screen where you can sign in to see your familiar desktop. You should also open the Removed Apps HTML file on the desktop to see which apps were lost and may need to be reinstalled ( Figure F ). Figure F. Microsoft Weekly Newsletter. Be your company's Microsoft insider by reading these Windows and Office tips, tricks, and cheat sheets. Delivered Mondays and Wednesdays. Installing windows 10 on a second drive. I have a desktop computer that is running windows 10 home edition with a 1tb hard drive. I'm installing a solid state drive as a second hard drive. I want to install windows 10 home edition on this drive and make it the boot drive. I'm confused if I should download the windows 10 home edition iso file or should I use the media creation tool? Any help would be appreciated! Also, any suggestions or warnings about what problems I might encounter. The SSD is 500gb so there should be no problem fitting windows on it. I'm keeping the original hard drive to use as a data drive. Subscribe Subscribe to RSS feed. Report abuse. Replies (4) If the SSD is bigger than the drive it is replacing, you could create a system image on an external hard disk, shut down the computer, remove the old hard drive, install the new SSD then restore the system image: Option 2: you could use a free tool such as Easeus to clone the HDD to SSD: You can download, create a bootable copy of Windows 10 Home, then install it on the SSD: When you upgraded from a previous version of Windows or receive a new computer preinstalled with Windows 10, what happened is the hardware (your PC) will get a digital entitlement, where a unique signature of the computer will be stored on Microsoft Activation Servers. The or genuine license you were previously running will be exchanged for a diagnostics key. Anytime you need to reinstall Windows 10 on that machine, just proceed to reinstall Windows 10. It will automatically reactivate. You will prompted to enter a product key a couple times through the installation, click I don't have a key and Do this later. There is no need to know or get a new key, but if you have issues with Digital Licensing or the Activation Troubleshooter, you can utilize an existing Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 product key you already own to reactivate if necessary. or use the reset function in Windows 10. Cloud Mirror sample. This sample shows how to get started writing a cloud files provider using the cloud files API. This is the initial iteration, and as such it is an early preview, and far from final. The following functionality is implemented: Declaring necessary Extensions and Capabilities in the Package.appxmanifest . Note that these declarations do not appear in the Visual Studio manifest editor. Registering/Unregistering a Sync Root which will show up in the Navigation Pane of Windows Explorer. Generating the initial placeholders in the Sync Root, using a physical "" folder on the development machine as the fake cloud. Simulating Hydration of a file from a cloud service by slowly copying a file from a physical "server" folder on the development machine to a physical "client" folder on the development machine, including showing progress. Setting up custom states. Providing thumbnails for the file placeholders. adding a custom entry to the context menu when the user clicks on a file in the Sync Root. Supplying the URI of the cloud location of a file. Note The Windows-classic-samples repo contains a variety of code samples that exercise the various programming models, platforms, features, and components available in Windows and/or . This repo provides a Visual Studio solution (SLN) file for each sample, along with the source files, assets, resources, and metadata needed to compile and run the sample. For more info about the programming models, platforms, languages, and demonstrated in these samples, check out the documentation on the Windows Dev Center. This sample is provided as-is in order to indicate or demonstrate the functionality of the programming models and feature APIs for Windows and/or Windows Server. This sample was created for Windows 10 Version 1809 using Visual Studio 2017 using the Windows SDK 10.0.17763.0, but in many cases it will run unaltered using later versions. Please provide feedback on this sample! To get a copy of Windows, go to Downloads and tools. To get a copy of Visual Studio, go to Visual Studio Downloads. Related topics. Related technologies. Operating system requirements. Client. Windows 10 Version 1809. Build the sample. Currently the sample is configured for an x86 configuration. Change the solution platform to x86. To build this sample, open the solution ( .sln ) file titled CloudMirror.sln from Visual Studio Professional 2017, Select CloudMirrorPackage as the startup project. go to Build > Build Solution from the top menu after the sample has loaded. Warning This sample requires the Windows SDK 10.0.17763.0. Run the sample. To run this sample after building it, press F5 . A Directory Picker dialog appears. Indicate the physical folder on your dev machine that holds a representation of the "cloud". After picking that folder, a second Directory Picker dialog appears. Indicate the location of your sync root (client), which is populated with placeholders of the files in the "cloud". Once you dismiss that picker, a console window appears with status messages, and the sync root appears in . Play around with the files in the sync root, making them available on the machine and freeing up space. Notice the custom state icons. Watch hydration show progress bars. Press CTRL + C in the console window to gracefully exit. The sample unregisters the sync root when it closes or crashes. This behavior is for demonstration purposes. A real-world provider would remain registered, so that when the user selects the sync root in File Explorer, the provider app restarts. Automatic restarting is not desirable for a demonstration, however. NOTE : If you hydrated some files while testing and then shut down the sample, you should delete everything from the sync root folder before re- running the sample. Otherwise the sample will behave unpredictably. It’s time to squirrel away a clean copy of Win10 version 1909. Downloading a clean Win10 version 1909 is remarkably easy, doesn’t take very long (if you have a fast internet connection anyway), and may well save your keister at some point. You can even download it from or iPad. Don’t worry, it’s 100% legal and, at worst, will occupy about 8GB on a USB drive for a while. Nothin’ to it. Step 1. If you’re running Win10, use the Media Creation Tool. If you have a license for Windows 10, the easiest way to get version 1909 involves Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool. Go to the Download Windows 10 site and, under "Create Windows 10 installation media," click the link marked "Download tool now." You'll see a notice that you’re opening MediaCreationTool1909.exe (screenshot). It may take a second, but when the Save File button goes live, click on it. Give approval for the Media Creation Tool to make changes to your PC, and you'll see the Windows 10 Setup dialog. Click to accept Microsoft’s multi-page Software License Terms. The Windows 10 Setup routine asks if you want to upgrade this PC now, or if you want to create installation media (screenshot). Choose "Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC." Yes, you should choose that even if you never intend to use the clean copy of Win10 1909 on any other PC. Click Next. Choose the language, architecture and edition — all of which should match what you’re currently running. When you’re asked to "Choose which media to use," choose "ISO file." Ignore the part about “You’ll need to burn the ISO file to a DVD later” — old advice, rarely necessary these days. Click Next. When you get to the point where you choose a place to put the file, give it a name that you’ll be able to identify in the future — say, Win10 1909.iso or something similar — and stick the file someplace you’ll be able to find it. Hit Save, wait a few minutes, and you’ll have a brand-new, clean copy of Win10 version 1909 downloaded and ready for the inevitable disaster. When you’re told to burn the ISO file to a DVD, just ignore it and click "Finish." OK, boomer. Step 2. If you aren’t running Windows 10, grab a different machine. If you go to the Download Windows 10 site using anything other than a fully ordained Windows machine, you’ll see something like the screenshot, which was taken on my Android phone. That’s good news. Really. Downloading Win10 is as simple as choosing an edition (“Windows 10 November 2019 Update” is version 1909) and clicking Confirm. You’ll need about 8GB of free space — which may or may not present a problem on your device. Moving the file from your phone, tablet, Mac, Linux machine, or Raspberry Pi is almost always a simple task. Step 3. Make like a squirrel. No matter which path you choose, you’ll end up with a copy of the official Win10 version 1909 ISO file, which can be easily used to install 1909. At least, “easily” in a Windows kind of way. If you download right now, you’ll get the Jan. 14 flavor, known as build 18363.592. Stow it away someplace handy. You may need it someday. Need help? Join us on AskWoody.com . Woody Leonhard is a columnist at Computerworld and author of dozens of Windows books, including "Windows 10 All-in-One for Dummies."