How to upgrade to windows 10 from windows 7 in the least time consuming way?

[cat___]

My Asus Laptop Windows 7 failed to boot. So I removed the HD and check it for damage. It is not damaged but the windows wont boot anymore. Now my question is, how to upgrade this to Windows 10 in the least painful way?

1. Do I have to reinstall windows 7 to install windows 10 on top of it?
2. Can I directly buy windows 10 online and somehow make an installer boot USB from that to do a fresh install?

I assume buying windows 10 as an upgrade variant from win7 professional is cheaper?

 

[Paul NZ]

You could try getting the win10 ISO with the mediacreation tool. Then either burn it to dvd or use rufus. And extract it to a flash drive

Then boot from it. Not too sure if it'll still activate tho. Just install Win10, dont install from Win7 then upgrade to 10

 

[cat___]

Flash drive means USB stick? Can an Asus 751M boot directly from an usb stick? I am not familiar with modern booting devices.

 

[mjslakeridge]

Yes, flash drive is another name for USB stick. Just be aware that using the media creation tool will erase anything already on the USB stick, so don't use one with any valuable data on it. I used a blank DVD, but I realize not all compters/laptops still have a CD/DVD reader.

 

[cat___]

But I can re-use the USB stick after installing windows? The tool won't do anything permanent to it?

 

[Paul NZ]

No all the tool does is put the windows10 install on it. Once you install windows from it, you can format it

Altho I would use rufus

Some people say the tool if you use it to put the install on a flash drive, it doesnt always work

If you use use rufus, if the motherboard supports UEFI put it on GPT partition.

If it doesnt put it on MBR before you add the ISO

 

[cat___]

Thanks but I rather not have to use partitions.

 

[Paul NZ]

Thats just the option. Depending on whether your system supports UEFI or not

 

[cat___]

when using the media creation tool, it fails to recognize my 64gb usb stick. Could this be because it comes pre-formatted as FAT32 (which can only handle files as large as 4gb?) Would formatting it to NTFS work?

 

[Paul NZ]

Download the ISO and see if Rufus works.

I've never used the mediacreation tool to put the ISO onto a flash drive. I've always used Rufus. Never had a prob with it

 

[Rocky Bennett]

=Installation%20and%20Setup]https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-first.html?filter[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup

 

[cat___]

I have made a bootable windows ISO stick with rufus. Will report back after that.