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Go through the Windows 10 installation process normally. RELATED: How to Boot Your Computer From a Disc or USB Drive Install Windows 10 Alongside Windows 7 or 8 If you have a Windows 8 computer that comes with the newer UEFI firmware, you’ll need to use Windows 8’s advanced boot menu to select your USB drive or DVD drive when you boot your computer. If it doesn’t, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS. It should automatically boot into the Windows 10 installer. Leave the DVD or USB drive in your computer and reboot. Microsoft’s Windows USB/DVD Download Tool still works well, and will let you image a Windows 10 ISO file onto a USB drive. Download Windows 10 and Boot the Installerĭownload a Windows 10 ISO file and either burn it to a DVD or make a bootable USB flash drive. You’ll probably want more than that.Īfter shrinking the partition, you can continue the process. Microsoft says Windows 10 has the same system requirements as Windows 8, and the 64-bit version of Windows 8.1 requires at least 20 GB of hard drive space. Shrink the volume to free up enough space for your Windows 10 system. Right-click it and select “Shrink Volume.” If you have multiple partitions on your hard drive, you could also choose to resize a different partition to free up space. Locate your system partition - that’s probably the C: partition. Press Windows Key + R, type diskmgmt.msc into the Run dialog, and press Enter to launch it. Whether you’re using Windows 7 or 8, you can use the Disk Management utility to do this. But you’ll probably want to install Windows 10 alongside Windows 7 or 8 on the same hard drive. If you have two different hard drives in your computer and one of them is empty, you can skip this part. RELATED: Windows 10 is Out Today: Should You Upgrade?įirst, you’ll need to make space for Windows 10 on your hard drive.
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Resize Your Windows 7 or 8 Partition to Make Space You can still get Windows 10 free by providing a Windows 7 or 8 key during the clean install process. Performing an “upgrade” is no longer necessary. Update 2: It’s 2019, Windows 10 is stable now, and this process still works. If this doesn’t make any sense, that’s because Microsoft never makes licensing easy, even when there’s a free version. Update: if you haven’t installed Windows 10 on your PC before, you’ll probably have to perform an upgrade first before you can clean install.
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