So, if your Windows 10 isn’t activated, we suggest you not perform a clean install the first time.

If you performed an upgrade the first time, activated Windows 10, and then clean installed Windows 11/10 on the same PC, then there will be no activation issues, as the OS will pull activation details from Microsoft servers. If you clean-install Windows the first time, you may face activation problems. These are then saved on Microsoft servers, along with your PC details. Note for Windows 11/10 users: If you upgrade to Windows 11/10, the new OS will take the product key and activation details from your earlier OS.

Once you have done this, with your USB connected to your laptop, restart the laptop. It may be a bit different in your laptop. After making the changes, the setting on my Dell laptop looked as follows. Next move USB Storage Device to the first position and set it to be the first device to boot from. Disable Secure Boot, enable Legacy option, and set Boot List option to Legacy. Use the 4 arrow keys of your keyboard, navigate to the Boot tab, and change the settings. This is how the default setting looked on my laptop. If your device uses Secure Boot / UEFI, you will have to change it to Legacy. Here you will have to change the boot order. To do this on my Dell laptop, I have to restart it and keep pressing the F2 key to enter the Boot Options Setup. Please be very careful when you change the settings here, lest it makes your computer un-bootable.

Having done this, you will have to set your computer to boot from a USB device. NOTE: Read this post Install Windows 11/10 after upgrading first. You will also have to create a separate partition with at least 16 GB space, using the built-in Disk Management tool, if you plan to dual-boot it. For this, you will have to first create bootable USB media from ISO for Windows 11/10. This process can even be used if you want to dual-boot it with another operating system. In this post, we will see how to clean install Windows 11/10 using a USB flash drive, on a separate partition.

Windows 10 fresh install download