Hey! What's going on everybody! Welcome to today's tech tip where I'm going to
show you how to install Windows 10 using a USB drive.
This video will be helpful for those who would like to see
step-by-step instructions on how to install Windows 10 either on a brand new PC or
someone who already has a computer and want to perform a clean install or reinstall Windows 10.
So, let's begin.
If you have already purchased your Windows 10 copy, there is a chance
that you may get your copy of Windows 10 installation media on a USB device.
If that is the case, feel free to skip to the section
where I actually show you to install Windows 10 using a USB drive.
But if you already have your Windows 10 installed on an older computer and if you want to install
Windows 10 on a new computer using a USB drive or perhaps you want to do a clean install
or reinstall Windows 10 on the same computer using a USB drive then you got to watch this
video completely as I'll show you how to use a USB drive and make that as a bootable drive
and copy Windows 10 installation media into it to install Windows 10 on a PC.
Soon after the installation of Windows 10, you need to activate your Windows 10 copy
and for that, you need to have your license key with you.
Like I said, If you already have a bootable USB drive that came with your purchased copy
of Windows 10 installation media, you can skip to the next section
where I'll show you how to install Windows 10 using a USB drive.
Otherwise, you need a USB drive to copy the installation media of Windows 10 and you also
need another computer to download the "Media Creation Tool" from Microsoft which would help
us to copy the installation media of Windows 10 on a USB drive and to make that a bootable drive.
Microsoft recommends using an 8 GB USB drive.
But I'll be using a 32 GB USB drive.
Make sure you don't have any data on this drive or if you have data on this drive,
it is important that you backup your data because the Media Creation Tool will format
and wipe out all the data that you have on the USB drive to copy the installation media.
The last thing, you need an Internet connection because, after the installation of Windows 10,
you need to download some drivers for the devices of your computer.
You also need an Internet connection to download the Media Creation Tool to prepare the USB drive
for copying the Windows 10 installation media and to make it a bootable USB drive.
Depending on the speed of your Internet connection,
it may take some time to download the setup files.
All right, the first step - We will download the "Media Creation Tool".
I have another laptop where I've Windows 10
already installed and I'm going to plug my 32 GB USB drive into this laptop.
I'll open the browser and navigate to Google search.
I'll type "Media Creation Tool Windows 10" and press Enter.
I'll click on the first link that says "Download Windows 10 Disc Image" from Microsoft.
Scroll down to the section where it says
'Create Windows 10 Installation Media' and click on 'Download tool now'.
Once it is downloaded, I'll open up the setup file 'MediaCreationTool' by clicking on it.
When it opens up, it will come up with the wizard and says 'Getting a few things ready'.
When it is ready, it will show you the license agreement terms, simply click on 'Accept'.
Again, it will say 'Getting a few things ready'.
Once it is done, it will prompt you 'What do you want to do?'.
You now have two options which are 'Upgrade this PC now' or 'Create installation media'.
We don't want to upgrade the PC.
So, I'll click on 'Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD,
or ISO file) for another PC' because we are performing an installation from scratch.
I'll click Next.
On the next screen, it will ask you to select your Language, Edition, and Architecture.
You can leave the option 'Use the recommended options for this PC' checked
and the options selected for Language, Edition,
and Architecture would also match for another PC where you will install Windows 10.
Otherwise, you can uncheck 'Use the recommended options for this PC'
and manually select your Language, Edition, and Architecture.
Regarding the Architecture,
it is based on your processor whether it is a 32-bit processor or 64-bit processor.
All new PCs come with a 64-bit processor.
It is very rare these days to use a PC with32-bit processor.
I'll leave the option 'Use the recommended options for this PC' checked and click Next.
Now in the 'Choose which media to use' screen, you have two options.
In my case, I'll select 'USB flash drive' as this is where we are going to copy
our Windows 10 installation media and make that USB drive bootable.
You also have 'ISO file' as an option which allows you to download the ISO file
and burn it into a DVD drive or use a 3rd party tool called
'Rufus' to copy the ISO file into a USB drive and make it a bootable drive.
I'll keep 'USB flash drive' selected and click Next.
In the 'Select a USB flash drive' screen, I'll select my USB drive which is F:\ (USB Drive).
If you don't see your USB drive or just plugged in your USB drive to the PC,
click on Refresh drive list to see your drive
and click Next.
And it will start downloading Windows 10.
It will show you a nice little progress bar that shows the percent completed
for downloading Windows 10 on the USB drive.
The time it takes to download this depends on the speed of your Internet.
I'll speed up this video.
Now you can see the download has completed
and the setup screen will verify the download.
And it will start copying the installation media to the USB drive.
When it completes, click Finish to close the 'Media Creation Tool' window.
All right, the USB drive is now a bootable drive and contains Windows 10 installation media.
I'll eject this drive and remove it from this PC.
Now I'll plug this USB drive into another PC where I would like to install Windows 10.
While powering this PC, you need to go into BIOS and change the boot order.
To go into the BIOS, you may need to press one of the function keys.
It can be F1, F2, F11, or F12 and in this screenshot, you can see it is the delete button to go into the BIOS screen.
It totally depends on the PC and sometimes you may need to refer to the manual of your PC.
On some PCs, you don't need to go into BIOS.
Instead, there are certain function keys or
keys that you need to press to simply change the boot order directly.
In most cases, it would be the function key 'F9' or 'F10'.
Once you make the changes in your BIOS where you would make the USB drive as the first
boot device, you need to save the changes.
Again, you need to press one of the function keys such as 'F10', and if your BIOS supports mouse,
you can navigate using your mouse to save the changes.
After selecting the USB drive to boot with,
the Windows 10 setup will prompt to 'Press any key to boot from CD or DVD...'
I'll simply press a key.
Now the Windows logo shows up and the Windows 10 Setup screen shows up.
In the 'Windows Setup' screen, select 'Language to install',
'Time and currency format', 'Keyboard or input method'.
For the 'Language to install', I'll select 'English (United States)'.
For the 'Time and currency format', I'll select 'English (India)'.
For the 'Keyboard or input method', I'll select 'US'.
I'll click Next
and I'll click on Install Now.
It says 'Setup is starting'.
In the 'Activate Windows' screen, it will ask us to type the license key of Windows 10
that you have purchased and this key will be used to activate Windows 10.
For this demonstration, I'll click on 'I don't have a product key'
and I can still specify the license key and activate Windows 10 after its installation.
In the next screen 'Select the operating system you want to install',
you need to select the appropriate edition that you have purchased.
The license key that I've is for 'Windows 10 Pro' and I'll select that.
Click Next.
In the license terms screen, simply select 'I accept the license terms' and click on Next.
Now it will ask which type of installation do you want?
There are two options - 'Upgrade' and 'Custom'.
The option 'Upgrade' will upgrade from the previous Windows version
to Windows 10 and it is not what we are doing for this demonstration.
The second option 'Custom' is what will select which will perform a fresh install of Windows 10.
I'll select 'Custom'.
It says 'Where do you want to install Windows?'.
If this is an existing PC, you may see multiple disks and partitions and if you are reinstalling
Windows (any version of Windows for that matter) or performing a clean install then you need to
be careful when selecting the correct drive which already has the Windows partition on it
because that it is where you will install or reinstall Windows on it.
If you accidentally select a wrong drive then Windows will be installed on the wrong drive
and you will lose any existing data on that drive.
One way to verify that is to use 'Disk Management' tool in Windows.
You need to do this before you start Windows 10 installation.
So, you will right-click on the Start menu and select 'Disk Management'
or type 'Disk Management' in the search box next to the start menu.
After opening the 'Disk Management' tool, you can see multiple disks.
One easy way to find the Windows drive is to look at the volume that says 'Boot'.
So, I'll expand the status column.
In my case, it is 'OS (C:\) which is Disk #1 and partition #3.
On this PC, where I'm installing Windows 10, I have a single drive but multiple partitions on it.
So for the sake of making it simple, I'll delete all the partitions.
Now I have a single drive which is 60 GB in space.
So I'll select the drive and click Next.
Now, it will start installing the Windows, copying the files, and getting them ready.
This would take some time to complete.
I'll speed this up.
When it is done, it will automatically restart the PC.
Now that Windows has been installed on the drive that we selected,
you can remove the USB drive attached to the PC.
Otherwise, it may boot the PC from the USB drive again.
We don't want that, so, I'll remove the USB drive.
After the restart has been completed, the Windows setup will resume.
It will say 'Getting ready' for a while.
But it will reboot one more time.
It will say 'Just a moment' for few seconds and it will resume the setup again.
First, it will ask the region. I'll keep 'India' as the region and click on 'Yes'.
Now, it will ask for the 'Keyboard Layout'.
I'll keep the default keyboard layout which is 'US' and click on 'Yes'.
If you want to add a second keyboard layout, you can add now by clicking 'Add Layout'.
But I'll click on 'Skip' for the second keyboard layout.
The next set of steps require an Internet connection.
If you don't have an Internet connection, you can click on the link
that says 'I don't have internet' and 'Continue with limited setup' to complete the setup.
But I've Internet Connection, so it has moved to
'Account' section where it asks how would you like to set up this computer?
You can either set up this computer for personal use or for an organization.
I'll select 'Set up for personal use' and click on 'Next'.
If you already used a Microsoft account to sign in to your old Windows 10 computer,
you can log in to the new computer using the same Microsoft account and it will restore all the settings that you had on the old computer.
The only downside is that you need to manually key in the license key of Windows 10 to activate it.
But I don't have a Microsoft account
and I typically log in to my computer using a local account.
So, I click on 'Offline account' to create a local account.
In the next screen, it asks you to sign-in to use Microsoft
cloud apps and services such as Onedrive and other cloud apps.
For this demonstration, I'll click on 'Limited experience'.
On this screen, type in a name of the person who is going to use the PC
and it will create a local account on this PC.
I'll type in my name
and click on Next.
I'll type a password for the local account and I'll confirm it again.
And click Next.
Just in case if you forget your password, you can select these 3 security questions from this list
and it will help you to reset the password.
I'm going to fill all these 3 questions
Click Next.
Now select the second question.
Click Next.
And the last question.
Click Next.
On the Privacy settings, I'll uncheck all the default selections for things such as
location, find my device, diagnostic data, inking & typing, tailed experiences, advertising ID.
But you can turn on these settings if you want to.
I'll click on Accept.
I'll let Cortana provide a personalized experience and suggestions. So, I'll click on Accept.
Once again, it will tell 'Just a moment' and tell 'Hi' to you.
So, it will finalize everything and
this will take a while depending on the speed of your computer.
Now we've logged in to the computer
and the computer will connect to the Internet
to download and install the required drivers for your computer.
It will only install the standard driver from the Microsoft repository.
But if your hardware components such as graphic card, network card, and display card need
3rd party drivers then you need to search them on the Internet to download and install them.
I'll click 'Maybe later' for Microsoft Edge.
The last step is to activate your Windows 10 copy.
I'll right-click on 'Start' button and click on 'System'
When the 'System' window opens up, scroll down and click on 'Change product key or upgrade your edition of Windows'
You can see the 'Activation' status. It says 'Windows is not activated'
and it reports that no product key was found on your device.
So click on 'Change product key'
and type in your product key. Click Next
and it will activate your Windows.
So, this is it!.
This is how you download and install Windows 10 using USB drive
and Media Creation Tool that we downloaded from Microsoft website.
I hope this has been helpful to you.
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