You can now clean Windows 10 install without first needing to upgrade your Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 to Windows 10. Although we have not tried this method, a user on Reddit recently has shared a method by which you can directly clean install Windows 10.
All this while users were upgrading their Windows 7/8.1 PC to the latest Windows 10 OS via the Get Windows app or by using the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool. But now using this trick, you should be able to directly clean install Windows 10 on your computer.
You would need a Windows 10 ISO image or a bootable DVD to use this method. For those who don’t know, you can also create the ISO image using the Windows 10 Media Creating Tool and use it for the clean installation.
How to directly clean install Windows 10 without upgrading
He has listed the procedure as follows:
1] You first need a Windows 10 ISO image or a DVD for clean install.
2] Burn the ISO and extract it.
3] Locate the file gatherosstate.exe on your local drive and move it to the desktop.
4] Run the file and create a GenuineTicket.xml on your desktop.
5] You can now clean install Windows 10 on your PC. Click Ignore if the system asks for product key.
6] Copy the GenuineTicket.xml file to your C drive on path C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\ClipSVC\GenuineTicket.
7] Reboot your PC.
The Reddit user says,
No need to launch setup, just copy \source\gatherosstate.exe to a writable directory, launch it and get GenuineTicket.xml there!
Then you can clean install (ignoring product keys when asked)
When it’s completed, put the file in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Clipsvc\GenuineTicket\ and reboot.
It is always recommended to take a backup of all your important files and data before you run any installation on your PC.
If the GenuineTicket.xml created in an activated down-level OS is being re-used on the same PC on Windows 10, this is essentially mimicking what the Windows 10 upgrade does today. It is not supported by Microsoft and may not work in the future. This will not work when the free upgrade period lapses. However one has to be very carefully while carrying out this procedure.
As we have mentioned earlier, we have not tried this method, so you may take a call if you wish to follow this method. If you do follow this method, do share your experience with us.
NOTE: If you upgrade to Windows 10, the new OS will take the product key and activation details from your earlier OS. These are then saved on Microsoft servers, along with your PC details. If you clean install Windows the first time, you may face activation problems. If you performed an upgrade the first time, activated Windows 10, and then clean installed Windows 10 on the same PC, then there will be no activation issues, as the OS will pull activation details from Microsoft servers. So, if your Windows 10 isn’t activated, we suggest you not perform a clean install the first time. First Upgrade the first time, Activate it and then Clean Install.
