How is Win 10 with buying laptop and swapping out hard drive?

[pete6032]

I want to buy a laptop and then buy an SSD and replace the hard drive from the laptop and install Win 10. The laptop will come with a pre-installed copy of Windows 10. Will this license key work when installing Win 10 on the SSD? Also is there anywhere I can just download an ISO of Win 10 and install it that way so I don't have to install any of the bloatware?

 

[UsandThem]

Many of the prebuilt PCs have their activation attached to the BIOS, but there are still a few who attach the key on a sticker on the laptop.

Depending on the brand of the laptop, many don't install much bloatware anymore. For example, my Dell only had a couple of their utilities installed to look for system updates. With laptops, it's sometimes better to just uninstall won't you don't want. You can then simply clone your HDD to your new SSD.

But if you still want to go the clean install route, make sure your manufacturer has the various drivers available, and follow the steps in this guide:

http://www.windowscentral.com/set-up-brand-new-windows-10-computer

One change from when that article was written was another option for activation was attaching it to your Microsoft account by doing this before installing Windows:

http://www.windowscentral.com/how-link-your-windows-10-product-key-microsoft-account

 

[Valantar]

I recently reinstalled W10 on my girlfriend's Yoga 2 Pro (it had previously been upgraded from W8.1 to 10). I was never prompted for a license key or anything like that. My understanding is that this is pretty much standard these days. If not, the license key is on a sticker either underneath the laptop or inside of an easily accessible cover. And even though it's an OEM key, it can be reinstalled from scratch on the same hardware, don't worry about that.

 

[sttubs]

I cloned 3 Windows 10 laptop drives without issues using the Samsung Evo 850 and it's included cloning software.

 

[VirtualLarry]

When I got this Lenovo B50 laptop, I had a few 240/256GB SSDs in stock, and I took one, and used an Apricorn USB3.0-to-SATA cloning kit (after downloading the latest version of their cloning software, and writing it to a USB stick, as per their software).

The laptop shipped with Win7 Pro 64-bit, with a Win8.1 license in the BIOS. The clone went fine, from a 500GB HDD to a 240GB SSD, installed OS and software was much smaller.

One artifact of the clone, that I noticed, is that with a UEFI install, the cloning software removes the other boot options from the UEFI, so if you had a DVD boot UEFI option, that will be missing after the clone operation, only "Windows Boot Loader" will be an option.

 

[corkyg]

My procedure is always the same with a new laptop, Buy it with a cheap spinner, then clone that to a SSD of my choice. Using bootable cloneware, it makes no difference what the OS is. When done remove the spinner and stash it away as an emergency bootable backup. Time to do it is about 10-15 minutes total.

 

[Valantar]

I should mention that previous to reinstalling Windows on said Yoga 2 Pro, I cloned its first W10 installation (in-situ upgrade from 8.1) from its original OEM 840 Evo-like (complete with performance degradation, just no firmware fix in sight) to an 850 Evo using Clonezilla. Worked perfectly, and it even resized the OS partition for me. Too bad it also resized the uselessly large (~10GB of a 250GB drive? really?) "Lenovo" partition that had like 200MB of useless drivers and utilities on it. This was part of the reason for the reinstall.

From what the OP is describing though, a clean install might be what is wanted rather than just a clone. Many laptops still come bloated and horrible, after all. A clean install is usually always a good idea. And it shouldn't be any problem whatsoever.

 

[corkyg]

For a new laptop, I don't ever do a clean install. That is because many of the drivers and useful utilities specific to the laptop must then be sleuthed out and, hopefully, correctly installed. So called bloat is easily deleted and the overall time saving can be significant, as well as being able to immediately enjoy full laptop function.

 

[Valantar]

For a new laptop, I don't ever do a clean install. That is because many of the drivers and useful utilities specific to the laptop must then be sleuthed out and, hopefully, correctly installed. So called bloat is easily deleted and the overall time saving can be significant, as well as being able to immediately enjoy full laptop function.

Doesn't that depend on whether 'new' means 'just bought it' or 'recently launched'? If it's the former, chances are good that drivers are available either from the device maker or (usually the case in my experience) through Windows update.

But of course, holding off on a reinstall of a just-launched laptop (at least until you've checked the manufacturer's website for driver downloads) is generally a good idea.

 

[corkyg]

Those are all good considerations, however, for me it is a matter of time involved. A clean install of Win 10 takes from 45 minutes to an hour, and when done, you still have all the laptop drivers and features to install. OTOH, I can clone the drive to the new SSD in less than 15 minutes, and when done, everything functions as it is supposed to. Cleaning up bloatware is something that can be done whenever you have time for that.

I will only say what I would do - and I have done it many times.