How To Create a Bootable Windows 10 USB Flash Drive

How can I personalise my copy of Windows 10?

Users of Windows 7 will recognise the taskbar.

Plug in a USB drive to your Windows PC. So I took the plunge. Even better, it’s a free update if you already have Windows 7 or newer.

Highlighted first in a Reddit forum post (via VentureBeat), the six-step process is for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8.1 Update (Windows 8 users need to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Update to be eligible for the upgrade) users and does not require any high technical skills. Any damage is unacceptable, honestly, if you had planned to use this as a get-out-of-jail free card in case you don’t like Windows 10. But you want to perform a clean install of the OS, not an upgrade. Everything’s just there. You don’t want to be left behind when that new game or office suite you need won’t run on your computer, because it’s only available as a universal app. Hopefully this means that only I will have to wait a bit longer for updates, and my wife’s system will benefit from me sharing locally.

Speaking of gaming, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone run nicely, which isn’t really surprising but is still nice to know. Windows Media Player is still here and still works, and so does Internet Explorer. I’ve asked Microsoft for details on how much data is sent when it’s enabled.

Search for “Check for updates” in the Start menu. We just went with the standard Windows Home version.

When everything’s finally ready you’ll be presented with a setup screen where you can login with your existing username/password and start setting up your brand new Windows 10 installation. (Choose ‘Windows 10 (64bit)’ if you have a 64-bit ISO). Instead, use the software right as soon as you open it. But that’s easily changed with a few clicks. In the “Select start-up disk” window, click the folder icon and navigate to the Windows 10 ISO.

After you upgrade either Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10, you have 30 days to revert back to your old version of Windows if you want to.

If you’re wondering how you can actually get Windows right now, as you are reading this.

If you have Windows 10 on CD, you’ll have to do exactly the same, but the installer running Windows 10 from your current version of Windows. Most users will want to just keep everything, but if you do fancy a fresh start you can choose to do so here. You might be tempted to skip the upgrade and wipe your entire hard drive and install Windows 10 fresh.

If you made a recovery media prior to upgrading to Windows 10, you can use that to downgrade in the future. Cortana is probably going to summon an Elder God tonight while I’m sleeping.