Please be advised, you have exactly 30 days from the day you upgrade to Windows 10 to go back to your old OS before you can no longer do so. You do this by hitting the Start button or Windows key and clicking "Settings." Then click on "Update & Security" then "Recovery." You will see an option to "Go Back." If you do NOT see the option, it means you deleted the Windows.old file from your PC or 30 days has passed. If it is not there, you are stuck.
Also, please be advised, this is NOT a post telling you how to troubleshoot issues with installation. This is merely how you do it from scratch or, in my case, a fresh install from an old HDD to a new HDD using OEM Windows. I did a complete fresh install to a new 1TB HDD. I wanted to get rid of all my junk that has built up over the years and start fresh on a new HDD. OEM Windows does have it's limitations. (See OEM meaning at bottom of post)
Good ideas to follow after installing because it deals with your privacy: https://www.yahoo.co...-133029496.html
http://bgr.com/2015/...how-to-opt-out/
Feel free to chime in with any corrections! 
A reference key can be found at the bottom of this post, for what the abbreviations used in this post, mean.
The only problem I ran into was that my system would not recognize my dual monitor. Doing a driver update from nVidia fixed it. I had to get a beta driver at that time. My nephew ran into this exact same problem with his system but his graphics card was AMD. As far as I know, at this point, (08/20/2015) they have not released a driver to fix it. He even went and bought a MSI R9 380 graphics card in hopes to fix it, and it didn't!
To find out your graphics card manufacturer, press Windows key + R and type dxdiag. Click yes in the next window that opens. If no window opens asking you to press yes or no, click the "Display 1" or "Display" tab at the top. Under the "Device" category on the left, you should see "Name: Your graphics card name here!" Open your web browser and do a google search for what the name of your graphics card is followed by drivers. For example, my card is nVidia GeForce GTX 760 so I would search for "nVidia GeForce GTX 760 drivers."
Alternately, you can go to these websites:
nVidia: http://www.nvidia.co...aspx?lang=en-us
AMD: http://support.amd.com/en-us/download
Use the dxdiag window to help determine your card on these sites.
If you had an old HDD like I did, and want to wipe it clean before downloading Windows 10 to a new HDD, do steps 1 and 2 below like I did.
However, if you are not like me, the Windows 10 Upgrade gives you the option to do a clean install where everything gets wiped anyways. This is where my issue came in. I have OEM Windows and can not do a clean install without the OEM Windows 10 being put back to the old HDD, instead of my new HDD. The way around this is what this post covers. (Skip Step 1 and 2 and go to Step 3 to install Windows 10 if this does not apply to you.)
My concern and why I did what I did below, was that I was moving an OEM Windows 7 from an old 500GB HDD to a new 1TB HDD and then doing the install of Windows 10 to the 1TB HDD after, while using the 500GB HDD as extra space. (Do ALL steps if this is what you are doing.)
***WARNING***
ONLY DO STEP 1 AND 2 IF YOU HAVE A WINDOWS RETAIL OR WINDOWS OEM DISK AND CASE TO RE-INSTALL WINDOWS AS YOU WILL NEED THE WINDOWS KEY FROM THE CASE AND THE WINDOWS PROGRAM FROM THE DISK. SOMETIMES, YOU CAN FIND THE WINDOWS KEY ON YOUR TOWER OR LAPTOP. IT LOOKS LIKE A CLOUDY PINK/PURPLE TIE-DYE STICKER BUT IF YOU ARE WIPING YOUR HDD, THE DISK IS A REQUIREMENT!
ONLY DO STEP 1 AND 2 IF YOU HAVE BACKED UP EVERYTHING ON YOUR PC TO A CLOUD, OR REMOVABLE FLASH DRIVE, THAT YOU ARE NOT OK WITH LOSING. IF YOU DO NOT CARE TO LOSE EVERYTHING, THEN PROCEED!
Step 1) I started with dban from dban.com. Download it, unzip it, (if required) and burn it to a blank disk. All files. Leave nothing out. Do not remove disk.
***WARNING! UNPLUG EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE KEYBOARD AND MONITOR FROM YOUR PC! IF YOU DO NOT, DBAN WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THEM, THIS INCLUDES YOUR CELL PHONE, ANY FLASH DRIVE, ANY EXTERNAL DRIVE. BE SAFE, UNPLUG IT ALL!***
After you are all unplugged, you will use your keyboard arrows and Tab keys for navigating the rest of this step. Restart your PC and during boot, press the corresponding F key to go into BIOS/UEFI and select Boot or Boot Order (depends on BIOS/UEFI/motherboard) or press the corresponding F key for Boot Order (depends on BIOS/UEFI/motherboard and there will be a menu telling you which F key is which) and make your Optical (DVD/CD-ROM) drive #1 on the list, your shiny new HDD #2, and any other HDD #3 and so on... Save and Exit (usually F10). The next screen will tell you what to type and then press enter. ***WARNING*** As soon as you hit enter, there's no going back. 
Try to do this step overnight, you WILL be there for around 5 hours waiting for it to finish, if not longer.
Step 2) Once it has completed, there will be a message saying so. Take out the dban disk and insert your Windows disk. Shut down the PC, plug everything back in and turn the PC back on, leaving the boot order alone. YOU WILL NEED YOUR WINDOWS KEY DURING THE FOLLOWING PROCESS! Install Windows to your liking to your new HDD and set up the PC as you would a brand new one. You then must completely update your current OS which means downloading the 150+ updates it has, installing them, restart the PC, check for updates again, download them, install them, restart PC, check again, over and over until you finally get a message saying your computer is up to date! Restart PC and change boot order back to having your HDD that has Windows, #1, your optical drive #2, everything else, whatever order you choose. Save and Exit and PC will start up. Update ALL drivers when PC comes back on before going to step 3.
Step 3) If you skipped steps 1 and 2, update ALL of your drivers before starting the Windows 10 installation during step 3. Do this by pressing Windows key and typing Device Manager and press enter. Click each plus sign on the left and go through each item, right clicking each one and clicking check for updates, and choosing to use the internet to find the updates. Skip the Universal Serial Bus section. I use a program called Driver Booster 2 to update and keep all of my drivers up to date. This is a personal choice and in no way do I say you need it, GeekstoGo does NOT recommend it, but it does make this step very easy and fast and takes out the guess work. Usually, this kind of program does not cause problems with your computer, but there are rare times where an update to a driver will completely throw something out of whack. It has happened to me once, but it was not very serious. This program gives the option of doing a backup before updating drivers.
Horray! Hard part over! Good job! Now, at this point, you most likely do NOT have the "Get Windows 10" button, or you do and you still have to wait for your download. Well, you can bypass all this by going to http://www.microsoft...in10_Body_AddPCBefore choosing an option on that page, press Windows + R and type dxdiag and press enter. Click yes on the box asking if you want to check if signratures are digitally signed, and wait for the next window to load. On this window, make note of your operating system. Example: "Windows 7 (64-bit)." Close it. Now, on the Windows website, click the purple download link at the bottom that matches your operating system bit. (32 or 64-bit) Run the program and follow the instructions. During this, you can choose to do a clean install or standard upgrade. (I chose clean install even though I did the dban steps above). Clean install erases everything on the HDD while Standard Upgrade keeps all your files and data. Follow the prompts. Let the process go until you are prompted again. Walk away, grab a drink, food, take a shower, it will be a few minutes but nothing dramatic. Continue through the process, including where it has you set up the PC again (only if you picked to do a clean install.) All the prompts and options are pretty self explanatory and are really a personal preference. I can tell you, I turned off every one of the switches during the set up process. I feel it gets too in depth and no one needs that information from my PC. Once you are on the desktop and ready to go, click the Windows icon in the bottom left, or press the Windows key on your keyboard and click "Settings" then click "Update and Security" then click "Advanced Options" and check the check box for "Give me updates for other Microsoft products when I update Windows". Click the back button in the top left and click "Check for Updates" again. Go through the process again of installing them, restarting PC, check for updates again, download them, install them, restart PC, check again, over and over, until you finally get a message saying your computer is up to date! At this point, re-download and install all your programs and customize Windows 10 to your liking! Remember to update all your drivers at this point as well because most will be out of date and not work with Windows 10, causing unseen problems. I also recommend deleting the Windows.old file to free up a lot of HDD space. IF YOU DO, YOU CAN NOT GO BACK TO PREVIOUS WINDOWS INSTALLATION! To delete the Windows.old folder from an earlier installation of Windows, follow these steps:
- Click Start, type disk cleanup in the Start Search text box, and then click Disk Cleanup.
- In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, click Files from all users on this computer.
- In the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue.
- Click to select the Previous Windows installation(s) check box, and then click OK.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Windows 10! Enjoy!
Key
F key = Function keys. They are F1 through F12 across the top of almost every keyboard.
HDD = Hard Disk Drive or Hard Drive for short.
GB = Gigabyte which is 1024MB(not 1000) or megabytes
TB = Terabyte which is 1024GB(not 1000) or gigabytes
OS = Operating System (Windows)
OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer. OEM Windows is only allowed to be tied to one motherboard. Once it is, the Product Key becomes bound to it and can not be used on another machine. Contact Microsoft if you need to use it as there may be special circumstances where they unbind the key. NO GUARANTEES!
BIOS = Basic Input/Output System, is the program a personal computer's microprocessor uses to get the computer system started after you turn it on. It also manages data flow between the computer's operating system and attached devices such as the hard disk, video adapter, keyboard, mouse and printer.
UEFI = Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace BIOS (basic input/output system). This standard was created by over 140 technology companies as part of the UEFI consortium, including Microsoft.
Edited by heartgrave, 20 August 2015 - 08:00 PM.
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