▷ How to install windows 10 【step by step】

Windows 10 has been part of our lives for a few years now. The company seriously rethought the direction that its latest creations had taken and learning from its mistakes, it released, back in 2015, Windows 10. An operating system that with its numerous and continuous updates has become for many the best operating system that has ever created the brand. If you haven't taken the step yet, we'll show you how to install Windows 10 in this tutorial.

Index of contents

Minimum requirements

The minimum requirements to run Windows 10 are maintained since Windows 7, and today they are quite easy to meet:

CPU: 1 GHz or higher processor or SoC. RAM memory: 1 GB for 32 bits or 2 GB for 64 bits Hard disk space: 16 GB for the 32 bit operating system or 20 GB for the 64 bit one. Graphics card: Minimum DirectX 9 support or WDDM 1.0 driver. Screen resolution 800 x 600.

Available editions

As for the available editions, there are 12 different ones, although only three are visible on the main purchase page:

Basic: Windows 10 HomeProfessional: Windows 10 ProServers: Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

Each one of them surpassing the previous one in functionalities and price.

Preparation before installing

It is possible to upgrade directly from previous versions of Windows such as Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 without the need to format or perform new installations. Although it should be borne in mind that depending on how our previous operating system is, errors may arise and render both the data and the system useless. For this reason we strongly recommend installing Windows 10 using a clean copy.

Remember to store the files you don't want to lose before

To install Windows 10 from scratch, you must prepare a device external to the computer. It could be a DVD or a USB stick along with a copy of Windows 10.

To create the installation medium through a bootable USB in an easy way and configure your equipment to be able to start it, we recommend that you visit our tutorials:

Modify BIOS boot sequence

Through this procedure you will obtain a USB device that when booting from the computer will be able to install Windows 10 without the need to burn DVDs.

Install Windows 10 from scratch

After having made the necessary preparations, with our equipment turned off, we insert the DVD or the USB memory. Next, we start, if we have not configured the startup sequence of our computer, there is no problem, we just press the F8 key repeatedly (or the one that corresponds to each computer) and a "Boot" or boot menu will open. Select with the arrows the device that contains Windows 10 and press enter.

After a loading process, the Windows 10 installation wizard will appear.

After choosing the “Install now” option, the product license introduction window will appear. If we have a password we can enter it now, or at the end of the installation. In our case we will click on "I do not have a product key" to enter it later.

Remember that you will need to purchase a license to register your operating system legally. For this we suggest visiting our article:

Buy cheap Windows license

After clicking next, a screen will appear where we must choose the version that we want to install Windows 10. Depending on the image that has been downloaded, you will have more or less versions of Windows 10. In any case, we recommend you choose Windows 10 Home (x86 or x64) or Windows 10 Pro (x86 or x64) depending on the version you downloaded when you created the installation media (the cheapest license to obtain is the Windows Home license).

Click on next and accept the license terms. After pressing next again, we will be presented with two options:

If we want to update Windows 10 without losing our files we choose "Update" If we want to install Windows 10 with a clean copy we choose "Custom" (this is our case)

In a new step the wizard asks us where we want to install Windows 10.

If we want to create new partitions, we only have to delete the existing ones by clicking on "Delete" and then create new ones by clicking on "New" and typing the space we want to give it (in MB). Windows will create an extra 500MB partition for its own use. We choose the partition where we want to install Windows 10 and continue.

It is recommended to allocate a space of at least 100 to 150 GB for the Windows partition and the rest for the files

All files will be removed

If we want to leave the partition table as we have found it, we only have to choose the partition to install and go ahead. In this case we recommend deleting the partition in which we are going to install Windows so that the files are deleted and then select it and continue the installation.

Files from other partitions will be kept intact.

And if we do nothing, there are no partitions, the wizard will use the entire hard disk to install Windows (creating the 500 MB partition that we have previously discussed)

All files will be removed

In any of the three cases, after clicking next, the installation of Windows 10 will begin on our computer. From now on we don't need to touch anything else, the computer will restart twice and the Windows configuration assistant will appear.

First configuration of Windows 10 after installation.

Once again we find another configuration assistant when starting Windows for the first time. This wizard has been changing according to the versions of Windows 10, so it is possible that at this point the steps are slightly different.

The first thing that will come out will be the regional and language settings that we want to use. We choose the one we want and continue with the assistant.

Next, you will ask us what use we are going to give our team. In this case it will be for personal use, so we choose the first option.

Next, it suggests that we log in with a Microsoft account. If this is our wish, then go ahead. But if on the contrary we only want to create a local account and also decide whether or not to put a password, we must choose "Account offline" and "Next"

It will suggest again that we start with a Microsoft account (for greater security). Again we choose not to.

Once the local or online account is entered, the wizard will continue.

Now it will ask us for the activation or not of different utilities, such as Cortana, location, etc.

An important fact will be the arrival at the screen for sending diagnostic data to Microsoft. In this we can choose between sending all the information of what we do on the device (Complete) or only technical information (Basic). You decide how guarded you want to be.

It will continue asking us for different configuration options of little importance until the Windows 10 desktop is finally installed, completely installed. The only thing we have left to configure will be the shared resources center, we simply say yes, if our computer is on a home network.

Updates

It is highly recommended to go to Windows Update to check for updates.

Don't hesitate to visit our tutorial on how to update Windows 10 step by step. You will know in detail its procedure and the different options there are.