New build/ old version of OS ?

[Alex915]

I'm a new ASUS customer and Portatech is doing my build for me with the Ryzen 7 2700X CPU and Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming Motherboard. My question is that I have the original build of Windows 10 Home (32/64bit version) on a USB 3 flash drive that I bought from a physical Best Buy store here in New York back in 2016. I had never used it and it just sat there until I decided to get a new build. It has the Certificate of Authenticity on the box and inside there's the Booklet and the Key and the USB 3 flash drive, the only thing is it's labeled "Puerto Rico" on the box but it also says English, so should this early build of Windows 10 Home work fine on my system and once I install it on my Samsung 970 EVO NVMe drive I can just go to the MS website and download the latest build? I called MS and they told me it should work but I wanted to make sure, or else I could just have Portatech install the latest build and pay an extra 100. But then the version I bought back in 2016 for 120 would have been wasted. MS also told me that as an alternative I could download the latest build of Win 10 Home on my laptop and save it to a newly formatted SD disk and run it on my new build. What should I do? I'm leaning towards just using my early version of Win 10 Home and updating to the latest build after it's installed and thereby saving $100 and not wasting the Win 10 Home I bought in 2016 for $120. Portatech told me that either way my build will be fully tested for stability, compatibility and temps and will be fully burned in. What should I do? Thanks!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just use another PC or laptop, get a fresh 16GB USB flash drive, go to MS's web site and search for "Media Creation Tool", download the Windows 10 MCT off of the appropriate page, and run it on the other PC, after plugging in the USB flash drive, and then it will prompt to make a bootable USB flash drive with the newest OS build on it. Do so. When it finishes (30-60min), then finish up, and then pull out the USB flash drive, and now it's ready to be used as a bootable flash drive, to install the OS, in the target computer.

Use the new flash drive, and the original license key that you paid for.

 

[Alex915]

Thanks, Larry! That's exactly what the MS support person said, but one question I had was, can I use a 32GB SanDisk SDHC card to do this? I'll format it and just make that the bootable drive. The laptop I'm using is a Windows 7 laptop- does that matter?

Your way seems to be the best way, however could I also do it the other way (use the original USB flash drive to install the early build and later update the target computer with the newest build from the net?)

 

[VirtualLarry]

however could I also do it the other way (use the original USB flash drive to install the early build and later update the target computer with the newest build from the net?)

That's not guaranteed to work, with the newer Ryzen chips. I know that the Ryzen 2000-series APUs, all of the sites said to do a fresh install of 1803, and to NOT install an older OS version, and then update, that method caused problems.

 

[VirtualLarry]

but one question I had was, can I use a 32GB SanDisk SDHC card to do this? I'll format it and just make that the bootable drive.

How are you going to boot an SDHC card, in a new Ryzen desktop PC? Just buy a cheap USB flash drive somewhere.

 

[Alex915]

Yep, I just looked it up, you can't boot from an SD card (even though the MS tech said you could), I'll get the 16 GB flash drive.

 

[Alex915]

Larry, here it says you can do it from an SD card- what do you think?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...s/442447c3-0826-4473-a5b7-36568d20ef9d?auth=1

 

[Alex915]

I want to do it the way you suggested, however there might be an issue:

Can I use a Win 7 Laptop to download that- Win 7 on that laptop is not activated, but I'll just be using it to download MCT and make the bootable USB. Also, can I make a bootable SD card on it? My new build has an internal flash card reader in it.