Pre-installation of Windows 10 on PC for Sale?

Is there a straightforward way to pre-install Windows 10 on a PC that I'm selling, installing all drivers, etc, without having to create an account, etc? So when the buyer turns on the PC it boots up Windows 10 like it's being turned on for the first time?

 

1) Install Windows 10

2) When you get the initial setup wizard where Cortana starts to talk, press CTRL+SHIFT+F3

3) The system will reboot with the built in Admin Account in Audit Mode

Install all your drivers and reboot after each driver install

4) Once all that is done, you just change the sysprep box which is always visible and select quit, then reboot



5) now when you reboot, it will do a cleanup of that admin account and the user who turns it on next will get the initial setup wizard as if it was a new PC

Note: Don't bother changing any settings as they will all be lost once the user sets up the PC for the first time. I mean personalized settings like File Explorer View, Libraries location, etc.

 

Thanks! I will give it a go. I have three PC's I want to sell, and would rather have it ready to go for the buyers than have to deal with any kind of tech support, which I am going to state I do not offer tech support. As long as I can get it to boot up properly with latest drivers they're on their own after that.

EDIT: I guess a bigger question is, can I duplicate that install and insert a different Windows 10 key on each PC. I'm assuming yes, same as you would do on any Windows install? (i.e. Settings/System/About/Change Product Key)

Is there away to configure the partition once everything is installed so it is a recovery partition if they want to, or is that too detailed?

Thanks again.

 

You're talking with the right d00d

1) NBR Windows 10 Clean Installation Guide

Then

audit Mode using CTRL + Shift + F3

2) Install all drivers rebooting after each one, take no shortcuts if you want proper driver installation

3) Macrium Reflect Installation/Usage Guide (Just install it but don't backup yet)

Macrium Reflect Download

Install Macrium Reflect and add it to the boot configuration as shown in that guide, then uncheck the box that displays the OSes at startup otherwise you will get the Macrium Reflect/Windows 10 choice every time. it's all detailed in the guide

4) Open Macrium Reflect: Click Other Tasks from the top > Create Rescure Media

Now create a Macrium Reflect USB Drive, any small Flash Disk would suffice, it needs to be formatted in NTFS

5) Once you've created the Macrium Reflect USB Drive, Quit Audit mode then reboot but have that Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk inserted in the laptop

6) You will see a brief message that Windows is cleaning up

7) The moment it reboots, press whatever key combo on your laptop which gives you the boot options, and boot from the Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk

8) Create a backup of your C: Partition and place it on D: or any other USB Flash Drive

9) Once that backup is done, turn off the PC

This way, when they turn on the laptop for the first time, they will get the Windows 10 initial setup wizard AND they have their Macrium Reflect Rescue disk to restore backups and whatnot

then tell them they're on their own >>>>>>>

You will want to create a Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk for each laptop so you can give one to each customer.

If the PCs are the same model then yes why not, but you need to go to PC Settings > Update & Security > Activation > Change product key

then change the key for the different PCs accordingly, then create another image

If you'd rather backup to a recovery partition, then just shrink C: with around 20GB of space, then name that partition R: and label it as Recovery

then backup to that partition

 

This all seems to be working well so far, thanks. I have a few cheap 32GB USB flash drives with decent read/write speeds that I'm making as a Macrium Reflect boot along with the actual image file on it. I have used Macrium Reflect for years, just never used it for something like this. Thanks again for your help.

 

Any time. Feel free to ask if you run into any issues.

 

I did a lot of testing on the first system. Got everything set up how I wanted, created the image, used that image to boot into the next system and went to change the product key that matched that PC an it's giving me fits. It says "the last product key you entered can't be used on this copy of windows"... BS. I used it on this machine for the last year. I hate MS. It seems this happens to me frequently. I think they just try to get people to buy a new Windows license.

 

Can you tell me how were those product keys originally obtained? were they a retail key or were they keys for Windows 7 or 8 that were upgrade to 10?

FYI: Macrium Reflect has just been updated to v7.1.2801

 

I did get latest Macrium Reflect, thanks. These are outright Windows 10 Pro OEM keys. I called and they did something on their end and next system is being staged now and seems to be going OK. Except now the USB 3 ports seem to be moving slower than it should. Sigh.

Sigh. Third PC, same problem. Called MS this time though, and they have to elevate it to "level 2" tech support which means I have to wait for someone to call me tomorrow morning. Such crap. How hard is it to activate Windows? Seriously. Especially same damn hardware. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

 

You might as use W10 in audit mode using NTLite by using no product key.

 

Make sure when you are entering the new key, that you have all the drivers installed otherwise the PC HWID would be different hence that error

 

Well weird thing happened. MS never called me today like they said they would, but I checked Windows and it showed it was activated but with a completely different product key. Not sure what happened, but the key seems to be valid.

 

that's when Windows activated not because of your key, but because of HWID Activation which is hardware based since your machine's hardware is registered on the Microsoft Activation servers and it would only match once you have all the drivers installed and it'd activate automatically.

 

But it wouldn't activate even with all drivers and everything installed, sat up and running most of last evening like that, idle (no sleep) and for the better part of this morning. I left it on and running while I went to the store for a couple hours this afternoon, came home, checked and it was activated. Out of the blue, without me doing anything.

Nothing changed since the beginning because I just took the original image off the first machine (prior to activation, no key entered), and copied it onto this machine. The second machine worked, but required a call to MS, they said there was an issue with the activation server, as soon as they fixed it the machine activated immediately. For this third one, it just sat idle since I was waiting for a return phone call, and would occasionally try to input the key again.