Still Waiting for Windows 10? Here’s How to Get it Now

Windows 10 released on July 29th and Microsoft began slowly rolling out the updates to people in waves. As of now there have been 10’s of millions of people who have downloaded the free update and moved on to the new OS. However Microsoft’s reservation tool, which you may have used in the coming months prior to Windows 10’s release, states that your download could take up to a couple weeks to arrive. If you’ve been reading reviews of the new OS and you’ve decided that you want to join in then there is a way to manually start the download yourself. If you’re still not sure about updating here are a few pros and cons. If you want Windows 10, but don’t want to wait for your reservation, you can get it now.

To download Windows 10 yourself you will need Microsoft’s media creation tool, which you can download here. There is a 32 and a 64 bit tool to use, so you will have to know which your system needs. You can find that information under the System tab on your PC. After the tool downloads you will have two options for installing Windows 10; you can either create media on a spare USB or DVD to install on another device, or you can simply choose to upgrade your system directly.

If you opt for the “Upgrade now” option the update is relatively straight forward. The program will run in the background and prepare your PC for Windows 10. Once it is ready it will begin to install. The install time seems to vary widely; I’ve seen forums mentioning install times taking up to a day, but for myself once it began to install it took a little over an hour. Once it’s done, your PC will now be running Windows 10.

If you opt to create your own media you’ll need to select which operating system you wish to create media for. With that done you can use the USB or DVD and run setup.exe to install Windows 10 on the device of your choice. Make sure that you use an empty USB or DVD as it will erase the contents.

It should be noted that if you want to do a clean install you must first upgrade to Windows 10 to qualify for the free upgrade. If you haven’t upgraded to Windows 10 and you wipe your PC then you will need a product key to get Windows 10.