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Friday, July 17, 2015

Finally installed Windows 10 on my desktop PC but hit a wall!


Build 10240

I did not want to install preview builds of Windows 10 on my main desktop PC because I was concerned about the latency of pre-release drivers which could hurt me in Crysis 3 online. I tested many builds on the tablet but the initial impressions of Windows 10 on the tablet was horrible. So after trying several builds, I went back to Windows 8.1. I was thinking about upgrading the tablet, but held off till Windows 10 came out. I really did expect a miracle from the early builds. After Microsoft published the release date for Windows 10, I knew the builds coming from there onwards would be much more like the RTM. So I tried build 10130 and it was notably better than the previous builds.
 
Up until today, I had build 10162 running on the tablet. I heard the Windows 10 had finally RTMed, but also heard that Microsoft wouldn't be releasing that build to the Windows Insiders. But I wanted to give it a shot and I was amazed by what I saw. A new build!! And it had the same build number as the RTM build: 10240. w00t!
 
I quickly started downloading it. Before finishing with the update process, I decided to install Windows 10 on my main PC. I went to the Windows Insider website and Microsoft had stopped offering the installer or the ISO for PCs. It was still possible to get one for the Windows Phone. But who cares about Windows Phone. Even Microsoft doesn't seem to, now that they are getting rid of 7,800 more workers.
 
Back on the topic. So I couldn't download Windows 10. Luckily, I had downloaded Windows 10 several days ago to install on VirtualBox. Luckily I had it with me so using Rufus, I managed to create a new bootable USB stick with the Windows 10 installer. Sadly, I had not saved the serial number so I had to look around. I found one and could install Windows 10 on the desktop.

It wasn't a smooth ride though. The installer hung for several minutes after the second reboot. It did not completely get frozen. The busy icon was going round and round however there was hardly any HDD activity. I shutdown the PC and rebooted. This time it went through fine and I could finally log into the desktop. I used my Microsoft Account to log in. I straight away went into Windows Update and checked for new updates. I wanted to get the build 10240, not the build 10162 which I had downloaded previously. Sadly, it did not show up.
 
Window Update did not find build 10240

Upon investigation I found out that Windows had not been activated. I tried manually activating but it did not go through. The activation key that I found online had been blocked by the server. Oh crap!
 
Windows 10 10162 could not be activated 2
 
I looked around for a working CD key but I could not find one. Even the one given on MSDN did not work. Now what to do? I know!
 
Extract the serial key from the tablet.
 
By this time, Windows was finalizing the update. I tried extracting the product key from the installation. I had a VB Script to extract the Key from Windows. I had to use this when I the Dell Latitude 10 Essentials tablet. I managed to extract the key just fine but I couldn't use the key. I got a different error code this time though. It seems all the activations of build 10162 are blocked!
 
Still cannot activate build 10162
 
Crap!
 
The ISO file of build 10240 cannot be downloaded from someone's Google Drive. I do not know how legit this is but I am going to give it a shot. But it's past midnight now. I will have to postpone it to tomorrow.

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