Surface Pro 3 Windows 10 Upgrade Clean Install and Recovery Partition

Anonymous

I read that you can take your Surface to a MS store to have them install Windows 10 on it. Has anyone read the details, I can't seem to find out if this is going to be a new, clean install or an upgrade. And, will it update the recovery partition similar to what we have for Win8? I would guess I can use the iso files and do a clean install myself, but, I'm doubt I'd be able to update the recovery partition from the iso.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

For Surface Pro 3, it is possible to perform a clean install of Windows 10 through the use of a downloaded recovery image. This will put your device into the same state as it would be in when purchased new with Windows 10 installed.

Until the free Windows 10 upgrade offer ends on July 29th, 2016 you can use the Windows 10 recovery image on a Surface Pro 3 that has never had Windows 10 installed and it will activate using the product key that came with the device. After July 29th, 2016 the Windows 10 recovery image will only activate on devices that came with Windows 10 or had previously installed and activated Windows 10.

To use the recovery image:

Go to the Download a recovery image for your Surface page and select your product.
You should see the original Windows 8 image that shipped with your Surface, as well the new Windows 10 Version 1511 image.
Click Download and follow the rest of the steps to create the Windows 10 recovery drive and use it to reset Surface.
For more detailed information, see our Restore or reset Surface article.

Hope this helps,

Greg

0 comments

59 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-09-15T23:47:14+00:00

I want to do a clean install because my Surface Pro 3 is slow as molasses after the upgrade to W-10 and the OS kernel consistently shows 25% average CPU utilization with no other apps active, Task Manager at about 2 or 3% and System Idle getting the rest. No idea what the System Kernel is doing all by itself. Also, apps that were fast on 8.1 run slowly and sometimes the whole machine just bogs down to the point where the mouse pointer becomes sluggish and jumpy--with no apps running. I suspect a driver issue but I can't pin it down. It also may be a power/cooling management issue that throttles the CPUs. But I can't determine that and it seems to run a bit better after a reboot. Also, if the total CPU available were being throttled, then Task Manager would be getting a larger percentage than normal. I had to uninstall Acronis because it crashed the machine whenever I tried to restore from backups--even though Acronis said their version should be compatible. I tried a registry cleaner which cleaned up a lot of useless entries but didn't really improve performance. I also ran a number of tools to determine if there was a virus. Everything came up clean. So, I want to do a clean install of the OS and all apps to eliminate any weird driver interactions.

Of course, it is possible that Microsoft doesn't really care about the performance of the Surface Pro 3 with W-10. But that seems less likely.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-10-25T06:02:10+00:00

recovery partition is upgraded with the Windows 10 recovery each time

this is a lie.. I went to windows 10.. crashed and cannot use recovery...

I am back to windows 8...

All of my files lost..
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2015-10-25T07:05:33+00:00

That was the Technical Preview (beta) and "YES", the recovery partition had Windows 10 (I checked it).

When you perform the upgrade, a folder is created on your computer called "windows.old" which has your previous installation and if you perform a "recovery" within 30 days of performing the upgrade, it reads the windows.old folder and restores the computer back to the original state.

If that folder is still on your computer (located on Drive C:, open it with the file manager and you files should still be there.

You have 30 days to do this or the system deletes the windows.old folder to free up space. Check your tablet, the folder just may still be there if you did not attempt a clean install.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2016-01-15T07:59:17+00:00

Hi all,

Some days ago My Surface 3 Pro (update to Windows 10) has began to be very unstable, and slow (also simply writing) then i decided to make a fresh install.

I downloaded a recovery image from https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage for my device and after a clean of disk 0 using disk part i made a fresh installation from USB.

The installation was ok and i got a new Windows 8 installation. Immediately i run the windows update and it found a new Firmware for the device asking to install this update. It began to install the new Firmaware AND 146 new updates and at the end it asked for a reboot.

After the reboot it prompted the BSOD (where it ask for the Trusted Platform Module, Secure Boot Control, System Boot Order, etc) this was already weird i think and i press the option to exit from the setup. Then Windows 8 started but i got a message where it said that was not possible to apply the updates and it began to remove all the updates.

After this I have the feeling that the system was slowed down, but i decided to run a new windows update and the story was the same, after waiting for the installation of all the updates, after the reboot it goes in the BSOD and then un-apply everything.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Davide
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments