Surface Pro 3 Windows 10 Upgrade Clean Install and Recovery Partition

Anonymous
2015-07-17T19:54:51+00:00

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.

Surface | Surface Pro | Install and update

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Anonymous
2016-03-28T17:43:58+00:00

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:

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

 

Hope this helps,

Greg

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  1. Barb Bowman 80,810 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-07-30T12:59:13+00:00

    the only way you MIGHT get a clean install is by creating the ISO from the downloadable tool and extracting/copying the contents it to a 16GB formatted FAT32 GPT using the Rufus tool and booting from it. but it will NOT have all the Surface specific drivers and it is unknown what kind of issues you might have.

    I don't know why you are so intent on clean installing W10 as opposed to upgrading - is there a reason you want to share?

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-07-30T16:00:16+00:00

    I spent a good part of yesterday trying to figure this out as well...

    After a successful upgrade to Windows 10 I did a full cleanup of the C:\ drive and then tried to use the restore option to get a clean Windows 10 install. For me, every option gives an immediate failure message. So, I looked around on the surface forums and found a link to a page that has a place where you can download a restore image for your surface and provides instructions on how to use it to basically do a factory restore.

    https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage

    The image that I downloaded was called "SurfacePro3_BMR_10_5.268.0.zip" which I'm hoping is the Windows 10 image for a Surface Pro 3. Well, even after formatting the USB stick, copying the files, and using the volume down + power button trick to get it to boot from the USB device I get an error that the boot configuration file is incorrect or has problems. I don't recall the exact error.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-07-30T16:31:27+00:00

    Follow-up...

    I looked around and see you (Barb) mentioning that the USB stick has to be formatted using that Rufus tool, which is NOT mentioned in any of the 'official' instructions. So I actually downloaded it and used it to format my USB stick again and copied the image files to it and now the Surface will boot to it and I am currently restoring the image that I downloaded, which does look to be Windows 10.

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  4. Barb Bowman 80,810 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2015-07-30T16:35:06+00:00
    1. that is most likely still the 8.1 image
    2. the USB stick (16B or larger) needs to be formatted FAT32 GPT (use the Rufus tool)

    if you still have an issue see

    1.  https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/install-update-activate/windows-10-upgrade?os=windows-8.1-update-1#Remove which probably is the right process to follow

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