On Mon, 08 Jun 2015 10:02:50 -0400, Paul wrote:

Albert wrote:
Here a couple months ago my old (7 yr.) Asus motherboard fried and I
haven't figured out how or why.

So I replaced it with;

Board: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z97-PRO Rev 1.xx
Serial Number: 141134426100449
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
UEFI: American Megatrends Inc. 2012 09/30/2014

I was running Windows 8.1 with all updates when the computer crashed.
I had gone from Windows XP and upgraded to Windows 8 on the original
installation.

When I tried to reinstall Windows XP on the new motherboard I found
out that it was only designed for Windows 7 and up so I had to buy a
Windows 8.1 full version ($126) from Microsoft store. (Because Windows
XP would not install I couldn't use my Windows 8 upgrade.)

Anyway, I've registered for windows 10 and I was just wondering if
anybody here would have any idea as to whether I would have any
problems. I've seen it posted here that Windows 10 will be capable of
a clean install, I'm just curious.


On a Z97, you shouldn't have a problem.

And the UEFI motherboards offer more than one operating
mode. With a CSM module in the BIOS, you can get legacy
BIOS behavior. Suitable for older installation media.

*******

You probably could have installed WinXP (for the purpose
of using it as a proof of purchase). A basic install of
WinXP will work, as long as you can put the disk controller
in vanilla IDE mode (in fact, Intel put support for a certain
mode of emulation in the hardware, so that older OSes would work).
And you wouldn't want to use your WinXP Gold disc, you'd want
to slipstream up the disc to SP3. And then install. For the
best chance of it working.

What you might be missing, is WinXP drivers sufficient
to make "Device Manager look clean". But if you were only
installing to meet some upgrade requirement, then it would
not be necessary to make the OS look pretty, before upgrading
to a later OS. The later OS can install its own drivers,
and the old drivers won't stick around (WinXP might use
WDM, Win8 might use WDDM, the sound architecture is different
and so on).

Win10 will be available for "clean install", as there
are versions of the OS with the usual pricing already
announced.

The chit-chat you see in the newsgroups today, is about
a free upgrade from Win7SP1 or Win8.1. For the rest of
the product matrix, much of that is actually unchanged.
(Just the missing Media Center for using the computer
as a PVR, is different. No more Media Center.)

If you were to build a new computer on Aug.1, 2015, you
should be able to go to Newegg, and buy Windows 10. So
getting some free upgrade is not the only route to acquisition.
You can start with a blank computer, there will be
a Win10 box you can get in your computer parts order
and so on.

The reason for all the discussion, is the notion of
getting something for nothing. In lots of cases,
customers get screwed out of $99 here or $99 there,
when it later turns out they should have had a different
SKU or whatever. So while it may give the appearance
that people here are eating a lot of free lunches, they
won't necessarily admit later just how much they spent
anyway to get everything set up right.

Paul

Unfortunately most of what you've posted above seems to be way over my
head but from what I can glean from it I shouldn't have any problems
if I decide to go with Windows 10.

I would like to point out that when I went from Windows XP to Windows
8 I did so with Windows 8 Pro upgrade discs from Microsoft. One of the
things that happened while I was reinstalling Windows XP was I got an
error message something like, "Stop installation because you could
damage your computer" or something like that.

Anyway the computer is working real well with the Windows 8.1 but I
was just curious about Windows 10.