First a bit of history...
I wanted to do an upgrade install from Windows 7 to 10 before the free upgrade deal expires on July 29th, 2016 (would not be surprised to see that extended). I will probably go back to Windows 7 but wanted to get 10 up and running so I could image for possible later use. The problem is that my desktop seems to not be able to upgrade, failed three times. I believe that the failure is due to not having enough drive space for the 'Windows.old' folder that would be created on an upgrade but cannot prove. My system drive is only 240GB in size and my free space is only around 65GB, not enough for 'Windows.old'. So let's do a clean install instead and do my major installs, image with Acronis and Windows imaging, stash away the drive with the images and restore 7.
I DID find an issue after one of the upgrade attempts that relates to something that happened to a CH member, I believe Allyson. After the third attempt at the upgrade seemed to fail I restarted the system. It sat there just about forever installing 1 update. I thought that mayhaps the upgrade finally took. When it finally finished I ended up back at the Win 7 log in. What makes me think that the issue that Allyson? saw was the same as to all the updates in 7 that should not have been is the fact that I then had ~240 updates to do. I think that Allyson? MAY have experienced a failed 10 upgrade even if she did not know it was going on.
So anyway I did a clean install of Windows 10. I know that there is a lot of talk that you cannot do this for free but it just is not true. It is said that if you want a clean install you have to upgrade then select from within Win 10 to do a total reinstall. Again this is not true, you just cannot do a clean install via Windows Updates.
To do a clean install from scratch you have to download the Windows 10 media creation tool and make a bootable USB device or DVD. I went with a DVD.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... /windows10I burned the DVD and booted. During the very early stages I was asked for a key code. I entered a valid Windows 7 Ultimate code and there was no issue.
From this point I still had the option to upgrade but chose to do a clean install... shoot, upgrade had already failed three times. I selected my SSD and formatted then did the install. ~20-25 minutes later I was finished and at my desktop running Windows 10 Pro.