If you have bought Windows 10 from a store or as a download READ NEXT: Best external hard drive - The best portable and desktop drives 1. Write this down on a piece of paper or save it to an external drive. If you're already on Windows 10 and want to know your license key, you can always download ProduKey and extract your Windows 10 product key from there.
What you put it, depends on the type of Windows 10 that you have, but we'll explain how to deal with everything here. Step 4 - How to find your Windows 10 license keyĪt this point you'll be asked for your licence key. Your PC should now boot into the Windows 10 setup program - you may see a message to 'press any key to boot from USB', so do so. Find and select the Save and Restart option or equivalent. If this is the case you'll need to set 'hard disk' as the first boot option, then go into the hard disk boot order sub-menu and put your USB boot disk at the top of the list. Bootable USB flash drives are sometimes listed as hard disks. Now change the boot order to put the device you want to boot from first this will be DVD or USB, depending on your installation media type. Setup menus vary widely in look and layout, but all follow a similar logic, so if you look carefully you'll be able to find all the options we mention in this guide.Ĭan't find the option? Follow our how to boot from USB guide for more detailed instructions Step 2 - Set your computer to boot from DVD or USB Some more modern laptops, such as certain Lenovo models, have a special button to enter the Setup program, which you'll most likely find next to the power switch. If you look carefully, you may see the relevant key displayed onscreen as the computer turns on. The right key to enter Setup varies from PC to PC, but is usually Delete, F2 or F10, and you'll need to press it almost immediately after you turn your PC on or restart it. If you don't have a boot override menu, you'll need to go into the BIOS or UEFI Setup program, which is where you change some of your computer's more low-level settings. If this is the case, press the key as soon as the message is displayed, then select your DVD drive or USB stick to boot. You may find that your PC has a special boot override menu, which you can access with a key such as F10 look out for the message while your computer starts. Insert your DVD or USB installation disk and restart your PC. You first need to make sure your computer is set to boot from your DVD drive or from USB.
Save your settings, reboot your computer and you should now be able to install Windows 10. Finally, make sure that you’ve turned on the virtualisation option. Make sure that the Execute-Disable Bit is turned on, which may also be called XD or NX. Look for a section on your processor, such as CPU Configuration, which is likely to be in the Advanced section of the BIOS. Every BIOS is different, so the exact instructions will differ from computer to computer.
To re-enable this feature you need to restart your computer and go into the BIOS (Delete, F2 and F10 are common keys to enter it, but check your computer’s manual for full instructions). Practically any processor capable of running Windows 7 or Windows 8 has this hardware feature, so that problem is likely to be that it’s been disabled in your computer’s BIOS. This feature is designed to stop malicious code from running on your computer, by marking some bits of system memory as non-executable it means that if a virus infects this part of RAM, your processor will refuse to run it.
If you get the ‘Processor not supported’ message, it’s because your CPU needs to support Execute Disable Bit.