Chapter 2

Installing, configuring, and deploying Windows 10

Before you start

How Windows 10 Setup works

Activating Windows

Configuring a multi-boot system

Tweaking and tuning your Windows 10 installation

Mechanically, Windows Setup has evolved substantially since Windows 10 debuted in 2015. Those step-by-step details are a big part of this chapter. An even more important change, though, is the way in which you’re likely to encounter Windows Setup.

In the first year after its release, when Microsoft was offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade, the installed base for the new operating system went from zero to well over 300 million. (Five years later, the number of PCs running Windows 10 is over 1 billion.) Most of those early adopters got to Windows ...

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