How to clean install Windows 10 Technical Preview build 10041

Earlier this week, after waiting 54 days, Windows Insiders finally received a new build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview to tinker with.

This is the first build pushed out to Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring under Microsoft’s new plan to pick up the pace of builds for that group of testers.  The only limitation with this new process is that Fast Ring builds are only released through Windows Update which means you can upgrade the current build, in this case 9926, but not perform a clean install which is a nice option at times for a fresh testing platform.

There is however a method for taking the ESD download of this build and converting it to an ISO image that can then be burned to DVD or placed on a USB drive to perform that clean installation of build 10041.

Here are the steps courtesy of Into Windows:

Download the build 10041 ESD file you want to install from Microsoft:

- Windows 10 Pro x86 build 10041
- Windows 10 Pro x64 build 10041
- Windows 10 Enterprise x86 build 10041
- Windows 10 Enterprise x64 build 10041

Note: Before using NT Lite to create the ISO you will need to use ESD Decrypter first to decrypt the ESD file and then continue following the steps on the Into Windows site.

Use NT Lite to convert the decrypted ESD file into an ISO image and then create either a DVD or USB drive for installation using the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool. Now you are ready to install a nice clean image of Windows 10 build 10041.

If you get prompted for a product key remember there is a generic one for all Windows 10 Technical Preview installs at the Windows Insider site.

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