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How to Install Windows 10 preview on your Surface Pro 3

OP
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Dblkk

Member
I have on my msi laptop, 3x 512gb msata, and 1tb evo ssd. I have windows 7 on 1 msata, windows 8.1/10 on one msata, and yoesmite on my 3rd msata. Yosemite is less than perfect with drivers but runs overall pleasently
 

dniezby

Member
I'm assuming this is an old method as I just went to windows update and installed the Tech Preview build 9926
 
OP
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Dblkk

Member
I'm assuming this is an old method as I just went to windows update and installed the Tech Preview build 9926

As the very first thing I stated,
"
These instructions are for installing windows 10 preview, on a separate newly made partition. This will allow you to keep your existing windows 8.1, all files, programs, and everything else. They are left untouched. And the Windows 10 preview will essentially be on its own. This also allows for dual boot, in which upon booting up, you will have 30 seconds to pick whether or not you want windows 8.1 or windows 10.

The pros are that the preview will run 100% off your hardware. No virtual machine, no problems. It also allows you to keep everything you have right now, and have 100% access to it at anytime. This way when the preview ends, or you don't like the preview, or you experience bugs, you can just boot back into your windows 8.1."

So yes, you can go to windows update and install the tech preview. But that is not at all what the objective or anything within this thread is accomplishing. Sorry for the confusion.
 

firecop42

New Member
Is there enough room on the 64G, I3 surface pro 3 to do a dual boot? I had just plain installed W10TP on my 'broken' SP3 and have now received a replacement as was thinking about dual boot, but I am thinking that with only 64G, I wont have enough space to do it.
Thanks,
Frank K
 

Mundon

New Member
Just installed TP 10041 using this method, it appears that all the drivers are actually intact, haven't had to install a single one yet. Works great btw!
 
OP
D

Dblkk

Member
Is there enough room on the 64G, I3 surface pro 3 to do a dual boot? I had just plain installed W10TP on my 'broken' SP3 and have now received a replacement as was thinking about dual boot, but I am thinking that with only 64G, I wont have enough space to do it.
Thanks,
Frank K
I appologize for replying late, but with 64gb, thats got to be just under 60gb after formatting. That leaves very little room. I'd say if you plan on running pretty much just windows and maybe another program or two installed, thats it, you'd probably be fine. If you plan on running this with several programs installed, i really dont think theres going to be enough room to have two operating systems installed on such a small capacity drive.
 

Surface User

New Member
I would like to warn about the software EaseUS Partition Master, it messed up my Recovery partitions totally, or actually it messed up in that way that the Surface Pro didn't see the recovery partitions even though they were there.
This is a known problem with this particular software that it messes up things, it changes the partition ID´s.
It took me about 8 hours before i found a way to fix it by changing the ID´S of the recovery partitions in Diskpart to the correct ID´s.

It is lots of people experiencing this exact problem with this software, there are a couple of guides online written how to fix it, but it took time before i found them and it was a painstaking process to change all the ID´s back to normal.
This problem made it impossible to backup a recovery image and also it couldn't restore the computer, all because it didn't find the recovery partitions.

Try to use Windows built in Disk management, or at least some other software, maybe gparted?

If anybody runs in to this problem then here is the guide that solved it for me:

https://amigotechnotes.wordpress.co...ovo-one-key-rescue-after-resizing-partitions/
 
OP
D

Dblkk

Member
I would like to warn about the software EaseUS Partition Master, it messed up my Recovery partitions totally, or actually it messed up in that way that the Surface Pro didn't see the recovery partitions even though they were there.
This is a known problem with this particular software that it messes up things, it changes the partition ID´s.
It took me about 8 hours before i found a way to fix it by changing the ID´S of the recovery partitions in Diskpart to the correct ID´s.

It is lots of people experiencing this exact problem with this software, there are a couple of guides online written how to fix it, but it took time before i found them and it was a painstaking process to change all the ID´s back to normal.
This problem made it impossible to backup a recovery image and also it couldn't restore the computer, all because it didn't find the recovery partitions.

Try to use Windows built in Disk management, or at least some other software, maybe gparted?

If anybody runs in to this problem then here is the guide that solved it for me:

https://amigotechnotes.wordpress.co...ovo-one-key-rescue-after-resizing-partitions/
Yes, you are correct. There are several ways to fix this.

But....

Its because of this, that allows for the shrinking of the main partition. The built in Windows, nor several other partition software, will be able to shrink the partition. The way windows(or)Microsoft sets up the C drive, is they save files in the beginning, middle, end, etc. These are all important Windows files, and most partition software wont touch these files, which results in giving you an error and not allowing you to shrink the partition.

I believe in my write up I added that the built in windows partition (disk management) wouldn't work which is why I suggested EaseUS.

But I also believe the very first (and very important) thing to do with any computer without dvd recovery, is put that recovery patition on a USB flash drive or burn to dvd. There are so many things that can go wrong and having the recovery on the ssd wont work.

But thanks for pointing this out, and providing information on how to fix if/when needed!!
 

Surface User

New Member
No problem.
Actually it worked fine for me to resize the C: partition in Windows Disk Management now after i sorted out the mess with the EaseUS software.

And all drivers except two were already installed in Windows 10, the two drivers that were not installed was "PCI simple communications controller" and some other "Unknown" driver that reads something like ACPI.

And all the old partitions seems to still be there. The only thing i noticed was that the new Win 10 partition that i gave the letter D: to is now C: and the old Win 8 that was C: is now D:, they switched drive letters.

I was thinking of assigning their old drive letters back but i guess it doesn't matter.

I just finished installing Windows 10 and so far i haven't seen any issues. Time will tell.
 
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Bios only shows network/USB/SSD. But the DVD is technically USB, so I don't see why. Personally I have issues 3/4 the time with my USB powered USB DVD drive and the surface pro, so I wouldn't even try.

BUT do note, windows 10 64bit preview alone is over 4gb.

As for boot selection, theres a selection screen right after the surface screen, that pops up before your typical password screen would come.

View attachment 4031
After installing the latest version, I seem to have lost the OS selection option screen. I now just boot to 8.1, have to go into recovery to select a different operating system (Windows 10). Any idea what happened or how to fix it? Thanks.
Rick
 
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