Updates of Windows 10 are being reinstalled.
Updates of Windows 10 are being reinstalled.
I planned to reinstall Windows 10 from a bootable USB on this Alienware 18. To work with the 1070 mxm card, it needs legacy boot mode, so I’d need to use MBR instead of GPT. If I enable legacy boot in BIOS and then install Windows 10 clean, will that generate an MBR partition and maintain activation? This system came with Windows 8 and was upgraded to 10; they’ve changed authentication methods now, but I just want to avoid buying Windows 10 again.
You don’t have to purchase Win10 again. It needs activation at the BIOS level since it’s a laptop or prebuilt OEM model.
You could run into some activation issues without Secure Boot. Your license will be safe, but there is a chance it might not be detected if you disable UEFI mode. I'm pretty sure it will be fine though, if you already have Windows 10 activated. Even if it doesn't read the OEM key off the board (which I don't think it does without UEFI), it should still be able to verify your board against MS servers and see it was previously activated - Windows 10 activation will always prefer that, over the local key. The only thing is, you'll need to manually choose your edition of Windows when you go to install (it won't auto-detect it), and it will ask you for a key (you can choose I don't have a product key, at the bottom). Before you do that, uou should go into Settings > Update & Security > Activation > make sure Windows 10 is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft Account. If it's not, add an account, just to be safe. Although, are you absolutely sure you need legacy mode? I would think that any modern hardware (2012-present) would support UEFI properly. Especially if the system originally shipped with Windows 8 - it should 100% support UEFI. But yes, if UEFI is disabled in your BIOS, it will set up as MBR, assuming you are using a totally blank drive (no partitions, just unallocated space). That will disable all UEFI features, including Secure Boot and Fast Boot.
It's true that most hardware is designed to work with UEFI, but for the 1070 MXM cards in the Alienware 18, they need to boot in legacy mode. Some users have reported issues with UEFI and may require a custom NVIDIA driver to resolve the problem.