Windows 10 Technical Preview 2: How to Install Build 10041

If you were hoping to clean install Windows 10 build 10041, well, you can’t. Unfortunately, the only way to obtain this latest build is to install a previous build first. And even then you need to make a key configuration change to get the new build as soon as possible. Here’s how.

It’s like the old Steve Martin joke. “How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars.” In this case, the joke is, “How to install the latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview 2: First, install Windows 10 Technical Preview 2.”

But seriously, you do need to install Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 first. That’s because Microsoft isn’t providing the ISO files for this build that we could use to complete a clean install of the OS. And the reason for that is that Microsoft recently changed the flighting process for new builds, as I wrote about in Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 Build 10041 is Here: From Paralyzed to Parallelized. This build just flew out of the gates, and all bets are off.

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So. First, install Windows 10 Technical Preview 2. You can do so in two ways.

If you wish to upgrade an existing Windows 7 or 8.x-based PC, you can visit the Windows Preview web site from that PC, sign-in with your Microsoft account, sign-up for the Windows Insider program if you haven’t already, and then choose “Get Started – PC” (as opposed to “Get Started – Phone”) and upgrade to the latest public build, which is the original Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 release, or build 9926. You will do so via Windows Update, so if you don’t see anything happening, head there. Microsoft will step you through it.

If you wish to clean install the original Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 release, or build 9926, and then upgrade that to the latest Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 release, or build 10041, you can use a build 9926 ISO to create bootable Setup media and go from there. Here are the direct download links:

Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 (build 9926) – 32-bit (x86)
Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 (build 9926) – 64-bit (x64)

Once you have build 9926 installed, visit Windows Update (Settings, Update & Recovery, Windows Update) and make sure you’ve installed any pending updates. Then, visit Windows Update again and click the “Advanced options” link. In the Advanced Options view, choose “Fast” from the drop-down under “Choose how preview builds are installed.”

advanced-options

This change will put your PC on the “Fast Ring” for public Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 builds, meaning you’ll get them as soon as they’re released. After making this change, check for updates again. You will see something called “fbl_impressive 10041 Professional.” That’s the new build. So get installing. 🙂

fbl-impressive

Note: If you’re not being offered build 10041, check out this Microsoft Answers support note.

Unlike most Windows Updates, this one will take a while to download and then install, of course.

After you’re up and running, you may (will) notice that the Mail, Calendar, and People tiles are broken (and that the apps don’t run properly).

tiles

To fix this, Microsoft recommends the following steps:

  1. Open PowerShell as an administrator.
  2. Run the command:
    Get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like “*windowscommunicationsapps*”} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online
  3. Then, reinstall Mail, People and Calendar from the Store (the non-beta version).

Have fun!

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