Determining and creating appropriate installation media

An installation media is a medium that contains the operating system files. Whether you are making a clean install or an upgrade to Windows 10, you will definitely need an installation media. You can have a fabricated installation media that you have probably purchased from Microsoft or its channel partners, or you can create one. Before you go on and purchase a fabricated installation media or create one on your own, it is recommended to assess what format of an installation media your device supports. Nowadays, while most end devices are equipped with USB ports (including micro USB ports), not all devices have a DVD drive. Therefore, it is your device that determines the format of an installation media. With that in mind, when opting for a fabricated installation media, in most cases you will end up receiving a DVD disk. Whereas, if you decide to create one on your own then you need a Windows 10 ISO file and a DVD disk or USB flash drive. Due to the size of the Windows 10 ISO file, it is recommended that the capacity of the DVD disk and USB flash drive be at least 8 GB. To learn how to download the Windows 10 ISO file and how to burn an ISO file to a DVD disk or create a bootable USB flash drive on your own, see the Chapter lab – downloading Windows 10 section later in this chapter.