Got Windows 10 successfully installed today. Turns out you need to perform this as a clean install rather than an upgrade. Seems this was my problem earlier.
I downloaded an ISO of 1803 here (you can get whatever version you need)
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I wanted to avoid using the media creation tool.
Next I downloaded Rufus and used it to create a bootable USB Drive. One note here, you need to select use MBR partition scheme to enable UEFI. It isn't set by default. Takes about 5 mins to create the install on the drive
Reboot, set BIOS to boot from the drive, and install begins. A USB 2.0 port must be used, not sure exactly why. But it worked as stated
Windows 10 Pro install onto my Samsung 970 Pro NVME 512GB drive is wicked fast, less than 10 mins total. Restart, resetting boot order in BIOS, done. Now time to activate Windows 10 with my Windows 7 Pro OEM product key. It was valid and activated online no problems
All I need to do now is reinstall programs, drivers (I keep a folder of basic system and peripheral drivers so I don't need to hunt them down all over) and any updates, since I used 1803.
I would have stayed with 7, but since support has been shut down, time to move forward.