Should I do a clean install after upgrading to Windows 10?

[Michael Bennink]

I've got a new ASUS N751JK-T7129H. And I just love it. Its elligeble for a free upgrade to Windows 10. Which I'm currently running on my old Vista laptop in the Technical Preview (built 10162) and I think its great.

Now I would like to upgrade the ASUS to Windows 10. And I would want the best experience possible. So I hear a lot of people saying they would do a clean install directly after upgrading. I wonder, is there really such a big difference?

I've got my entire steam library on my ASUS and with my internet connection speed its going to take days maybe weeks to download them again. I could go to my parrents home, but even there its gonna be a whole days work to get it back in order.

So the 'easy' way would just to upgrade to Windows 10 and let it be. What do you guys think? Is all the work I need to put in doing a clean install and reinstalling all my software worth it? Or would just upgrading be fine?!

 

[mjperry51]

Just my experience -- a clean installation is better in the long run.

In place upgrades keep all the "junk" -- registry entries that are unneeded, temp files, etc. Think of it as spring cleaning. It's a pain, but the house is so much batter afterwards.

I believe the online Windows 10 upgrade must be done in place; however I believe the option to do a clean install afterwards exists. Don't know whether that means an ISO download or what; I intend to do a clean install afterwards. I'm going to add an SSD for my system drive, and want the installation to be a clean one. It will take about a day to do this -- but to me it's worth it. . .

 

[DavidinCT]

In about 5 days, I am going to move my current Windows 10 install (was a clean install) to a VM, then the partition where I am going to put WIndows 10, I will install WIndows 7 Pro, with NOTHING but windows updates. So, it can pull the Windows 10 update to it. I would call this a clean install as long as I leave nothing in it. It will create a Windows.old file with the old OS, so it should be perfectly clean.

So, I can continue on the Preview program via a VM but, have RTM physical with no beta program so I can be solid on the OS.

Still will be dual booting with Windows 7 due to the lack of Windows Media Center and only use Windows 10 for games due to DirectX 12, thanks Microsoft...