Do I need to do a clean Windows 10 install to remove Windows 7 cruft?

September 1, 2015 5:29 PM

In the past, every time I've upgraded Windows (3.11 to 95 to 97 to XP to 7) I've done a clean install. For the first time, I'm considering upgrading (to Windows 10) with an in-place (overwrite) installation, not a clean install. My Windows 7 has been acting badly lately, probably due to various registry cruft. Does an in-place install take care of that, or is all the registry cruft carried over, and should I do a clean install instead? (A clean install would involve many hours more work)
posted by Bugbread to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Clean install is always the way to go when setting up a new OS. Yes your registry garbage will be carried across if you simply upgrade. It's not fun while you're doing it but will save a lot of bother later.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:40 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Windows 10 has a 'reset' option that lets you reset your computer to a newly installed state. My advice would be to upgrade, then if you continue having problems, do a reset.
posted by demiurge at 6:08 PM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've done an upgrade and it's been pretty dang seamless - there are a few errors popping up in the system log but nothing significant (the only noticeable one is that it's waking itself from sleep again, which is annoying).
posted by Sebmojo at 6:21 PM on September 1, 2015

IMO/IME, a clean install is always better. It also usually forces you to do a backup of all your data and if you don't do that often it's the perfect time to do one.
posted by Hermione Granger at 6:28 PM on September 1, 2015

I'd do a clean install. Use Ninite to make the reinstall job easier. If you start the clean install from inside Windows 7, you should be able to use the free upgrade to Windows 10.
posted by cnc at 9:31 PM on September 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

You should be aware that the new way licensing works (per device) at this point at least you MUST upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 first, make sure it's activated, then you can use the media preparation tool to make a USB thumb drive/DVD installer and do a completely clean install, which will pick up the activated status of the computer.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:19 PM on September 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Okay, I've picked up on that in subsequent Googling, but there's something I don't understand. From what I've read, you do the upgrade, then your hardware fingerprint is registered in Microsoft's servers, so when you later do a fresh install, it looks on the MS servers, sees "Yeah, Bugbread's cool, we can activate his fresh install." But every site talks about doing an update, then using the media preparation tool to make a DVD installation disc, and then doing the fresh install.

Is there a reason I would have to do the upgrade before using the media prep tool to make a DVD installation disc? Couldn't I just do that ahead of time, get it out of the way, so when I do my installs, I can do an upgrade install, and when activation is complete, immediately start the fresh install, without waiting to do the downloading and burning then? In other words, "1) Create installation disc 2) Do overwrite install 3) Do fresh install using installation disc"?
posted by Bugbread at 3:30 AM on September 4, 2015

No reason to do it afterwards, nope. The Win 10 install is going to be just a plain install either way, that you would be able to use anywhere. Just make sure you're upgrading/reinstalling 32bit to 32bit or 64 to 64.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:17 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Right, you must do the upgrade first, then do a clean install. No reason to wait to do the media kit download. Microsoft has made this all about as easy as possible (not that such as thing is ever all that easy).

As a note, if you use the Windows 7 backup tool to preserve your data during the clean install, Windows 10 has a restore tool for it. Handy, since backup in Windows 8 and 10 is a different beast entirely.
posted by lhauser at 11:34 AM on September 7, 2015