Question Is it normal to do a fresh install of windows every few months/once a year?

[KiruseiNagisa]

Ever since I built my first PC in 2018, I've been doing a yearly install of windows 10 thinking it's the best way to keep my PC performing at its best and sometimes out of paranoia. I hear some other people do the same in a similar time, sometimes even once every 6 or 3 months.
Watched a youtube short a while ago where the poster stated they did the same, while the comment section talked down on them saying they could just get the same results using "sfc /scannow" in CMD instead of having to go through all the trouble of reinstalling windows as well as saying to "get better at maintaining your system" without going into details other than the obvious of not downloading suspicious stuff.

Is there really a better method to keeping your PC as good as it was on a fresh install than just reinstalling windows?

 

[Lafong]

I have not reinstalled since I built this PC..........8 years ago.

It performs as well as it did on day one.

I just do routine maintenance and backups.

But if you tend to be obsessive and worry about missing out on something, you may not be satisfied with anything other than a clean install from time to time. I could understand that. Why worry when you can relieve the worry with a new install?

 

[Colif]

For a long time windows 10 version updates were every 6 months so its was constantly refreshing. Version updates replace the previous install of windows.

Now windows 10/11 gets a new version once every year meaning its enough to not need to clean install as often.

I was thinking about it recently, its almost 4 years since I got this PC and it doesn't feel like I need to clean install.
My last PC was the same, I built it in 2015 and the only times I clean installed windows on it was when I had problems I couldn't work out, and in both cases cause wasn't windows.

I would only clean install now if my nvme died... no real need otherwise.

 

[Flayed]

Is there really a better method to keeping your PC as good as it was on a fresh install than just reinstalling windows?

You can update drivers. I just installed a network adapter driver that is 4 years more recent than the one I had. They don't update the motherboard support drivers page with the latest drivers.

 

[dwd999]

It depends; Windows tends to accumulate a lot of files and some are no longer needed but Windows doesn't delete them itself. So you can get a buildup of useless files. If you are short on disk space this can become a problem. I recently reinstalled Windows 11 and the amount of space it used decreased by approx. 10 GB with fewer files.

As far as not needing to reinstall Windows what I did this time was use the Macrium software to make a backup of the fresh install after all updates and necessary drivers were installed which I can reload any time I want to go back to square one.

 

[Colif]

You can update drivers. I just installed a network adapter driver that is 4 years more recent than the one I had. They don't update the motherboard support drivers page with the latest drivers.

Being on latest drivers isn't always best idea. Sometimes you can introduce problems you didn't have before. I don't see point in updating a driver that works, apart from maybe my GPU drivers and the occasional AMD motherboard driver updates.

It depends; Windows tends to accumulate a lot of files and some are no longer needed but Windows doesn't delete them itself.

you can probably remove a lot of those files using disk cleanup and letting it do windows update files. I run it a lot on my windows 10 vm since its only got 30gb of space. Currently my pc only has 8gb to save but I have 480gb free on C so I am not bothered.

 

[USAFRet]

I only do a reinstall during a major hardware change.

I've seen other people comment that they do a full reinstall once a month or so, "just to keep things fresh."

 

[Colif]

i used to install windows a lot more often 20 years ago but ever since getting windows 7, the number has decreased rapidly.

Part of that is to do with how windows 10 & 11 could be installed onto windows 7/8 as an update meaning no need to clean install. Its how I got win 11 onto this PC (I never had 8 so I don't know if that feature existed on it)

I once reinstalled windows because I had no sound... just to find speakers were off. You eventually try to fix windows without using the hammer approach. Last few times it was after months of trying everything else we could think of.

 

[Flayed]

Being on latest drivers isn't always best idea. Sometimes you can introduce problems you didn't have before. I don't see point in updating a driver that works, apart from maybe my GPU drivers and the occasional AMD motherboard driver updates.

That is a good point. I went looking for newer drivers due to intermittent network connection issues.

 

[Colif]

Most drivers are easy to find/fix but you won't find me randomly updating my sound drivers any time soon. Realtek drivers are confusing now. I just leave sound alone once they work.

I only know where to find most of them from answering too many BSOD posts here in last 7 years.

 

[logainofhades]

I used to do a fresh install about once a year, but these days I have been too lazy to bother.