Question Reinstall Windows or not ?

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JayGau

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Dec 20, 2016
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Hi All,

I wanted to gather some opinions about this. On almost every thread on forums like this one there is someone suggesting to do a Windows fresh install, whatever the problem is. I have been running the same Windows install for years (started with 10 Pro in 2017 and now updated to 11 24h2), throughout many different components (drives, CPUs, motherboards, RAM, GPUs) and honestly, I have never experienced any serious issues. I think my computer is currently doing great. Performances are on par with what the online reviews say I should get with my hardware (benchmarks are either on the average or higher than average). I do experience some occasional micro-stuttering in demanding games (like right now in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or MS Flight Sim 2024) but I'm not the only one and I think this is normal.

I have a lot of things tuned and configured on my PC, and a lot of stuff installed. After a Windows fresh install it would likely take me several weeks to have everything back like it was (unless I take a week of vacation to do only that full time). Does it really worth the pain? Would I really get an improvement that justifies all this work?

And what do you guys have installed on your PC? Am I the only one who sees a fresh install as a titanic task? I mean, when I do that at work it's really not a big deal since we only have a few things to configure and install (and recover the files from backups), but my personal gaming machine is way more complex than that.

I just ordered a new 2 TB NVMe drive so if I decided to try it I could just remove the current system drive and do the installation on the new one (so I could quickly switch back if I figured out it's too much work and doesn't improve anything). But what do you think? Is it really worth trying?

Current specs:

Ryzen 9800X3D
Corsair H150i Elite LCD 360mm AIO
MSI RTX 4080 Gaming-X Trio
Asus Rog Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi
Corsair Vengeance 6000 MHz CL30 2x32 GB
Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB (system)
Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB (game storage)
WD Blue SATA SSD 2 TB x2 (extra storage)
Crucial X9 Pro 4 TB external SSD (system image and file backups)
Corsair RM1000X Gold PSU
 
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JayGau said:
I just ordered a new 2 TB NVMe drive so if I decided to try it I could just remove the current system drive and do the installation on the new one (so I could quickly switch back if I figured out it's too much work and doesn't improve anything). But what do you think? Is it really worth trying?
Click to expand...
If the current install set is having issues, then maybe a fresh install IS actually a good idea.
No way to know until you try.

And if you've been dragging this "same install" across multiple OS's and hardware, then probably yeah.

Install on a NEW drive, and see how it goes.
 
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JayGau said:
Hi All,

I wanted to gather some opinions about this. On almost every thread on forums like this one there is someone suggesting to do a Windows fresh install, whatever the problem is. I have been running the same Windows install for years (started with 10 Pro in 2017 and now updated to 11 24h2), throughout many different components (drives, CPUs, motherboards, RAM, GPUs) and honestly, I have never experienced any serious issues. I think my computer is currently doing great. Performances are on par with what the online reviews say I should get with my hardware (benchmarks are either on the average or higher than average). I do experience some occasional micro-stuttering in demanding games (like right now in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth or MS Flight Sim 2024) but I'm not the only one and I think this is normal.

I have a lot of things tuned and configured on my PC, and a lot of stuff installed. After a Windows fresh install it would likely take me several weeks to have everything back like it was (unless I take a week of vacation to do only that full time). Does it really worth the pain? Would I really get an improvement that justifies all this work?

And what do you guys have installed on your PC? Am I the only one who sees a fresh install as a titanic task? I mean, when I do that at work it's really not a big deal since we only have a few things to configure and install (and recover the files from backups), but my personal gaming machine is way more complex than that.

I just ordered a new 2 TB NVMe drive so if I decided to try it I could just remove the current system drive and do the installation on the new one (so I could quickly switch back if I figured out it's too much work and doesn't improve anything). But what do you think? Is it really worth trying?

Current specs:

Ryzen 9800X3D
Corsair H150i Elite LCD 360mm AIO
MSI RTX 4080 Gaming-X Trio
Asus Rog Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi
Corsair Vengeance 6000 MHz CL30 2x32 GB
Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB (system)
Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB (game storage)
WD Blue SATA SSD 2 TB x2 (extra storage)
Crucial X9 Pro 4 TB external SSD (system image and file backups)
Corsair RM1000X Gold PSU
Click to expand...
You have 8+ years of trash in your Windows install and registry. A clean install will get rid of those things.
What is your plan for a corrupted OS or worse yet an encryption virus? Do you have a good enough backup process to avoid a clean OS install?
Is it a pain? Sure. Should you be prepared to do a clean OS? YES. If you are prepared, then it is not impossible.
 
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I have been running the same Windows install for years (started with 10 Pro in 2017 and now updated to 11 24h2
To put it bluntly, there's a guide on our forums and probably on Tom'sGuide by one of our moderators(most probably USAFRet - 🫡 ) that reinstalling the OS after upgrading to Windows 11 using the internal upgrade path is what you must do, regardless of what happens. This ensures that you've routed out any corruptions in your OS during the migration process.

honestly, I have never experienced any serious issues. I think my computer is currently doing great.
The old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it applies here but I'd ask you to backup your mission critical data.

After a Windows fresh install it would likely take me several weeks to have everything back like it was
Put them down on a sheet of paper or a notebook that you can go through when you have to reinstall the OS as Windows tends to go belly up since 10 came to light.

IMHO, to make life simpler, you should have the OS, app's and launchers on a smaller SSD. A large SSD tends to make people think they can partition it to smaller drives(which degrades the SSD's performance) or that the drive is left as is and people tend to start dumping files and content onto it, then panic when the OS goes sideways.

If you're reinstalling the OS, recreate your bootable USB installer, install the OS in offline mode, then install all necessary drivers in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator, while in offline mode. Then connect to the www, update the OS and get about to fine tuning the system's settings.
 
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kanewolf said:
You have 8+ years of trash in your Windows install and registry. A clean install will get rid of those things.
What is your plan for a corrupted OS or worse yet an encryption virus? Do you have a good enough backup process to avoid a clean OS install?
Is it a pain? Sure. Should you be prepared to do a clean OS? YES. If you are prepared, then it is not impossible.
Click to expand...
I have image backups made with both the Windows Backup tool and Clonezilla, plus file backup and file history on external drives. I am very well prepared in the event my OS or system drive fail for any reasons.
 
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Lutfij said:
I have been running the same Windows install for years (started with 10 Pro in 2017 and now updated to 11 24h2
To put it bluntly, there's a guide on our forums and probably on Tom'sGuide by one of our moderators(most probably USAFRet - 🫡 ) that reinstalling the OS after upgrading to Windows 11 using the internal upgrade path is what you must do, regardless of what happens. This ensures that you've routed out any corruptions in your OS during the migration process.

honestly, I have never experienced any serious issues. I think my computer is currently doing great.
The old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it applies here but I'd ask you to backup your mission critical data.

After a Windows fresh install it would likely take me several weeks to have everything back like it was
Put them down on a sheet of paper or a notebook that you can go through when you have to reinstall the OS as Windows tends to go belly up since 10 came to light.

IMHO, to make life simpler, you should have the OS, app's and launchers on a smaller SSD. A large SSD tends to make people think they can partition it to smaller drives(which degrades the SSD's performance) or that the drive is left as is and people tend to start dumping files and content onto it, then panic when the OS goes sideways.

If you're reinstalling the OS, recreate your bootable USB installer, install the OS in offline mode, then install all necessary drivers in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator, while in offline mode. Then connect to the www, update the OS and get about to fine tuning the system's settings.
Click to expand...
I have a 2 TB for my system drive just for the peace of mind. I only have one partition on it and out of 2 TB I currently only use about 500 GB. I have way more than enough space on my other drives so it would be useless to fill up this one. By the way I'm pretty sure this SSD partitioning thing that would degrade performance is a myth. But I don't do it anyways.

Thanks for the fresh install advices. I already have almost everything prepared. Everything that can be saved in a profile is saved and backed up. I took screenshots of configurations I cannot save. All the files are backed up. I still need to make sure my WSL distro home directories are backed up. I also flashed a USB drive with the Windows 11 installer iso (with RUFUS) a couple of days ago.

Making a list of software to install is a good idea so I can go quickly throught them. I should receive the new drive this weekend, and might try it on next Friday (will be a staff holiday at work so I should have time to start the process).

Thank you everyone! I will give it a try.
 
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JayGau said:
I have a 2 TB for my system drive just for the peace of mind. I only have one partition on it and out of 2 TB I currently only use about 500 GB. I have way more than enough space on my other drives so it would be useless to fill up this one. By the way I'm pretty sure this SSD partitioning thing that would degrade performance is a myth. But I don't do it anyways.

Thanks for the fresh install advices. I already have almost everything prepared. Everything that can be saved in a profile is saved and backed up. I took screenshots of configurations I cannot save. All the files are backed up. I still need to make sure my WSL distro home directories are backed up. I also flashed a USB drive with the Windows 11 installer iso (with RUFUS) a couple of days ago.

Making a list of software to install is a good idea so I can go quickly throught them. I should receive the new drive this weekend, and might try it on next Friday (will be a staff holiday at work so I should have time to start the process).

Thank you everyone! I will give it a try.
Click to expand...


Have a good 30-90 mins of Disabling crap you don't use and removing windows extras you don't use as well!

I have a list of powershell commands if you want them.
 
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SteJBorchard said:
Have a good 30-90 mins of Disabling crap you don't use and removing windows extras you don't use as well!

I have a list of powershell commands if you want them.
Click to expand...
Indeed it's always the first thing I do when I get a new laptop (uninstalling bloatware and Windows apps I don't need). You can send me the powershell commands and I will look at them and see if they can be useful for me (you understand I'm not going to blindly run them all :) ).
 
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