Question Reinstall Windows or not ?

[JayGau]

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

 

[USAFRet]

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?

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.

 

[kanewolf]

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

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.

 

[Lutfij]

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.

 

[JayGau]

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.

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.

 

[JayGau]

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.

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.

 

[USAFRet]

Making a list of software to install is a good idea so I can go quickly throught them.

Also, document ALL of your login/password combinations, and possible software serial numbers.
A few years ago, I almost lost a $1k CAD package because I could not remember all the authentication details.

 

[JayGau]

Also, document ALL of your login/password combinations, and possible software serial numbers.
A few years ago, I almost lost a $1k CAD package because I could not remember all the authentication details.

Yes good point!

 

[SteJBorchard]

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.

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.

 

[JayGau]

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.

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 ).

 

[JayGau]

OK just an update here. I got some problems in the last few weeks (not computer related) so I haven't got the time nor the will to go ahead with this until this weekend.

So on Friday evening, I replaced my old drive with the new one (disconnected all the others) and proceeded with a fresh install using a Windows 11 (downloaded from the Microsoft website) flash drive I created with Rufus.

I'm still working on the fine tuning (spent most of the weekend on this) but it's going toward something that looks like my old system. But... I really don't see much difference. Maybe it fixed a couple of very minor bugs I had (I say "maybe" because the bugs might have been fixed by the fact that the related apps got updated to their latest versions (you don't need a fresh install to do that)). But beside that, everything runs the same and my performances are the same, for both games and productivity. The computer boots as fast, and reacts as fast as before.

I was expecting that since my old system was working great. But this is the proof that a 8-year-old Windows Pro installation that saw 6 different CUPs, 5 motherboards, 4 GPUs and 3 system drives was still working butter smooth and without any problems.

I still think that as long as you take care of your system, keep everything up to date, uninstall old drivers and install the right ones when you change hardware, there are no issues of keeping your old Windows install. No need to do a fresh install every time you replace something.

With that said, I wanted to thank you all for your advice about the fresh install. It went very well despite that it's a lot of work to get the things back afterward.

 

[USAFRet]

I still think that as long as you take care of your system, keep everything up to date, uninstall old drivers and install the right ones when you change hardware, there are no issues of keeping your old Windows install. No need to do a fresh install every time you replace something.

Sometimes it works no problem.
Sometimes it fails completely.
Sometimes it works, sort of.

I've personally seen all 3.

 

[stonecarver]

Going back to Windows 98 as what did or didn't work taking a Working Windows from one system to new hardware.

If you do swap a working Windows if you still have access to the old system is before you transfer the SSD/ Hard Drive is to dump the GPU driver. There is where most of the hang up happen.

But also if you can't remove the driver before the transfer , just remember it might take three reboots before Windows unlatches the GPU driver from the old system and than boots to Windows generic GPU driver.

Windows 98 worked just fine moving.

Windows XP was mostly a no go but some times got lucky.

Window Vista IDK.

Windows 7 50/50.

Windows 8.1 IDK

Windows 10 98% success.

Windows 11 100 % success.

 

[JayGau]

Sometimes it works no problem.
Sometimes it fails completely.
Sometimes it works, sort of.

I've personally seen all 3.

I agree that this is a not a universal rule, sometime it work, sometime it doesn't. But I've done that so many times (both at work and on my personal computers) and the rate of failure as compare to the successes was a tiny fraction. It works most of the time, especially with Windows 11 that is pretty good at adapting itself to new hardware (the OS detects it and just install the right drivers).

An recent example (last week): one of our engineers took on him to swap the drive on the machine shop office computer (I was very upset that he just decided to do that without telling us) and they started complaining that the display was messed up. I quickly figured out that the graphics driver was not compatible with the graphics card installed on the new host computer so I just had to install the right Nvidia driver and everything was fine. But I bet that if I posted this problem here I would have got "you can't just move the drive to another system you need to do a fresh install". When you know what you are doing it's really not a big deal and it works most of the time.