[SOLVED] Upgrade versus Clean Install of Win 10 Pro

[dg27]

I believe that the consensus would be that a clean install is always preferable over an "upgrade," but I'm wondering whether anyone has had success going the upgrade route. I have to move four systems from Win 7 to Win 10 and would like to make it as painless as possible. (With one machine I have tons of programs.)

Regarding the clean install, the sticky posted here recommends that all drives be disconnected other than the boot. Is that really necessary? I've got five internal drives and would really like to avoid having to do that.

 

[USAFRet]

For a clean install, or even an upgrade...yes. Have only the one drive connected.
May be a hassle, but you only have to do it once.

Clean install vs Upgrade?
It depends.
How old are these installs? Everything running perfectly?
An upgrade can carry along all the old gunk from years past.

 

[wpgwpg]

It's a pain either way since a clean install means you have to reinstall your apps. The reason for disconnecting other than the C: drives is that Windows 10 can and usually does put part of the install on a different drive from where you have most of the Windows system. Only you know the status of your Windows 7 system, but personally I've had good experience just doing upgrades. Of course I haven't been aware of any maladies on the Win 7 systems I've upgraded. It worked without problems on 28 student systems I upgraded and several at home. Of course as the saying goes, YMMV.

 

[dg27]

Thanks to you both for your replies.

Clean install vs Upgrade? It depends. How old are these installs? Everything running perfectly?

It's a pain either way since a clean install means you have to reinstall your apps.

The install I'm most interested in running the upgrade on is my desktop, which does run perfectly in my view. I wouldn't be touching it except for the 01/14/20 Win 7 EOL. I run Pro Tools on that machine and to give you an idea, a clean install would involve over 50 separate installs just for the plugins.

The reason for disconnecting other than the C: drives is that Windows 10 can and usually does put part of the install on a different drive from where you have most of the Windows system.

Is having part of the install on a drive other than the boot a problem in and of itself? It really doesn't matter to me if some separate 10 GB or so folder is on another internal drive.

Can that folder be moved after the installation is complete?

 

[wpgwpg]

Having the BCD on a separate drive isn't that much of a problem most of the time, it's just something you have to be aware of because it creates a small partition that can fill up with multiple upgrades and of course can cause booting up speed to be affected when you have most of Windows on an SSD and it puts the BCD on a HDD.
I've never tried to move the BCD, but it strikes me as something that would be a whole lot more difficult (if possible at all) than poping the cover and temporarily disconnecting the other drives during a clean install. That doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. You can just pull the power cables so you don't have to worry about which one goes to which drive when you reconnect them.

 

[dg27]

Thanks for your reply.

Having the BCD on a separate drive isn't that much of a problem most of the time, it's just something you have to be aware of because it creates a small partition that can fill up with multiple upgrades and of course can cause booting up speed to be affected when you have most of Windows on an SSD and it puts the BCD on a HDD.
I've never tried to move the BCD, but it strikes me as something that would be a whole lot more difficult (if possible at all) than poping the cover and temporarily disconnecting the other drives during a clean install. That doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. You can just pull the power cables so you don't have to worry about which one goes to which drive when you reconnect them.

My desktop is housed in an old-fashioned computer desk. Pulling it out actually is a major hassle that I try to limit to twice a year for cleaning or emergencies. Pulling just the power cables is a good idea I would not have thought of. I'd really rather not mess with the SATA cables (I have two internal SATA cards, five internal drives and two ODDs (which I do use)).

 

[wpgwpg]

I hear you - like I said it can be a pain whatever you do, but it looks like trying the upgrade route would be worth trying. But whatever you do, be certain you make backup(s) before doing anything with Windows. As you probably know, Murphy loves to make problems you never thought of when making significant changes.
My computers are not inside cabinets, but I'm such a junky pack rat, I have to move all kinds of stuff a lot of times when I need to make a change. My wife says I should be embarrassed at such a messy room, but frankly I'm a lot more interested in how things work than I am about how they look!

 

[dg27]

I hear you - like I said it can be a pain whatever you do, but it looks like trying the upgrade route would be worth trying.

In addition to Pro Tools (a time consuming install) I have Adobe Creative Suite (another big one), plus 80-odd misc programs, plus the 50 PT plugins. So though I know it might not be ideal and I've preferred clean installs in the past, for this one I can't afford to take several days to be up and running (it is my work machine as well).

If I could pay M$ $50 to get another year of Win7 I would.

But whatever you do, be certain you make backup(s) before doing anything with Windows.

That's one thing I have amply covered: I run redundant backups to external drives so that everything is backed up every day, plus I run Acronis for the OS every day.

Thanks for the sage advice.

 

[wpgwpg]

You're very welcome. Good luck with the upgrade!

 

[ken_neyt]

Hi guys ,
I hope you guys can help me with this
I'm going to help a friend upgrade his Motherboard , CPU and Ram.
We are going to do a clean install of windows on an M2. But he doensn't have internet at his new place now. SO he wants to keep a lot of games so he doesnt need to download all of em again.
Would A clean install of windows 10 with connecting his old SSD afterwards work?
So we just use the ssd as a hard drive? And install games again from that ssd

Thanks for helping me out.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi guys ,
I hope you guys can help me with this
I'm going to help a friend upgrade his Motherboard , CPU and Ram.
We are going to do a clean install of windows on an M2. But he doensn't have internet at his new place now. SO he wants to keep a lot of games so he doesnt need to download all of em again.
Would A clean install of windows 10 with connecting his old SSD afterwards work?
So we just use the ssd as a hard drive? And install games again from that ssd

Thanks for helping me out.

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