Benefits of clean install after W11 upgrade

RFS · Nov 14, 2021

Thought I'd share my experience of this as I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I last did a clean install on this PC nearly 4 years ago when I built it, since when it had numerous W10 upgrades culminating in 21H2 before I put the W11 Beta on it a couple of months ago via upgrade. The Windows drive is a 100 Gb dedicated partition of a 256 Gb NVMe SSD. Despite running all the clean-up functions, the C drive had settled around 60 Gb and the Macrium Reflect full backups were around 38 Gb.

The first thing I noticed was how quick the install from USB flash drive was - within 5 minutes it was up and asking for my usual customization details. Took another couple of hours to get all my software re-installed (including the .346 CU) plus configuring it how I wanted it.

When all was done, including a final clean-up, the C drive usage is just under 38 Gb and the Macrium Reflect full dump is just over 17 Gb. Seems like an awful lot of dead wood has been removed! And the system seems noticeably more responsive too.

It was certainly well worth doing!

BunnyJ · Nov 14, 2021

Thanks for sharing your experience. When I got my new PC parts not too long ago I performed a clean instillation of 10 and then I upgraded to 11. The reason was I had to set TPM 2 from discrete to firmware and I wanted to make sure that the hardware was setup correctly and that it all worked.

To me at least, doing a clean instillation from time to time is a good thing to do. I know others will disagree but that's just my personal preference.
Have a nice day

rchris · Nov 14, 2021

RFS said:
. Took another couple of hours to get all my software re-installed (including the .346 CU) plus configuring it how I wanted it.

What is a ".346 CU"?

RFS · Nov 14, 2021

rchris said:
What is a ".346 CU"?

The 22000.346 Cumulative Update (KB5007262) released to the Beta and Release Preview channels on Friday.

FDretired · Nov 14, 2021

I make a weekly Macrium image of my C: drive. Pictures and videos are on a separate drive.

I usually do a fresh installation and all programs every 6 months with a new windows 10 version. The old
data is retrieved from the old macrium image and copied to the new installation. This includes contents of the
user "roaming" folder. I have a root folder named "Personal" in which I store all my important documents.
I copy that over to the new installation and the growth in 6 months is minimal.

With time there is slow increase the size of the macrium image from 16 gig to about 24 gig. The size of the image
appears to stop growing after about 6 months.

I have come to the conclusion that Macrium image will increase with time even if no significant new data is added.

I could not find any satisfactory explanation of the growth of Macrium image after doing multiple internet searches. Cleaning WinSxS folder has no significant effect. I would also do "Disk Cleanup"

ThrashZone · Nov 14, 2021

Hi,
Most of the upgrade is creating a restore point and compressing it into windows.old

cereberus · Nov 15, 2021

RFS said:
Thought I'd share my experience of this as I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I last did a clean install on this PC nearly 4 years ago when I built it, since when it had numerous W10 upgrades culminating in 21H2 before I put the W11 Beta on it a couple of months ago via upgrade. The Windows drive is a 100 Gb dedicated partition of a 256 Gb NVMe SSD. Despite running all the clean-up functions, the C drive had settled around 60 Gb and the Macrium Reflect full backups were around 38 Gb.

The first thing I noticed was how quick the install from USB flash drive was - within 5 minutes it was up and asking for my usual customization details. Took another couple of hours to get all my software re-installed (including the .346 CU) plus configuring it how I wanted it.

When all was done, including a final clean-up, the C drive usage is just under 38 Gb and the Macrium Reflect full dump is just over 17 Gb. Seems like an awful lot of dead wood has been removed! And the system seems noticeably more responsive too.

It was certainly well worth doing

In the end, all you are saying is a clean install was (allegedly) more responsive and you saved a lot of space.

This is usually indicative of inadequate housekeeping to keep installation in tip top condition.

PCs are like cars - if not maintained adequately, performance wilk suffer.

I have never needed to clean install for years as I do regular housekeeping e.g. diskcleanup, delete old apps, make sure all settings are optimised (particularly background apps) etc.

You said it only took a few hours to reinstall apps. However, you do not say if that includes all the time it takes to get apps setup to your liking.

I would say it would take me several days to reinstall and setup all my apps.

In my mind, a clean install is the last resort when you get problems with an upgrade, or you have very particular reaons to clean install.

The crucial point is that if inadequate housekeeping is done, eventually your new installation will deteriorate in performance.

FDretired · Nov 15, 2021

My computer needs are very modest. After the base installation 90% of my needs will be met by installing 1) Firefox 2) Thunderbird 3) LibreOffice.

Keeping the size of installation small was a technical challenge to me when SSD were more expensive. I do keep my system clean and despite this the Macrium image grows slowly over a few months.

RFS · Nov 15, 2021

cereberus said:
This is usually indicative of inadequate housekeeping to keep installation in tip top condition.

Inadequate housekeeping? Not in my case. I've always made a point of running clean-up after every major install and making sure any unwanted software is removed. Stuff just builds up over time and a clean install is the simplest, and safest way, of clearing it out.

Winuser · Nov 15, 2021

I just checked two of my Macrium images of my new desktop. On the image made on Oct. 20th the Windows folder is 33GB and on the image made Nov. 3rd. the Windows folder is 31GB. I wonder why newer Windows folder is smaller?

Bree · Nov 15, 2021

RFS said:
Stuff just builds up over time and a clean install is the simplest, and safest way, of clearing it out.

In my case I cannot reinstall some of the software that came with my 'main machine' laptop. Some of it came pre-installed by the OEM back in 2011 with its OEM Windows 7 and there are no installers available now (or in fact, ever).

So if I want to keep all my software then I have no option but to upgrade, and now have transferred that system image to new W11-compatible hardware. My System One in My Computers below is running an install of 11 that can trace it's upgrade path right back to an OEM Windows 7 Home Premium, then through every version of W10 up to 21H1, and now to W11. Never had any issues with 'stuff building up'.

glasskuter · Nov 15, 2021

Bree said:
pre-installed by the OEM back in 2011

Just curious, Bree. Exactly what 10 year old programs are you still running.

Bree · Nov 15, 2021

glasskuter said:
Just curious, Bree. Exactly what 10 year old programs are you still running.

Well, several that I can easily reinstall such as PaintShop Pro 7.04. But one that only ever came as an OEM pre-install is the free Microsoft Office 2010 Starter (Excel/Word).

glasskuter · Nov 15, 2021

I can surely understand that. I'm going to ride Office 2007 Enterprise as long as the 32 bit horse will carry me.

Bree said:
Microsoft Office 2010 Starter (Excel/Word).

tinmar49 · Nov 15, 2021

I did a clean install to my beta channel pc simply to get the M2 hard drive running properly. The other pc had a clean install using the ISO on DVD downloaded directly from Microsoft for the first machine. This was because I got fed up waiting forMicrosoft to get around to upgrading the W10 for me. Neither had anything on them that wasn't already backed up on USB so clean install was no trouble. Both fully qualify for running W11 even though they are both well under the speeds of some high end machines that fail to qualify.
Favorites, music and pictures plus some downloads which are useful to me are the only things that I kept to reload on the new copies of W11, which have both run and updated with no problems that I have noticed.
W11 will not suit everyone as there is no 32 bit version

snerd · Feb 10, 2022

Bree said:
Well, several that I can easily reinstall such as PaintShop Pro 7.04. But one that only ever came as an OEM pre-install is the free Microsoft Office 2010 Starter (Excel/Word).

PSP 7.04! My everyday, quick image manipulator! For smaller things it is much lighter than pulling up Lightroom!

cereberus · Feb 11, 2022

Well, it all depends where you start from. If you start from a disorganised and rather poorly maintained version of windows, a clean install may help.

If on the other hand, your version is well maintained (regular disk cleanup), windows fully updated all apps/drivers up to date, old stuff deleted etc., then a clean install will have little benefit.

I have never needed to clean install for years, and that is through all versions of Windows 8 and 10 on 3 different laptops.

My pc idles at around 1% and I checkedcwith clean dual boot and same. Only discernable difference is I use a bit more idling RAM than a clean install bit that is to be expected with 70+ apps installed. I checked performance using passmark and virtually no difference.

Of course, if you factor in time to reinstall everything, get all program setting back to how you like them etc., then a clean install should be the last resort when all else fails.

In other words, if you tidy up pc properly, then a clean install should not be needed.

Hazel123 · Feb 12, 2022

It's great how quick clean installs are these days isn't it? :)

Bree · Feb 12, 2022

cereberus said:
I have never needed to clean install for years, and that is through all versions of Windows 8 and 10 on 3 different laptops...
...if you tidy up pc properly, then a clean install should not be needed.

Same here.

My System One below has never had a clean install. Its installed Windows started life as an OEM pre-installed Windows 7 on another machine, where it upgraded to the first release of Windows 10 in 2015, and then through every version of Win10 up to 21H2. After migrating the OS to a new machine Windows Update upgraded it to Windows 11.

Winuser · Feb 13, 2022

Hazel123 said:
It's great how quick clean installs are these days isn't it? :)

The clean install of Windows may be quick, but it takes me days to install and setup all of my programs.

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