In Place Upgrade vs Clean Install from Windows 10

Flogger23m · Monday at 3:59 PM

Going to be upgrading to Windows 11 soon. On Windows 10 Pro, 22H2 (OS Build 19045.5965). Will not be changing hardware. Wondering if there are any disadvantages to using the In Place Upgrade from Win 10 to 11? I know In Place will keep data/files in place (ideally) but will the Win 11 install otherwise be the same?

How does it handle things like drivers for chipset or graphic cards? Usually I update those manually from manufacture websites, though will an In Place Upgrade essentially require a reinstall of all hardware drivers? This I don't mind, just wondering if drivers for hardware/chipset/motherboard are handled differently from a Clean Install.

For creating a system image backup, what is the best free program to use in 2025? I've read that built in utility has been depreciated on Windows 10, which is why I am looking for alternatives. I would store the image back up on an external hard drive. I can also do an entire clone of my Windows drive onto a spare SSD I have.

bobkn · Monday at 4:31 PM

You shouldn't need to worry about drivers with an upgrade. For one thing, Windows 10 and Windows 11 drivers are typically the same.

WD offers a free version of Acronis True Image. I don't know its limitations, other than requiring a WD drive. It may fulfill your needs.
As an alternative, Macrium Reflect Free. The company no longer supports it, but the software probably still works,

Megahertz · Monday at 4:39 PM

Win 10 and Win 11 is basically the same with some differences on the GUI.
If you're upgrading the Ryzen 7800X3D it should be Win 11 compatible if TPM is enable and if the main drive is UEFI - GPT
I suggest you download and run WhyNotWin11 to make sure it's 100% compatible.
If everything is OK, In Place Upgrade is a good way to upgrade. Don't worried about drivers. Most Win 10 is also Win 11 and the ones that aren't will be updated.

As things can always go wrong, I suggest you do a drive backup image.
The most used application is Macrium, (now on version 9) but it now is a subscription. Macrium 8 is the best option
EaseUS todo and AOMEI backuper are also good options.

Ghot · Monday at 4:39 PM

@Flogger32m

Macrium Reflect, AOMEI Backupper and Hasleo Backup Suite - GUIDES

How to use backup software... 1. When everything is working perfectly... make a full Windows backup. 2. Then, if something breaks... restore from the latest backup. 3. Then... try "whatever you were doing" a different way. If it still breaks Windows, then... go to step #2. 4. Repeat...

www.elevenforum.com

If Windows 10 is running well, you can do an In-Place upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11.
That's how I did it.

Like so...

Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade

This tutorial will show you how to do a repair install of Windows 11 by performing an in-place upgrade without losing anything. If you need to repair or create a new recovery partition or having problems with the Windows 11 operating system on your PC, and the usual solutions will not fix it...

www.elevenforum.com

It's the same as doing an In-Place upgrade on Windows 10, except you will use a Win 11 ISO instead.

garlin · Monday at 5:16 PM

bobkn said:
You shouldn't need to worry about drivers with an upgrade. For one thing, Windows 10 and Windows 11 drivers are typically the same.

The drivers are generally the same, but W11 24H2 is more restrictive about blocking old drivers with known security vulnerabilities. Some of these include ASUS Armoury Crate add-on's and Western Digital Essentials (wdcsam).

You should check to see if you have the latest drivers for the best upgrade experience.

SIW2 · Monday at 5:38 PM

For creating a system image backup, what is the best free program to use in 2025?

Windows System image works ok in spite of what some people here claim. Third party tools have more flexibility in some ways but they are almost always proprietary formats so less flexible there. There are plenty to choose from.

Hasleo looks good , another popular one is aomei. I quite like the imaging diskgenius can do, but there is no scheduling if that matters to you.

Flogger23m · Monday at 6:34 PM

Megahertz said:
Win 10 and Win 11 is basically the same with some differences on the GUI.
If you're upgrading the Ryzen 7800X3D it should be Win 11 compatible if TPM is enable and if the main drive is UEFI - GPT
I suggest you download and run WhyNotWin11 to make sure it's 100% compatible.
If everything is OK, In Place Upgrade is a good way to upgrade. Don't worried about drivers. Most Win 10 is also Win 11 and the ones that aren't will be updated.

Everything looks good with the exception of TPM. I do have this disabled in the BIOS if I recall (fTPM on my motherboard). I remember I needed to disable it when upgrading motherboard BIOS. Currently using a local account with password for Win 10. Bitlocker is set to off within Win 10.

I assume I will need to enable this in the BIOS to upgrade to Win 11. Though does the TPM require anything else when I try to boot up after installing Win 11? EX) I enable fTPM in the BIOS, it will smoothly install and boot into Win 11 without issues?

For the boot drive, this is what I am seeing within Windows. I assume this would be okay?

idgat · Monday at 6:50 PM

Flogger23m said:
Wondering if there are any disadvantages to using the In Place Upgrade from Win 10 to 11?

No matter how "clean" and smooth running the existing system may be, always the possibility that an inplace upgrade will tip the system over the edge. And if this happens, hard to identify what caused it ... a dormant glitch that the upgrade activated, or a borked upgrade install.

User's choice

Whatever, make sure you do an image of the existing system, warts (if any) and all, before the attempted upgrade. Macrium Reflect (freeware version is still available from majorgeeks) and if you're inclined to go into tin-foil hat mode, an extra image using another option like AOMEI Backupper. Don't forget the boot usb drives for both/either options

Alternatively, swap out the existing W10 installation for a blank drive and do a clean install on that. If things go pear-shaped, the ole system can be swapped back.

Flogger23m · Monday at 7:10 PM

idgat said:
No matter how "clean" and smooth running the existing system may be, always the possibility that an inplace upgrade will tip the system over the edge. And if this happens, hard to identify what caused it ... a dormant glitch that the upgrade activated, or a borked upgrade install.

User's choice

Whatever, make sure you do an image of the existing system, warts (if any) and all, before the attempted upgrade. Macrium Reflect (freeware version is still available from majorgeeks) and if you're inclined to go into tin-foil hat mode, an extra image using another option like AOMEI Backupper. Don't forget the boot usb drives for both/either options

Alternatively, swap out the existing W10 installation for a blank drive and do a clean install on that. If things go pear-shaped, the ole system can be swapped back.

I'm going to do a full drive clone (have a spare SSD) and make an image which I will place on an external HDD. So I have two alternative back up methods. Data files and whatnot I am backing up manually to different drives as well.

Usually I use Reflect free for clones, I'm assuming it has a good Image functionality as well? The version on majorgeeks seems to be from 2023 so I downloaded that and will keep the .exe file backed up for future installs if necessary, glad to see there is a place that still has it up for download.

MachineLanguage · Monday at 7:29 PM

Assuming you have used your clones before, and they worked. But absolutely make an image of the drive.

Megahertz · Monday at 7:33 PM

Flogger23m said:
Everything looks good with the exception of TPM. I do have this disabled in the BIOS if I recall (fTPM on my motherboard). I remember I needed to disable it when upgrading motherboard BIOS. Currently using a local account with password for Win 10. Bitlocker is set to off within Win 10.

View attachment 138178

I assume I will need to enable this in the BIOS to upgrade to Win 11. Though does the TPM require anything else when I try to boot up after installing Win 11? EX) I enable fTPM in the BIOS, it will smoothly install and boot into Win 11 without issues?

If you enable TPM, Win Update will offer you an upgrade to Win 11. You can do an in place upgrade or wait Win Update to offer you.

Flogger23m said:
For the boot drive, this is what I am seeing within Windows. I assume this would be okay?

View attachment 138179

The first Recovery partition is not in use and it is useless and the last Recovery partition is small. There are ways to fix (remove first recovery and enlarge the second to, at least, 800M. But that is another chapter.

cereberus · Monday at 7:38 PM

Megahertz said:
Win 10 and Win 11 is basically the same with some differences on the GUI.
If you're upgrading the Ryzen 7800X3D it should be Win 11 compatible if TPM is enable and if the main drive is UEFI - GPT
I suggest you download and run WhyNotWin11 to make sure it's 100% compatible.
If everything is OK, In Place Upgrade is a good way to upgrade. Don't worried about drivers. Most Win 10 is also Win 11 and the ones that aren't will be updated.

As things can always go wrong, I suggest you do a drive backup image.
The most used application is Macrium, (now on version 9) but it now is a subscription. Macrium 8 is the best option
EaseUS todo and AOMEI backuper are also good options.

There is no Macrium 9 (similar to Windows lol). It is version X (10?).

Megahertz · Monday at 7:40 PM

Flogger23m said:
I'm going to do a full drive clone (have a spare SSD) and make an image which I will place on an external HDD. So I have two alternative back up methods. Data files and whatnot I am backing up manually to different drives as well.

Usually I use Reflect free for clones, I'm assuming it has a good Image functionality as well? The version on majorgeeks seems to be from 2023 so I downloaded that and will keep the .exe file backed up for future installs if necessary, glad to see there is a place that still has it up for download.

Depending on the app you use to clone, its easy to fix the layout. I have used Macrium to clone a drive and I used the drag and drop to put the partitions on the right order and to enlarge the recovery partition.

abactuon · Monday at 7:48 PM

Only clean installation of Windows. IMO.

Flogger23m · Monday at 7:51 PM

Megahertz said:
If you enable TPM, Win Update will offer you an upgrade to Win 11. You can do an in place upgrade or wait Win Update to offer you.

Thanks, downloaded the Win 11 .iso. So when I'm ready, just enable it in the BIOS, I'll run the checking utility one more time and ensure it passes then install Win 11. I assume that doing that, I won't have any TPM issues upon booting into Win 11?

Megahertz said:
The first Recovery partition is not in use and it is useless a,d the last Recovery partition is small. There are ways to fix (remove first recovery and enlarge the second to, at least, 800M. But that is another chapter.

Megahertz said:

Depending on the app you use to clone, its easy to fix the layout. I have used Macrium to clone a drive and I used the drag and drop to put the partitions on the right order and to enlarge the recovery partition.View attachment 138183

Click to expand...

Okay will look into that. I assume EFI partition goes first, then drive C/boot, then recovery. Not seeing the MSR partition though (referring to my screen shot from above)?

Levitate11 · Monday at 9:16 PM

abactuon said:
Only clean installation of Windows. IMO.

My thoughts too. Fresh install on a different drive. Bring your data files over as needed.

Megahertz · Tuesday at 10:08 AM

Flogger23m said:
Thanks, downloaded the Win 11 .iso. So when I'm ready, just enable it in the BIOS, I'll run the checking utility one more time and ensure it passes then install Win 11. I assume that doing that, I won't have any TPM issues upon booting into Win 11?

Right click on the iso and select Mount. It will create a CD/DVD virtual drive. Run Setup on it and it will begin the upgrade.

Flogger23m said:
Okay will look into that. I assume EFI partition goes first, then drive C/boot, then recovery. Not seeing the MSR partition though (referring to my screen shot from above)?

Windows Disk Manager is very basic. For unknown reason it doesn't show the MSR partition and inform wrong about EFI used and free space.
I use a Mini Tool , that is free and I think is very good.

Bree · Tuesday at 10:38 AM

Flogger23m said:
Usually I use Reflect free for clones, I'm assuming it has a good Image functionality as well?

I think I've only ever used Reflect for a clone the once. I always use Reflect to make images, variously I have licences for Reflect X Home, Reflect v8.1 Home, and I use Reflect Free v8.0 on the rest of my machines.

In fact I have just set up one of my PC's to act as a fileserver running 24/7, and I've set it up with Reflect Free to do scheduled monthly Full images with daily Differentials.

Flogger23m said:
The version on majorgeeks seems to be from 2023 so I downloaded that and will keep the .exe file backed up for future installs if necessary, glad to see there is a place that still has it up for download.

The latest (and last) version of Reflect Free was v8.0.7783 - 1st December 2023. You can in fact still download Reflect Free v8.0 direct from Macrium. They still have Reflect v7 available on their download servers too. I know from personal experience that Reflect Free still works in the latest Insider builds.

See the bottom of post #1 here for the link: Latest Macrium Reflect 8 updates

Megahertz · Tuesday at 11:35 AM

abactuon said:
Only clean installation of Windows. IMO.

I normally do a clean install instead of an upgrade as it is technically the best option.
In your case, I see that Win 10 was installed a long time ago as you have an old Recovery partition as the first one.
You probably have a lot of trash all over the OS and most of them will be kept on an upgrade to Win 11.
If you clean install win 11 with same version (Home or Pro) that you have under Win 10 it will activate
Think about.

gunrunnerjohn · Tuesday at 3:10 PM

I'm a big fan of a clean install. I know, folks say it's more work, and they're quite possibly right. However, in many cases, a clean install will also allow you to leave behind a ton of baggage you no longer use. I shrunk my boot partition from well over 200GB to around 150GB by just installing the stuff I'm currently using. It's amazing how much junk you accumulate over time, there were tons of applications that I never use now. I'll admit, I have a few bumps along the road with every clean install, but those are a lot easier to smooth out than dealing with all the extra baggage.

In Place Upgrade vs Clean Install from Windows 10

Active member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Wish to be flying

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Active member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Active member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Wish to be flying

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Wish to be flying

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Active member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Wish to be flying

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computers

Wish to be flying

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computers

Similar threads