When Do I Need to Reinstall Windows?

When do you need to reinstall windows?
How often do you reinstall windows? From time to time, you will need to decide whether to do a clean install of windows, today we take a look at some of the reasons when you have to reinstall windows.

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[Britec]

Hope this helps you out. drop us a LIKE 👍

[brucefay]

Backing up data is one thing. My understanding is that you can’t really backup programs, per se. So doing a fresh install of Windows means re-installing all of your software. The data is not the problem, the software/apps are the problem. But perhaps I don’t understand the situation correctly.

[NeoGeo]

When you first get a new computer no matter what it is just get a USB or disk and reinstall windows. Performance is great removes all bloatware and I have been doing it for years. Potentially do this method for feature updates if you know your PC will have problems.

[GavstarLeo]

I upgrade to Windows 11 from 10 and recently reset this PC and done a fresh install and what a difference it made! Boot time improved 👏 and I use the debloat for Windows 11 and it runs beautifully now 💪 would deffo recommend 👌

[beef_sup]

This video got rid of my paranoia for reinstalling windows countless of times. over and over again. because i'd feel like if i did one wrong move everything would be broken like this isnt working as was intended before. or this and that this video really let rid of my paranoia.

[MeticulousTechTV]

I do a clean install every 2-3 years. I've built PCs personally and at scale professionally for close to 25 years, and worked in enterprise IT / IS for over a decade. Upgrading the OS when a major new version comes out is almost always a recipe for "micro problems", whether it's something not loading quite as fast as it should, strange behavior in file explorer or with updates, etc. There are literally thousands, 10s of thousands of dependencies within the Windows operating system, any of which that go wrong can cause an issue. By issue, I don't mean your operating system BSODs or won't boot, but it could be a tiny thing. Explorer acting weird, a program taking too long to load, something erroring on an install. The problems are on a wide spectrum and will continue to crop up the longer you run your PC and the more frequently you install loads of 3rd party programs or upgrade to major new versions.

Some will claim, "I've been upgrading my Windows installs for over 10 years, don't have any problems!" but the reality is they're so detached from how a fresh install of Windows feels and performs, that they're simply blind to the performance depreciation and "microproblems" that they live with on a daily basis. If someone runs a single version of Windows, never installs programs, and never upgrades, they could probably run that same install for a decade, but for the rest of us, especially power users, a reformat every couple of years is simply good practice. Not only that, but it gives you a solid real world opportunity to run through your backup procedures and to validate that your existing backup is indeed thorough and functional. With good backup hygiene, and once you've gone through the process a few times, it's a relatively painless process that (can) yield fantastic results.

Anyways, great vid! Good refresher, for sure

[m-hamzamalik]

I recently reinstalled Windows, as I am getting serious issues with my SSD write speeds, Now upgraded to Windows 11 (clean Install) and all things are good. Using StartAllBlack as I can't live without the old context menus 😅

[williamlinington]

Clean install is always the best. I install Windows on a yearly basis, whether I need to or not. A practice that goes all the way back to Windows 2. Geez, I am dating myself with that info.

A good sound video Brian.

Cheers.

[ihaveabutterybrain]

The way i go about it is, if i feel i need to reinstall i will. you're right about fresh iso when upgrading. I have all my main files located on a mechanical drive (F) the only files i need to back up are APPDATA i also have my mouse settings screenshot already and saved to my (F) and i have a special folder i call 'My PC' that has all my drives ready to be installed and updated. You could say i've configured my PC ready for any clean wipes

[Shiye]

Reinstalling sucks for music producers, because a lot of the plugins we use have files in the registry as well as AppData, Common Files and a bunch of other locations -.-

[thebritishindian]

This video was brilliant and solved all of my issues and then some.

I started having problems with Windows since December 2021 and it started to get much worse throughout 2022, File Explorer kept crashing and when it did so 7 times in one day last week, I started searching on YouTube for fixes.

Then I came across this video and decided to nuke my system completely and reinstall a fresh copy after a full wipe of my C: (i.e NOT using the “keep apps and settings” reinstall option, which didn’t solve any of my problems). My PC now runs absolutely perfectly and is blazingly fast. I must say that as 95% of my data is on OneDrive and other SaaS software, reinstalling was not as big of a pain as it used to be in the old days.

Thanks so much for the advice!

[fido]

I've never had to, even after many years on one version. Always kept it running smooth, including "upgrades".

[robinsoneveonline]

When my desktop icons get 3/4's across the screen is when I do a fresh Windows install

[GB-vntf]

I had a mate who worked for PC World back around 2000 and he told me then that if anyone came in with software issues they would just format the drive and reinstall whatever version of Windows, or whatever you were running, as a fresh install without backing up anything for you. Also, if there was a hardware problem they'd write off the hardware and replace it so they could keep the part for is where I got my first PC from along with graphics cards and sound cards and memory modules! The good ole days of building PCs for free or next to nothing! Sadly he got wrote off one too many Nvidea graphics cards! 😉

[samlazar]

Great video. I have to reinstall Windows 10 later this week.

[djdanny]

I totally agree with you Brian. Windows can work find For Months but problems can occur most of the time for me it’s BITS aka background intelligence transfer service updates can’t get through. If you can’t fix it you just do a clean install. Sometimes if I get malware in the past I would prefer to use Diskpart Clean All that get rid of the malicious software.

[cammy]

Thanks to your videos, I haven't had to since mid October.

[JosephNJ]

Ha, privacy was something that went obsolete way back in the 20th century.

[nick]

I reinstall Windows when a major update comes out.

[DoctorHades]

I back up my data regularly (music, pictures, etc, and the C boot drive) but I always do Windows upgrades and actually have done since building my i7-4770K PC in June 2013 and installing Windows 8.1 on it for the first time on the 128 GB Crucial SSD I had at the time (now a 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO which I used Acronis True Image to restore a backup onto).

I'm currently running Windows 10 Pro 21H2 on the same system and have had no issues at all doing this as I run a very clean system. Sure, if I look at the Windows log then there are things highlighed as errors (some of these are long-standing Windows bugs however) but in day to day use they do not affect the usability or performance of my PC which is used primarly for gaming. The only things I install on a regular basis are new games and updates to frequently used software since as browsers, email and so on. I'm not one to blindly go installing stuff and I'm always careful to ensure bloatware isn't installed.