In Defense of a Clean Install
These days, a new operating system can be downloaded from the Internet and installed in a couple of reboots, or “bought” for free from the App Store. It might seem like a clean install isn’t worth the time and effort. There is nothing further from the truth. Updates can be handy, but sometimes it’s better to give yourself a blank slate and not just feel fresh out of the box.
You probably know that a clean install gives you a fresh start with a clean slate. It may sound nice, but when you think about the time and energy it will take to get it back the way you like it, it can be very tempting to update on the spot. What’s even more tempting is that every modern operating system like Windows 10 or OS X Yosemite (and soon El Capitan) makes it so easy: just download the installer, run it, dine, and when you return, you have the latest. and the best, without any additional steps.
You may not be aware that a clean install has many other benefits, so it’s worth considering. Aside from just giving yourself a new OS to play with, here are a few more things you’ll get if you take the time to start from scratch.
You will get rid of quirks, mistakes and all those problems that you could never face
I actually hate clean installs, but I love clean systems. On one of my laptops (a Macbook Pro), I’ve never played a clean installation when – ever. When it was new, I migrated straight from the replaced computer. When new versions of OS X came out, I updated in place. Everything went smoothly enough, I was never worried. However, as you use your computer – especially over the course of several years – you will run into some quirks. Maybe nothing serious, but some of the errors and nagging that you know your computer makes, you simply cannot find and fix. Maybe when you are doing something specific, it’s slowness, so you’ll learn not to. Maybe some application crashes all the time, so you will find an alternative. You spend some time researching these quirks and find that either no one has the same problems, or there are many people , and they all have dozens of different solutions, none of which seem to work for you.
You can probably tell where this is heading. A clean install will almost completely save you from these errors. If there is something special about the program, you probably cannot get around it. But if there’s anything odd about the way your computer behaves or how the program you’re using interacts with the OS, you probably already know deep down that a clean install will fix it. I’ve known this for years and still haven’t done it. I just assumed that the hassle and effort of a clean install on this system and relaunching everything was not worth it. In fact, the actual productive time I wasted trying to fix the myriad problems waking up from sleep on this Macbook Pro, USB quirks and multiple display issues was much more than the day it took to clean up the drive, reinstall Yosemite, and reinstall apps that i have actually used.
A good clean setup also gives you peace of mind. Have you ever used a Windows machine and worried that you might have installed something that is not so obvious at some point, or that your security might have been compromised at one point or another? Security software or not, there is a reason why technologists completely remove systems and reinstall them if they believe they are compromised. They don’t waste time diagnosing or running many anti-malware tools. It’s just faster and safer to start over and restore data from known reliable backups. If you’ve ever been as worried about your desktop, well, take it out of orbit. This is the only way to be sure.
You get an increase in productivity without having to clean everything by hand
Look, we mentioned earlier that you do n’t actually need to reinstall Windows regularly to keep your system running in top shape, and that’s absolutely true. However, there is only so much you can do by starting CCleaner , uninstalling unneeded programs, and cleaning up applications that start automatically at startup. These things are great to do on a regular basis, but over time, the junk that comes from regularly using your computer, cleaning it, and using it builds up to the point where it becomes difficult to decide what to keep and what to remove. The key here is “regularly”. When a new OS starts up, you should consider a clean install.
The great thing about a clean install is that you don’t have to sit at your computer for hours and research every service, every poorly named process, or every unfamiliar application in Task Manager. You don’t have to disable services and restart your computer to see if they are really needed for something you are using, or for some remnants of an older version of something else. Just relieve stress and get rid of it along with this ancient, cluttered clutter of the operating system. You can start from scratch, slowly creating a backup based on what you actually use, rather than what you installed once and used for a while.
Of course, all this gives a performance increase, and quite significant. Windows 8 and Windows 10 generally boot faster than their predecessors and run faster even on mid-range systems, but they really can only do so without the baggage of previous versions, old and outdated apps and drivers, and a shorter list of startup items. … Once you remove them all and replace them with only the things you really need, you will see a huge improvement. Likewise, if you’ve upgraded to Windows 8 or Windows 10 and thought “it’s not as fast as I read,” the problem isn’t that everyone lied to you: it’s probably your system. Clean it up.
You will remove malware, old junk files and recover a ton of disk space
If your OEM computer that you bought off-the-shelf, it is likely full of malware and malware. Heck, if this is a Windows 10 update from Windows 7 or 8, it probably comes with a lot of apps that you might not need. We talked about how to get rid of them before, after the fact, but you will notice that the third option in this snippet is the one we’re talking about here: go to a nuclear program and just reinstall the operating system. In Windows, removing all this junk will save you precious system resources and disk space. While Macs don’t usually come with a lot of malware (although Apple includes enough of its own, you might not want us to call it bloatware, of course), cleaning it up reclaims much needed disk space – and more disk space can mean performance. improvement, especially in OS X, which is known to love getting rid of old operating systems after in-place updates , even if they are no longer needed.
As an example, when I was testing the public beta of El Capitan, I ran into kernel panic when trying to install the most recent updates. I couldn’t figure out why, but if I downgraded it was okay. After researching, I found out that Apple’s shiny new OS doesn’t care about some of the ancient extension files from the old version of VirtualBox, files that should have been automatically cleaned up years ago. Of course, they never did this and caused problems years later.
By taking all that crap off your computer (or better yet, not letting it turn on at all), your system will run in great shape and ensure that every time you look at the Task Manager or Activity Monitor to see what it is eating all your memory, you will at least know that this is what you installed, and not some crap that someone is trying to shove down your throat .
This is the closest feeling of a “new computer” feeling without creating a new installation
Those of you who build your own computers, or simply love to do a clean install when you get a brand new one so you can really start from scratch, understand this “new computer” feeling. The feeling of endless possibilities, when everything works quickly and quickly, your system is simple and optimal, works efficiently and is ready for what you demand from it. Well, that might be taken for granted, but doing a clean install is the best thing you will feel without building or buying a new computer. And this is also a wonderful feeling.
Of course, you’ll have to install all your programs, transfer your data, and set up all your backups again the way you like. You may even need to restore files from backups. It’s worth it. Seriously, and it doesn’t even have to be as hard as you might think . When I was in the IT department, I could do tons of clean installs on new computers every day if I had enough space and time to do so. This included installing the operating system, installing all the user’s required applications and even migrating their settings, setting up accounts and email, even getting their desktop to look the way it looked when they gave me their old replacement computer. I bet you can do the same in the daytime or earlier. The benefits you get in your time outweigh the convenience of multiple, on-site updates.
Meanwhile, the existing updates are useful and convenient, and they are clearly the direction that Apple and Microsoft want us to move in. Downloaded operating systems are easy to buy, easy to install, and easy to fix. However, before you decide to replace this laptop with Windows 10, which seems a lot slower than when you bought it with Windows Vista installed, consider doing a clean install of Windows 10 first. You will be surprised how even this old hardware and the new OS may appear new.