First Windows 10 clean install in years...

[chapplejc]

Hello all.

I’ll be receiving my new system from OcUK at the weekend D). Much excitement.

That said, I’ll be doing the full setup myself, ofc. Now, I have 20 years experience fiddling with Windows machines - but the last 5/6 years, I’ve been almost exclusively on Mac.

So, I just wanted to get a general idea / gist of best practice when it comes to a W10 install. I’ve not really had to worry about updates, drivers, AV, etc, for years.

My main concern is actually just how easy it is to set systems up these days. I recall my last Windows system (Windows 7) was a pain because the moment you hooked it up to the internet, it downloaded loads of crappy stock drivers meaning having to nuke off bits of display driver before putting the proper drivers on.

So, any guidance on the following would be great:

1. Anything I should know / look out for during the W10 install?
2. Should I hook it up to the internet during the install?
3. How do I avoid the driver conflicts as I mentioned above? The main one I’m concerned about is the display driver.
4. Should I download key drivers in advance?
5. Are there drivers I should bother with beyond the display driver? Chipset, SSD stuff, audio, etc? Or should I just leave them to Windows?
6. At what point should I allow Windows Update to get cracking?
7. What’s the wisdom on AV these days? I’d ideally just like to use MS tools. Is Defender adequate these days?

And so on and so on and so on. Key system specs just FYI are:

Ryzen 5 2600X
Geforce GTX 1070
Gigabyte B450 I Aorus Pro Wi-Fi
Samsung 970 Evo Polaris 500GB M.2

Are there any recommended monitoring / diagnostic tools to keep an eye on temps and performance to start with to make sure everything is working fine? What about fan control?

Thanks all .

 

[m4cc45]

1. No not really - it's the easiest install of any Windows OS
2. Yes. It will download drivers, which it is now pretty good at, but it will also download security updates. It's up to you whether you want a Windows Account (where the settings are stored in the cloud) or a local account whereby it's local only.
3. Windows will download the latest GeForce drivers and install them. It's up to you if you want to install GeForce Experience or such like.
5. Most will be installed by Windows. Just check and see how you get on.
6. As soon as possible. Just purely from a security point of view it's a good idea to get everything up to date.
7. The inbuilt Windows Defender I find pretty good. But there's a whole thread devoted to this.


M.