Fresh Windows 10 install??

DampDog · 3 Feb 2019 at 14:19

I foolishly offered to take a look at relatives PC (8ish years old) that he complained was running very slowly and some programs no longer work.

I had a quick look and it's all over the shop, old programs that look like they been half deleted, shortcuts to nothing, drivers missing, lost or forgotten passwords. I think it would probably benefit from a clean install and everything being bought up to date.

Now, I'm no guru either, so what would be the easiest way to go? Is there a restore to default built into windows 10 anyway?

Thing is it's a off the shelf machine that was originally shipped with windows 7, and had the free windows 10 update applied. It also has a recovery partition that has the rescue/restore of the original Windows 7 install.

Cheers.

andy_mk3 · 3 Feb 2019 at 14:23

There's an option called 'Reset This PC', just search for it and it will come up. It will be the same as a fresh install.

DampDog · 3 Feb 2019 at 14:27

andy_mk3 said:
There's an option called 'Reset This PC', just search for it and it will come up. It will be the same as a fresh install.

Cheers, that was quick. I feel a bit of a prat now for not having a little look at the options before asking the question...

I assume it just rolls the install back to a clean windows 10 install? Not all the way back to the original windows 7, then re-applying the update?

~>Dg<~ · 4 Feb 2019 at 16:14

if it was updated to win 10 then you can do a fresh install and just hit i dont have a key option. the machine if upgraded to win 10 before will rememeber the license key.

DampDog · 4 Feb 2019 at 16:26

~>Dg<~ said:
if it was updated to win 10 then you can do a fresh install and just hit i dont have a key option. the machine if upgraded to win 10 before will rememeber the license key.

I don't quite follow what you're saying there.

To the best of my knowledge the PC was an off the shelf (Medion I think) that came with windows 7 pre-installed. No install media, just a recovery partition. Somewhere along the line I suspect he's simply gone with the free upgrade to Windows 10.

All the PC's I've built down the years have always been from scratch so clean-install. I assume if I simply choose a "Fresh-start" it will all be smart enough just to reset to clean windows 10, and leave the old recovery partition untouched.

~>Dg<~ · 4 Feb 2019 at 16:44

if its been upgraded to win 10 . he can do or you can do a fresh install on the pc and it will remember the pc has been upgraded. with no need to add a key on installation.

i was telling you this incase you decided to just do a clean install. which you could just download win 10 from microsoft and create media on a usb key. all you need is a 8gb usb key. its really simple.then on install select you dont have a key and if upgraded legit it will activate with no key needed.

DampDog · 4 Feb 2019 at 17:28

Thanks, it's all good stuff to know.

I generally build my own, but it's pretty infrequent. I think my current PC is 7-8 years old, maybe more. As I get closer I tend to start reading up, but in-between builds forget about it all for the most part.

In this case I'm just helping out an uncle.

Maundie · 4 Feb 2019 at 19:28

~>Dg<~ said:
if its been upgraded to win 10 . he can do or you can do a fresh install on the pc and it will remember the pc has been upgraded. with no need to add a key on installation.

i was telling you this incase you decided to just do a clean install. which you could just download win 10 from microsoft and create media on a usb key. all you need is a 8gb usb key. its really simple.then on install select you dont have a key and if upgraded legit it will activate with no key needed.

This really is the easiest thing to do, complete clean install and it activates from the motherboard, I've done it with a few PCs for relatives (as well as my own desktop and 2 laptops).