Clean Install Needed. . .Ugh

My trusty XPS13, (9360), has been giving me problems for the past month. Started with me being unable to turn on the firewall. Then MS Office starting telling me various Word files couldn't be opened. Several apps in the MS Store no longer work and cannot be reinstalled. Today I lost my wifi and the laptop only works if wired into the router. Rather than fight, I figure it's time to wipe the SSD and do a clean install.
In the past I was pretty good doing a clean install with an HDD. Are there any differences? Important matters I should be aware of before forging ahead? Step by step link online? Thank you.

 

Just installing the latest Windows 10 should be enough. Windows update should install all your drivers afterwards.
This way you won’t have all the Dell software...

Use media creation tool from Microsoft to create a bootable USB flash drive.

I always add a text file “ei.cfg” to “<usb_flashdrive>\sources\ei.cfg”
Content:

Code:

[channel]
Retail

This way you can select your Windows version at setup. (make sure you have the right license)

I also make a HDD backup (Macrium reflect rescue USB) so if I screw it up I can still put everything back.

Problems I ran in before:
- WiFi Adapter wouldn’t install so Windows’s could install the drivers : put driver from dell on your usb flash drive
- Windows doesn’t install latest graphics drivers: use DDU to uninstall graphics drivers and install them manually from Intel/Nvidia
- If you want a local user account, you have to skip the WiFi setup at the Windows post-setup screen or remove your WiFi adapter temporary.

Hope this info is helpful.

Good luck!

 

Very helpful; thank you. What about required changes in the BIOS? I seem to recall something about UEFI.

 

It’s best to chance your SSD mode from RAID to AHCI and turn off “secure boot”. (before installing Windows)

 

There are lots of clean install posts here so do a search m8