Upgrading vs Clean Install?

Is there really a significant difference between these two or just a minor one?

 

Upgrade takes a longer time to finish than clean install.

 

from personal perference, I always do a fresh install over an upgrade. This way I have a new OS on a clean slate & there is no possibility of bring any issues from the old OS to the new..

 

You could save data while upgrading from vista to win7 (in same version). Fresh install just deletes everything. I personally do a fresh install when needed over an upgrade.

 

OK, so we have a few people that do a fresh install. But that seems to be mostly out of habit, rather than any good reason. I plan to clone my boot disk and try upgrading my Vista to Win7. If it don't go too well then I'll have to do the fresh install.

But, in case I'm wasting my time - can anybody who has done an upgrade installation (preferably from Vista-64) tell us how it went?

 

if you want. get dropbox, place all your important files into that. wait for it to finish uploading. then do a clean install. install dropbox and everything will download down.

 

It probably depends on age and complexity of the existing installation. The older the previous install and the more stuff there is already on it, the greater the probable benefit for the "clean" install. Unfortunately, the individual with a complex existing install is also the guy more likely to pursue the upgrade path since recreating a highly configured environment is a lot of trouble.

Personally, I'd never (ever) upgrade an existing OS in place. I'd opt for the clean installation every time. It's an opportunity (and an excuse) to start fresh. Take it.

 

whenever i get my upgrade disk in the mail i'm gonna just do the upgrade, mainly because i JUST bought this computer not even a week ago, so it's still pretty fresh. i dont have NEARLY enough files to say it won't be a "clean slate"...it'll still be pretty baren in there lol.

the only large program i have installed at the moment is Office home/student '07, not sure if i should uninstall it to help the upgrade go faster or just leave it and let it transfer. i'm not really worried if it takes a bit of time, i'll just let it sit and update one day while i'm working on the car or something anyway...

my only worry about the upgrade is that, for some reason, it wont perform as well when it transfers my files as if it i clean installed and THEN moved my files over myself.

Anyone know about that? am i paranoid, and it'll run fine either way?

 

It's safer to do a clean install because it erases any viruses/malware/spyware/traces of these things from your computer. It takes like half an hour to do a clean install once you've backed up everything again. If you are worried about drivers, don't. Windows generic drivers will work flawlessly with most of the general stuff.

The only downside is that there is a small risk of messing up when you do a clean install, like forgetting to back up a file, or not being able to install something after you do a clean install. There's also a slight possibility of a hardware not working, but now that win7 is out, companies should be upgrading their drivers.

I did a fresh install, not out of habit, but because it was good for my computer.

For me, the upgrade option is just really messy. I think I read somewhere too that it actually is messy.

 

I read somewhere that they clocked a computer that had a Windows 7 upgrade versus a Windows 7 clean install.

The clean install clocked slightly faster.

That is reason enough for me to take the time to do a clean install.

 

I did a straight upgrade from Vista to 7 last nite and it was absolutely the easiest upgrade I've ever done of a Windows operating system. No problems whatsoever and the speed on the upgraded OS is unaffected. I suspect this is because Vista and 7 are the same thing. Whatever the case may be, a HUGE difference from Vista's release which was just a catastrophe for me personally.

I will be doing a fresh install at a later time to go from 32 to 64 bits but for now, this is fine (time is an issue).

It almost feels unnatural having a MS upgrade go this smoothly.

 

It would be faster if a clean install had been done.

http://blog.tune-up.com/windows-os/windows-7-performance-check-upgrade-install-vs-clean-install/

 

Don't doubt it. Just saying the results from a straight upgrade (for me the easiest, cheapest, least time consuming path) were very good and, given MS history with such things, stunning.

I plan on a fresh install when I upgrade my HD to an SSD (waiting for the price to come down on that).

 

Who am I kidding, doing a fresh install to Win7 64 now....

 

Verified. By a lot.

 

I currently have vista ultimate 64 as my OS, will purchase W7 HP very soon as MS has a deal for students with a valid e-mail address and the thing i like to ask is whether the option to upgrade to w7 hp from Vista Ultimate? like Ultimate upgrades to w7 ultimate or its just any edition of Vista to any edition of w7?

In any case, i don't mind to clean install as it will be fun to hunt drivers, but as i got uni work to bare in mind, i don't want to forget to backup any of my work.

 

Think of it like cleaning house: If you've recently moved in, then you don't need to do a major spring cleaning. On the other hand, if you've been playing pack rat for years, it will do you good to pull everything out into the driveway and really clean install and organize every nook and cranny.

Once you've done that, you can now operate a lot more efficiently!

 

I just got mine this past August...is that recent enough so that there's no real point in me doing a clean install?

 

At last! Somebody answering the question from experience. Thank you.

To everybody else - yes I know all the reasons why a clean install is preferable. But they don't apply to me. This is a pretty new machine and I've not put a pile of crap on it. If I can do the upgrade without having to re-install all my applications (with the PITA of having to find all the serial numbers) then that will save me a day's work.

 

If you go to the ' Ultimate Steal' web page where the MS student's offer is you can use the FAQs to check which upgrades are possible.

 

Exactly the way I looked at it as well and the results were acceptable.

I have to say though with a fresh install it feels like a new machine. And I looked at it as a bonus to clear my box out of a heap of crap I never used anyway.

It was even a simple process to back-up and then re-load my stuff into iTunes which absolutely killed me switching from XP to Vista. Like I said before, I was pretty amazed at the un-Microsoft simplicity of it all - both upgrade and clean install.

When it is all said and done, it is still a MS OS but it is pretty damn good from what I am seeing. I do think the price was a bit much but waddya gonna do?

 

I prefer to start with a clean slate. Sure it takes a little longer to transfer old files and install software, but how great the feeling of having a "new" computer.

 

I did an upgrade install over the weekend but it may as well have been a clean install. I upgraded my HD to a 500gig one and used the Asus recovery disk to reinstall Vista. Once it was done and all 100+ windows updates and SP1 were installed, I upgraded to Win 7. I only did it this way so that I could have all the G1S drivers and programs work properly with Win 7 versus spending days playing with different Win 7 drivers to get them working properly. I plan to do a clean Win 7 install on a new 320gig drive for my EEE 1000H over Thanksgiving weekend.

 

I received the Win 7 upgrade discs for my P-7805u FX yesterday from Gateway and did the upgrade install. I bought the computer this past summer and found I hated Vista so much that I just let my 9-year old surf the internet with it until now. So, it had a fairly clean Vista installation.

I had every intention to do a clean install, but after reading this thread decided to give the upgrade install a go. It took approx. 2:20 from start to finish, and all the apps are still there which saves me the hassle of reloading the programs. To me the finished upgrade installation is not noticeably different from a cleaned up "factory" installation. I can't say how these compare to a clean install, but it doesn't bother me enough to wipe the HDDs and start clean.

A quick and dirty comparison:

Factory Win 7 Home Premium x64 installation (with most bloatware removed) with Firefox 3.5.5 running has 45 processes using 35% of physical memory (eMachines E627 upgraded to Turion 64X2 1.9GHz, 3GB RAM).

Upgrade Win 7 Home Premium x64 installation (similar bloatware to factory Win 7 install was previously removed from this computer's factory Vista HP x64) with Firefox 3.5.5 running has 44 processes using 28% of physical memory (Gateway P-7805u FX, 4GB RAM).

EDIT: On further thought, this comparison is pretty useless. I'll try to refrain from making any more inane postings when its way past my bedtime!

 

Hi.

I'me new to the forum, but need to know how the free upgrade to 7 is going to work. I have an acer 7720 with vista home premium 32 bit and have ordered the free upgrade.

Can I use this upgrade to do a clean install of win 7 hom premium 64 bit?

Thanks

 

Junpit, on the upgrade discs I received from Gateway (which is owned by Acer), the OS disc specifically states that it has only the 64 bit version (my upgrade was from 64 bit Vista) so I would guess you'll only receive the 32 bit version on your disc.

I'm not 100% sure since I haven't tried it myself, but I believe you can download the 64 bit version (there's a thread on this forum with the download instructions) and use the key from your upgrade package to activate it.

 

Thanks. I'll give that a try.

 

fresh install of win -7 saves EVERYTHING in C: WIN.0LD on the new install , everything you had is there . Install took 35 minutes