Reinstall clean W 10 or migrate to W 11?

My quandary: do a fresh install of Win 10, which I know and trust, or jump to Win 11, which is a brave new world for me?
So I want to do a clean install of Windows. Yes, I will back up all drivers before doing with wipe and install.

Should I also zap the current recovery partition?

I keep all my real data on Drives D and E, so I can just zap the current C partition.

If I do go to Win 11, is it still useful to read the Win 10 forums?

x509 said:

My quandary: do a fresh install of Win 10, which I know and trust, or jump to Win 11, which is a brave new world for me?
So I want to do a clean install of Windows. Yes, I will back up all drivers before doing with wipe and install.

Should I also zap the current recovery partition?

I keep all my real data on Drives D and E, so I can just zap the current C partition.

If I do go to Win 11, is it still useful to read the Win 10 forums?

You can do "both".

Do a clean install of Win 10... Install all your programs and do your personalizations, and updates.
Then make a fresh backup.

Then... either update to Win 11 or do an In-Place Upgrade to Windows 11.
Make a fresh backup of Win 11.


Once you have backups of both... you can pretty much switch from one to the other at will.

You can also set up a dual boot (Win 10 and Win 11).

So I want to do a clean install of Windows. Yes, I will back up all drivers before doing with wipe and install.

Should I also zap the current recovery partition?

When doing a clean install, as per the tutorial, you delete ALL partitions which make up the O/S- that's typically 4 for a UEFI installation.

As to data- there may be data on C: you haven't considered. E.g.
- browser-related (favourites/bookmarks, passwords....)
- email-related- if you use a client program
- anything on your desktop

Although you store your personal data elsewhere, certain programs may store data on C:

If I do go to Win 11, is it still useful to read the Win 10 forums?

There's a lot of commonality; I don't know if all tutorials common to both have been ported to elevenforum.com - that's a massive task.

If on Win 11 and you experience a problem where a solution may exist in the history of tenforums, but not yet on elevenforum, it might be that searching tenforums may help in some cases.

x509 said:

If I do go to Win 11, is it still useful to read the Win 10 forums?

Yes it is. As @dalchina mentioned, a LOT of things are common between Win 10 and Win 11.
A LOT of the Win 10 tutorials work on Win 10/11.

@Brink has ported 1000's of tutorials already, with more each day.
Some maybe easier to find on TenForums. It seems to me that the tutorial search works better on TenForums,
but that could just be familiarity.

I've been running Win 10 since May 2020, and have been running Win 10 and Win 11 since July 2021.
I'm still running both, and they ARE very similar.

If you do decide to switch to Win 11, these will help get you started...

Quickie Eleven Forum Setup Guide for new Members | Windows 11 Forum

Windows 11 Tweaks - Leader Board. | Windows 11 Forum

Uninstall Apps in Windows 11 Tutorial | Windows 11 Forum

You call W11 a "brave new world" but in reality W11 is still basically W10 with a new GUI.

The initial learning curve transition time is about 1 hour whilst you work out the most important setting changes (same features just moved around a bit). Of course, it takes longer to work out where settings you rarely use are, but same is somewhat true if you need to find them on Windows 10 unless you have a good memory.

After you upgrade, you initial thoughts will be "was it worth it?" as a lot of naysayers love to say "no" but in the end, Windows 10 is now stagnant, and Windows 11 is being developed.

Of course there are a lot of luddites resistant to change - let them miss out on new features in pursuit of their ethos to sit around campfires to avoid using new fangled devices such as an electric oven LOL.

cereberus said:

You call W11 a "brave new world" but in reality W11 is still basically W10 with a new GUI.

The initial learning curve transition time is about 1 hour whilst you work out the most important setting changes (same features just moved around a bit). Of course, it takes longer to work out where settings you rarely use are, but same is somewhat true if you need to find them on Windows 10 unless you have a good memory.

After you upgrade, you initial thoughts will be "was it worth it?" as a lot of naysayers love to say "no" but in the end, Windows 10 is now stagnant, and Windows 11 is being developed.

Of course there are a lot of luddites resistant to change - let them miss out on new features in pursuit of their ethos to sit around campfires to avoid using new fangled devices such as an electric oven LOL.

@cereberus,

Thanks for answering my real question. What is the benefit of upgrading to W11? I don't mind being called a luddite, but aside from that label are there any solid reasons for staying with W10?

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Ghot said:

You can do "both".

Do a clean install of Win 10... Install all your programs and do your personalizations, and updates.
Then make a fresh backup.

Then... either update to Win 11 or do an In-Place Upgrade to Windows 11.
Make a fresh backup of Win 11.


Once you have backups of both... you can pretty much switch from one to the other at will.

You can also set up a dual boot (Win 10 and Win 11).

I'm just a simple guy. I'm not sure that I have the mental capacity to just switch back and forth between the 2 OSs since the GUI is different. My car is a stick-shift with the ignition key on the left side of the steering wheel. My wife's car has an automatic transmission with a push button start on the right side of the car, which works if you remembered to get the key fob out of the drawer.

I am forever trying to start each car on the wrong side of the steering wheel. Sometimes when I am driving my wife's car, I will put the transmission lever into N, even though that's totally unnecessary.

x509 said:

I'm just a simple guy. I'm not sure that I have the mental capacity to just switch back and forth between the 2 OSs since the GUI is different. My car is a stick-shift with the ignition key on the left side of the steering wheel. My wife's car has an automatic transmission with a push button start on the right side of the car, which works if you remembered to get the key fob out of the drawer.

I am forever trying to start each car on the wrong side of the steering wheel. Sometimes when I am driving my wife's car, I will put the transmission lever into N, even though that's totally unnecessary.

That's why I posted those links. I really don't see the need for change... JUST to change.
If there was a good reason, then sure.

Anyway the Tweaks Leader Board topic will help a lot, IF you switch to Win 11.
They're just Win 11 tutorials that a lot of people ask for... all collected in one place.

Because... honestly, they did make quite a few stoooopid changes in Win 11.
But, as you've surmised... Win 11 is pretty much just Win 10 wearing a tacky leisure suit.

x509 said:

Thanks for answering my real question. What is the benefit of upgrading to W11? I don't mind being called a luddite, but aside from that label are there any solid reasons for staying with W10?...

I switched my main machine from W10 to W11 when W11 was first released. Being an unsupported device that meant I first had to migrate the OS and its installed apps from my System One below to a new machine so it would be eligible for the upgrade. I've had zero issues switching to W11, all my apps (some of them very old) work the same in W11.

I'm just a simple guy. I'm not sure that I have the mental capacity to just switch back and forth between the 2 OSs since the GUI is different......

Not that different, the most prominent change is the Start menu. But as my most common use for that is to click Start and type the name of what I want to run it's not an issue, that part works the same in 11 as in 10. I find the W11 Settings app is more logically laid out, making it as lot easier to find those seldom used settings.

I suppose it helps that I'm comfortable switching between OS's, I still have one W7 machine in regular use, and a few W10 machines that are unsupported devices and staying on W10.