Windows10 reinstall or restore or...?

Hey guys. New to the forums. I have a dell inspiron 7000 series with windows 10 home. Any dell I've ever owned has always had a bad install of windows. I used to tech on windows 7 down to windows 95, but have very little experience with 10 since I left the field. I used to fdisk, delete partition, format and then let windows partition the drive from there. Windows 10 is WAY different. If I download the factory image from dell onto a USB, how would I go about wiping the disk and doing a fresh install of 10. I'm guessing the image would include drivers, etc. Also, is virus protection even needed anymore? I've got a lifetime subscription to trend micro antivirus+, but I don't know how well windows 10 has evolved. Any help would be much appreciated! I've already got a backup of my computer currently on a separate external, so i'm not worried about anything with my data. Beyond the normal OS headache I have, I downloaded a HDD update via dell for Seagate, which didn't install at all and made my computer continually boot to "Seagate firmware upgrade tool" instead of the OS. I fixed that, but even in bios that's what it had as a boot. What a headache... any help is much appreciated! Thank you.

This is what I do with a new computer:

On an external drive, make a folder - I like to call mine DriversXX where XX is the version of Windows currently installed (81, 10, 7). Also on this external drive I like to store an image of the original HDD/SDD created by Macrium Reflect Free.

From an elevated command prompt run:
DISM.exe /Online /Export-Driver /Destination:E:\DriversXX

Obviously put the path to the created folder for what is in red. That exports all the third party drivers on the computer. Then I boot from a vanilla Windows 10 install USB/DVD created with either the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool or an ISO downloaded from Tech Bench (preferred), select the custom install option, delete all the existing partitions on the HDD/SSD, install to the unallocated space.

After install, open Device Manager and any hardware without drivers or with driver problems, I update driver software, browse my computer, and just point it to the DriversXX folder I created on the external drive and let it install the driver that was there previously.

Easy as pie and I don't have to figure out what the "unknown device" is under device manager and where to get the driver from. The only problem I have had doing it what way was with a Nextbook Tablet that needed a registry entry from the factory Windows 8.1 to set the orientation for the screen rotation sensor. Had to restore back to the 8.1 image I had made to export the registry entry.

So windows 10 does give you the option to delete a partition and install from USB? Dell has an image already made for my specific computer, so if it allows me to wipe the drive clean and reinstall, that would make me happy. I'm not as crazy into cleaning out the registry, editing startup, etc. As I once was. I just want fast and simple, I mainly use our for browsing and picture editing. The OCD in me wants the install perfect though, a solid base to work from.

SuzukiGS750EZ said:

So windows 10 does give you the option to delete a partition and install from USB?

If you boot from the Windows 10 install USB, yes.
USB Flash Drive - Create to Install Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

hmm, I made an image from the dell website and mounted it to USB, but when I boot to it it brings me to the windows 10 recovery console or whatever it is. How do I get to where I can delete paritions and such?

SuzukiGS750EZ said:

hmm, I made an image from the dell website and mounted it to USB, but when I boot to it it brings me to the windows 10 recovery console or whatever it is. How do I get to where I can delete paritions and such?

Reset Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

What you will end up with, though, is probably the factory software load with all of Dell included apps and extra software. When you select the option to reset your PC, there should be an option to erase the HDD and load from scratch.

If you want a clean install of Windows 10 only, then you need to create the Windows 10 install USB from Microosft - not Dell - as stated in Post #4

thank you, i'll give this a shot. "simple" is confusing. I much rather liked doing it through command prompt, etc.