I just ordered a new laptop and will be home in a few days. Windows 10 Home included, but i am not sure which version of windows 10, its either 1803 or 1809. Should i update it to 1903 before doing anything else, like installing games, apps and etc ?
Consider how much trialware is installed.
Do you want to..
a. uninstall that?
b. simply perform a clean install?
As early as you can, start a disk imaging routine before making major changes. E.g. Macrium Reflect (free).
Plan your data storage strategy. Try to keep personal data off C: so OS maintenance impacts this as little as possible.
If it has a manufacturer's recovery partition, what do you want to do with that? If that's for an old Windows build, it will become redundant.
Its just a matter of personal choice. You'll read on here about people reporting issues with 1903. You'll also see others saying 1903 is fine. Ive clean installed 1903 and Ive also updated to 1903 from 1809 when its been automatically pushed through Windows Updates. Ive found 1903 to be stable with no significant issues at all.
When I get a new PC, which I did in January. I have no use for the bloatware that comes preinstalled (Its a Dell PC), so the recovery partition is of no use to me at all. I go straight to the Microsoft site and download the latest ISO (1903). I do a clean install with it (removing all partitions).
So, that's your first decision. Do you want to keep any free antivirus, dropdox etc? I'd use the PC for a couple of days and then decide. I had 12 months of McAfee Livesafe. What I did was register it. Then I used it just to protect my phone. Im more than happy using Windows Defender. IMHO that's more than adequate on a Home PC
"I will definitely remove all trialware and free antivirus and change it to WD only, i will not removing the driver or any utilities from asus to support my laptop. Is it fine to update to 1903 by just updating from windows update ?"
MUCH faster if you create a 1903 ISO and run a Repair Install vs WU. - Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade | Tutorials
If this is the first thing you do, other than to establish your account, you can elect to delete all apps and files to increase chance of success. Any ASUS programs can be reloaded from their site or the recovery partition. Good Luck with your new toy !
The advantages of using an iso are that
- if you need to reattempt, you don't need to download it again
- you can use it for subsequent in-place upgrade repair of 1903 if necessary
- you can update other PCs with it
- you can create a bootable disk which has some repair options
To be honest. I really want to clean install to 1903 but i am afraid I will lost the original windows 10 home.
Create a Windows disk image using MAcrium Reflect (free) to external storage.
If you want, you can restore your PC using that.
You also may have a manufacturer's recovery partition on the PC- you need to decide what to do with that.
As for activation- that, as a regular member, you hopefully know is tied to your hardware- so that should be automatic on a clean install. You can choose to create user with a MS live id first on the machine as delivered to make that easy.
Quote