Ah Windows. What a marvelous operating system! It’s now almost 40 years old, and in all that time, it’s only kept improving, growing and allowing us all to do things we could only previously dream of. But one of it’s biggest flaws is that in order to keep it operating at peak performance, it truly needs to be wiped or reset regularly…
Now I know, many of you out there just gave me the mental finger! Hear me out!
How many of you have a car? A lot of you i’d image… And that car, I know you regularly put fuel in it (because you like going places and being able to go back home again), and most of you get your oil changed regularly (because you like it when a piston rod doesn’t come flying out the side of your engine), and even a smaller number of you actually wash and vacuum it out…
What the hell does this have to do with Windows I hear you cry? Well, believe it or not, Windows needs proper “care and feeding” or maintenance. Most of us treat our computers like we treat our washing machines… They’re just there to be used and we don’t even think twice about them until something stops working or slows down in such a way that makes a trip to your local DMV or tax auditor a fun and enjoyable time!
Now, I’m not going to go into Backups, security software, updates and patches, etc in this post, just understand that you need to take care of those things as well if you truly want to protect yourself. No, here I’m just going to go into picking a time, schedule a date, or a weekend, or what have you, to take the time to make sure you reload your machine.
It’s not a hard thing to do. If you ask me, the hardest thing usually is finding all of the software you had installed to put it back on the machine after you wipe it. Let’s make a list of what you need to do:
- Backup your data
- Make sure you know what version of Windows you’re currently running (Windows 10 or 11, Home, Professional). You can find out what version of Windows you’re running by clicking start and typing ‘system information’ and hitting enter. This should run the ‘system information program and tell you in the right hand window what version you’re running next to ‘OS Name’. MAKE A NOTE OF THIS, YOU’RE GOING TO NEED IT LATER!
- Create a bootable Windows thumb drive
- Boot your thumbdrive, wipe the machine and perform a brand new install
- Patch/update the new installation
- Install security software
- Create additional user accounts and install any software you want on the machine
Let’s go a little bit more into detail shall we?
- Make sure you have a COMPLETE backup of everything you want to keep on your machine FIRST! It’s not going to do you any good if you wipe your machine only to wipe everything you wanted to keep in the process! Back your stuff up, confirm that it’s backed up and confirm it again (yes, do it at least twice, better safe than sorry).
- Get a USB Thumb drive or Stick that’s at least 16 GB (gigabytes) in size or larger. You can get that from Amazon, your local office store, a grocery store, heck, they’re available almost anywhere you go!
- Did you check to make sure your stuff is backed up? Just checking…
- Either on your machine or another Windows machine, you can Google “download windows media creation tool for windows xx” where xx is the version of Windows you have installed. Download the tool to your machine some where you’re going to remember.
- Insert your new USB stick or thumb drive in the machine
- Run the tool
- Accept the notices and terms
- Select your language and edition (the defaults should be find, or make sure to select the correct versions)
- Make sure ‘USB flash drive’ is selected and click on ‘Next’
- Select the drive from the list of ‘Removable drives’ and click on ‘Next’. You may have to format the device first before it shows up in the list.
- The program will now wipe the thumb drive and make it a bootable windows installer of your choice. Be patient, it can take a few minutes to complete.
- Last chance! Are you SURE You’ve backed up all your data?
- Boot your new thumb drive. You may have to make a change in the computers BIOS (that menu that comes up when you first turn your computer on) or press a key like F12, delete or something else depending on your model so that you can select which device you want to boot the machine from. In this case, you want to boot your machine from the thumb drive you created and inserted.
- Verify the language, time format, keyboard are correct and then click ‘Next’
- Click on ‘Install now’
- If you have a license key and are prompted, enter the key and click on ‘Next’. If you don’t have a key and are re-installing the same version (for example, the existing installation is Windows 11 and you’re re-installing Windows 11), simply click “I don’t have a product key”
- If prompted for the version of Windows to install, make sure you install the same version as you had previously. For example if you were running Windows 11 Home, make sure to select the Home edition! Selecting the incorrect edition may make it so you can’t activate your existing license.
- Click on ‘Next’
- Check the box to accept the Microsoft Software License Terms and click ‘Next’
- Now, here you should be an at important part! The system should ask you “Which type of installation do you want?”. There should be TWO options. One is “Upgrade: Install Windows and keep files, settings, and applications” and the other should be “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)”
You want to make sure you select “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)”. This is the ONLY way to perform a completely clean install! - When presented with the next screen “Where do you want to install Windows?”, you’re going to want to deleted any drive/or partition that currently exists on the machine. Remember how I said previously to make sure you backed up your data to a different machine or device? Make sure that devices is NOT connected to your machine before doing the next step! This is the point of NO RETURN! Once you do the next step, any data that was on the machine will be permanently deleted! You have been warned!
- Select every single item in the list and click on ‘Delete’
- When you’ve removed all the existing drives and partitions, you should be left with “Unallocated Space”. Simply click on ‘Next’
- Now the actual installation starts. Windows will create the required partitions it needs, copy the files it requires, and perform the rest of the installation. When done, it should automatically reboot. Make sure you remove the install thumb drive so it doesn’t start the install all over again.
That’s it! You should now have a freshly installed Windows System! Congratulations! I’ll bet you didn’t think you could do it!
Next steps?
- Make sure to download and install any and all Windows Updates and patches
- Install your Security Software of choice (Firewall, VPN, Malware protection, etc.)
- Since this is a completely clean install from Microsoft, you shouldn’t have any ‘bloatware’ on the machine (unwanted software trying to sell you something). So you shouldn’t have any of this to have to remove.
- Once your machine is patched up to date, secured with your security software, you can start installing your programs and apps, making sure to update those as you go along as well!
- Lastly, restore your data back to your newly cleaned machine! You may be surprised at how well it performs now!
If you do this once a year, it’ll help keep your machine clean and fresh and performing as you expect it!