{"id":149753,"date":"2020-02-19T00:14:37","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T00:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=149753"},"modified":"2025-07-01T21:24:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:24:03","slug":"how-to-clean-install-windows-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/how-to-clean-install-windows-10\/","title":{"rendered":"How to clean install Windows 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Often, the best way to save your Windows PC is to start again. Whether you\u2019re upgrading from an older version or you want to reinstall Windows 10 doesn\u2019t matter. That reality remains the same. A clean install cures all.<\/p>\n

A Windows PC on its own is just the beginning. The true power of the PC comes in all the programs, features, tools, and games that we can install and run on it. This makes a Windows PC something of an infinitely expandable digital Swiss army knife. It can do whatever we need it to as long as we install the right program. This incredible truth, however, brings with it a couple of inherent vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

The first of these is that it can be hard to manage infinity. With so many options to download and install, often we make mistakes and install something bad or corrupted, or we just overload our system. The other vulnerability is related to general online security. There are many people out there looking to exploit our ever-increasing reliance on personal electronic devices that connect us to the internet. There are many ways they can do this, and these hackers and cyber-criminals are an imaginative bunch.<\/p>\n

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For both vulnerabilities, the reality ends up the same. We end up with a lot of crap on our PCs that slows everything, including our operating system, down to a crawl and in some extreme cases see our most personal, private data siphoned off and sent to some unknown nefarious character. It\u2019s frustrating but we\u2019ve all been there, don\u2019t worry. The best thing to do is reinstall Windows from scratch and start again. In a flash, this will wipe out all the crud and likely get your PC buzzing again. Let\u2019s look then, at how to do a Windows 10 clean install.<\/p>\n

Clean Install Windows 10 Home<\/h2>\n

Where to begin<\/h3>\n

First things first, you need to know that reinstalling Windows from scratch is going to delete every single file that you\u2019ve added and installed to your Microsoft PC since you first started using it. This means that you need to Backup any files you don\u2019t want to lose<\/strong>. Depending on how many files you have that you want to keep there are various different ways to back them up. You could use cloud services such as Dropbox<\/strong>, Google Drive<\/strong>, or Microsoft\u2019s own One Drive<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Another option for backing up your files is an external hard drive. These should offer much more value compared to the online cloud subscription services laid out above.<\/p>\n

Minimum requirements<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019re upgrading to Windows 10 from an older machine, you\u2019ll need to check that your machine meets the minimum spec needed by Windows 10 to work its magic.  Your machine will need:<\/p>\n