Clean install possible?

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My Win 8.1 Pro has accumulated GBs of junk over the last year. Is it possible to do a clean install of Win10 and start fresh?

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Hi Drew,
1. Obviously I don’t want to buy Win 10.
2. Probably the most likely. Installing a new OS may clean out a lot of old garbage in the process of installation anyway. If not I can, hopefully do a custom re-install if MS allows this. I have heard some comments that I would have to buy Win 10 to re-install it, hopefully that is wrong.
3. Would love to clean the junk out of 8.1 before upgrading. How would you recommend I do that. I regularly run CCleaner, I occassionally run the MS disk cleaner with system files included and I have run other third party cleaners. However, they don’t really clean most of the remnants that use up the disk space over time.

Thanks,
Bill

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From post 1

My Win 8.1 Pro has accumulated GBs of junk over the last year. Is it possible to do a clean install of Win10 and start fresh?

Or better yet #4 :

Once you upgrade to Win10, whenever that may be, installation media will be available for download to do a clean install of Win10 on the system that you’ve upgraded. You should be able to reinstall Win10 to that system whenever you want… Even if it happens to be on August 15. You will not have to pay extra to reinstall on August 15… It will be just as free as it is on August 14 or 16. Microsoft has mentioned that the key will be embedded in the installation media and/or tracked by the Store app, so the system should just know if the installation is genuine, but because the final information on upgrading and installing is not yet available, it would be a good idea to keep track of your existing keys, just in case.

Have a good one!

from page 2 of:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/reinstall-after-august-16/79f03862-360f-4c01-884e-b32702e9fb03?tm=1433341376414&auth=1

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Thanks guys:

Drew: I did the Sage clean thing. It only removed 300 MBs, but the computer seems to boot up quicker! I already am running on a SSD so that was a surprise.

Wavy: Thanks for clearing up the rumor about re-installs.

A last thought: I am a moderately skilled PC user, but I do not understand some of the OS inside operations, especially this kind of “upgrade”. Would it help if I uninstall all my non-critical applications and do a good cleaning before installing 10 and then re-install them afterwords or would that just introduce more residue? In other words, will the upgrade remove most of the old OS files and start new, or just change the ones it needs to change for itself?

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and a good backup

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Final summary: I upgraded to Win10. It cleaned up everything and I do not have a need at this time to do a clean install!

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Thanks Drew.

Never had it so easy to upgrade. Only did the kids computer so far, but it is an improvement for MS from the past!

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