Laptop is four andd a half years old and has started running sluggishly at times, to put it mildy.

I have all data backed up so I'm in no danger of losing anything.

Looking at pages like this, I do see a few options. Any suggestions on the best way to proceed?

I'd go for a full reimage rather than a factory reset. You won't end up with any bloatware that the manufacture was paid to have in their windows image. Win10 is pretty robust on picking up all the devices so you shouldn't need much in the way of drivers afterwards but the manufacture website will have any that you may need.

https://support.microsoft.com/...6f-aa6f-40c3b507420d

Agree with bender.

I use the Windows Media Creation tool to create a bootable USB drive that will put a fresh install of 10 on your computer.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...e-download/windows10

Can provide more details if you like.

Agree with both above.
Just a full wipe & reinstall.

We do this with all of our computers when they come in from the field & before we reissue them to a new user.

Run Win10 install media, delete all partitions & install fresh.

Not a bad opportunity to install some hardware upgrades if applicable (larger HDD/SSD, more, RAM, new/larger battery, etc).

OK, so I downloaded the Windows 10 installation media to a USB drive. Now I have to boot to that drive and run the executable, making sure I'm connected to the internet, correct?

Will I need a physical connection? I wouldn't be able to connect wirelessly at that point, would I? I don't think I've ever physically connected to the internet on this laptop.

I believe W10 allows via WiFi on install. Not necessary, but it'll look for updates during the install.

You can install without an internet connection, then run updates once you're finished.

If I can install without an internet connection, is it accessing installation files locally? Because this media creation tool is only about 20 megabytes. If that's the case, is it a true re-install?

You can do a full setup without connecting to the internet. You can avoid having to setup an MS account and can use a "Local" user account instead. This is my preferred method. You might need to connect to "activate" the OS though.

My Win10 USB drive is about 7.4 GB. Maybe you just installed the recovery tool. Not sure though.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
If I can install without an internet connection, is it accessing installation files locally? Because this media creation tool is only about 20 megabytes. If that's the case, is it a true re-install?

You have to create an install disk with the media creation tool.
The media will be about 5GB.

You do not have to be connected to do the install but you will at some point to update.
WiFi drivers should be built in but wired is better and recommended.

I would say one thing first:
Evaluate the existing disk first.
If you need more space or if it is a spinner then just buy a new disk > Sata SSD or if the computer can support the M2 NVMe drives are by far the best drives.
Then take the old one out and perform the install.
You still have your old data on the old drive and after a successful install you can covert that drive to a storage device if you want.

Just to be clear once you download the media creation tool you need to run that and it will download the actual install and boot data to the USB drive. Just putting the media creation tool on a USB drive will not work. You will need to be on the net to do this.

This might help:
https://www.tomshardware.com/h...10-usb-install-drive

I see. Thank you

What brand of Laptop? I ask to determine how good the support section of their website is for Drivers and any other hardware related software. It's also indicative of the level of 'bloatware' in the factory image as well.

I am a fan of the 'Clean Install' using the Windows Media Creation Tool, but honestly my experience with Windows finding/installing the best driver(s) has NEVER been good! In the case of a Laptop, I ALWAYS get my drivers from the support section of the Laptop manufacturer's website. Dell and Lenovo are excellent in this regard, and have easy to find release notes, so you can determine which driver version you 'need' AND will be best for your machine! Often, if your doing a clean install of an existing machine (or a factory reset/installation of a recovery image), the newest Driver is NOT the one you want!

Also, with Laptops the hardware integration is VERY specific to each manufacturer/machine, and often, there are applications that some would consider 'bloatware' that are actually VERY beneficial and worth installing/reinstalling. If the Factory Recovery Image isn't loaded with significant bloatware it 'can' be a really good option, and a quick, simple and quite painless method to return you machine to 'like new'! Whenever deploying a new (or recovered/reset) machine, I utilize Macrium Reflect to take an image of the 'C:' Drive at various points in the deployment/software installation process, so I've always got a way to get back to a clean image quickly and painlessly. I keep ALL of my data on another physical drive (or partition) so I never have any concerns about data recovery should the OS get corrupted for some reason. My biggest concern is usually re: issues associated w/ updates, and honestly 99% of the problems people have with their PC (at least those that don't do stupid things!) are following an update that didn't go properly! YMMV

Do I really need to be reading through release notes and cherry-picking drivers?

quote:

Originally posted by xantom:
Just to be clear once you download the media creation tool you need to run that and it will download the actual install and boot data to the USB drive. Just putting the media creation tool on a USB drive will not work. You will need to be on the net to do this.

This might help:
https://www.tomshardware.com/h...10-usb-install-drive

I'm creating the bootable USB now.

On that page it says :
"On the other hand, if you want to, you can upgrade your PC to whichever version of Windows 10 is present on your USB flash drive. Simply run setup.exe from the root folder to launch the upgrade process, and the software will take it from there."

I take this to mean that I don't necessarily have to boot to the USB drive, but rather, I can just run setup.exe from the USB drive while my laptop is up? Or is that only for a plain upgrade?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Do I really need to be reading through release notes and cherry-picking drivers?

No. If you are referring to the "Select a USB flash drive" step those are just the drives available to them. You likely will only see the drives that are inserted into your machine.

I've done 100 + win 10 installs. The biggest issue I run into is if the Windows tool doesn't recognize your hard drive. The second is needing a specific driver for your particular drive. Otherwise this process has been pretty straight forward.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by xantom:
Just to be clear once you download the media creation tool you need to run that and it will download the actual install and boot data to the USB drive. Just putting the media creation tool on a USB drive will not work. You will need to be on the net to do this.

This might help:
https://www.tomshardware.com/h...10-usb-install-drive

I'm creating the bootable USB now.

On that page it says :
"On the other hand, if you want to, you can upgrade your PC to whichever version of Windows 10 is present on your USB flash drive. Simply run setup.exe from the root folder to launch the upgrade process, and the software will take it from there."

I take this to mean that I don't necessarily have to boot to the USB drive, but rather, I can just run setup.exe from the USB drive while my laptop is up? Or is that only for a plain upgrade?

You need to boot from the flash drive. That looks like they are referring to an upgrade, not a fresh install which is what you are doing.

I'm talking about nhracecraft's post.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I'm talking about nhracecraft's post.

If you are going to connect to the internet with your laptop once its re-imaged then I would just run the windows update tool until it comes back saying you are up to date. If you see problems after that then you can download specific drivers as needed. It has only been very rare occasions that I have needed to do this, but you might need to.

If no then you might have to download specific drivers as needed.

Not a computer guy and I slept in the woods last night but...

The last time my Win 10 laptop got sluggish, I just did a permanent delete of temp, %temp%, and prefetch files and she perked right back up after restart.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Do I really need to be reading through release notes and cherry-picking drivers?

You don't 'need' to, but I do it! While the Windows Update Tool will generally install a driver that will work, it almost universally installs an out-of-date driver, especially when it comes to graphics and Wi-Fi adapters. I check the Release Notes to look for specific issues related to my machine/usage that a particular version solves. At a point, a newer driver that you may not 'need' could cause other issues. That's it in a nutshell.