• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

W10 - Clean Install and Desktop appearance questions

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Barryng

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2001
I have two W10 questions.

First, everything I have seen indicates W10 will be free as an upgrade to an existing W7 installation. Will there be a method for doing a clean install?

I currently need to increase the size of my SSD from 256 Gb to 512 GB. Since its been almost three years since my last clean install I am seeing some not surprising performance degradation that even my best efforts to maintain the system have not been able to prevent. Therefore, for the very short term I am simply going to clone my existing W7 256 GB 840 Pro Samsung to the new 512 Gb Samsung 850 Pro I am going to order tonight. However, once W10 hits the streets (not a beta version) I will probably upgrade.

Second, all the pictures of W10 should that inane desktop with all the big annoying squares. I cannot begin to express my dislike of that appearance. Will W10 provide a method for retaining the clean W7 desktop?
 
Hi there,

Most of these questions are answered in the Windows 10 thread here: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/753295-Windows-10-The-next-chapter

But to answer your questions quickly:

Yes you will be able to do a clean install of Windows 10 with your upgrade license from owning Windows 7. As I understand it, you may have to do the upgrade first to have your microsoft account set as a Windows 10 account then you should be able to download the ISO and put it on a DVD/USB drive and do a fresh install. When the install is complete, login with your microsoft account and it should authenticate. That is how I generally understand the process, someone else may be able to go into further detail, as Microsoft has confirmed it to be possible but the steps seem to become more detailed over time and I may have missed something.

I don't quite understand your second part about the 'inane desktop wit all the big annoying squares'. My desktop looks just like any Windows desktop from the last 15 years (I'm currently running Windows 10 tech preview). Are you referring to the start menu? The start menu is much closer to Windows 7 now than Windows 8 (which opened in full screen "metro UI" mode). There are 'live tiles' that you can easily remove (I did and replaced it with common shortcuts, it actually works really well)

Here's my main desktop (screen 1 of 3) with the start menu opened
Windows10Desktop.jpg
 
...all the pictures of W10 should that inane desktop with all the big annoying squares. I cannot begin to express my dislike of that appearance. Will W10 provide a method for retaining the clean W7 desktop?

Simply right clicking on squares allows for their removal.
This will leave you with a "squareless" Start Menu.


Once the squares are removed, Start Menu should look much better, so much so, that Classic Shell will not be needed.
I don't think I'll be using Classic Shell on Windows 10, but if for whatever reason any aspect of the Windows 10 Start Menu is not to your liking, you can apply the same solution as in Windows 8 and have a replica of Windows 7 Start Menu installed:
http://www.classicshell.net/downloads/
 
I agree that Classic Shell won't be needed.

Having said that, should you want to try it out there is a new beta available with better Windows 10 support.

What's new in this version:

Improved support for Windows 10
New ability to save settings to XML files from command line:
use "ClassicStartMenu.exe -backup "
New skin features, including glass for Windows 10
Multiple minor improvements and bugfixes

Beta version 4.2.2
 
Back