Whether you’re installing the latest version of Windows or upgrading
your Linux distribution, most geeks agree that you should probably
perform a clean installation rather than try your luck with an upgrade.
New operating systems versions want to reduce the pain of upgrading
and offer to bring your old files, settings, and programs along with you
through an upgrade, but this can often cause problems.
Upgrade vs. Clean Installs on Windows
To a less-experienced user, an upgrade seems like the best type of
install. If you want to install Windows 8 on a PC with Windows 7 already
on it, you can perform an upgrade installation to bring many of your
programs, settings, and files with you rather than reinstalling your
programs, changing your computer settings, and copying over your files
when you’re done.
In theory, an upgrade will save you time because you can skip much of
the set-up work afterwards. In practice, upgrades have often caused
problems. When you perform a clean installation, you get a fresh copy of
Windows without any clutter. When you upgrade, Windows must attempt to
bring your programs and settings with you. You won’t end up with a clean
copy of Windows – you’ll end up with the latest version of Windows with
your old programs and settings copied over. Files you haven’t used in
years, registry entries created by long since-uninstalled programs, and
other junk will remain on your fresh copy of Windows. Some applications
may not be compatible and may be uninstalled during the upgrade process
or may not work afterwards – you’ll have to reinstall some things
anyway.
Some benchmarks have found that upgrade installs perform more slowly
than clean installs, which isn’t surprising. An upgrade install might
have old bloatware and startup programs running in the background.
We don’t encourage running a registry cleaner and smart users
shouldn’t have to reinstall Windows on a regular basis. However, when
you’re switching to a new operating system, it’s the ideal time to start
things out on the right foot with a fresh operating system.
How to Clean Install Windows
To perform a clean installation of Windows, don’t select the Upgrade option when installing Windows. Select the Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)
option and select the hard drive you want to install Windows on. You
can even perform a clean install with an Upgrade license. The Upgrade
license just requires that your computer must already have a valid
license for a previous version of Windows; it doesn’t require that you
perform an Upgrade installation.
Be sure that you have backup copies of all your important files
before performing a clean installation, as a clean install will wipe
your system partition.
Linux-Specific Problems
Clean installs are also useful on Linux distributions.
We’ll refer to Ubuntu in particular here, as it’s the most popular
distribution, but much of this also applies to other distributions, such
as Fedora.
Mark Shuttleworth, who created Ubuntu, recently wrote
that “Upgrading today is possible, but to keep the system clean over
multiple successive upgrades requires an uncommonly high level of skill
with APT.”
In other words, problems can also occur when you upgrade your Linux
distribution. A new version of Ubuntu may have dropped a particular
package from the default system because it offers duplicate
functionality, but such packages will not necessarily be removed from
your system during an upgrade. If you have packages from third-party
repositories installed, they may prevent you from upgrading. Various
package dependency problems can occur and old configuration settings may
not be overwritten properly with new default settings if you’ve
customized them.
Just as old files, settings, and programs can persist on a Windows
machine, the same thing can happen when you upgrade your Linux
distribution.
There’s no doubt that Ubuntu’s upgrade process works much better than
the upgrade process offered by many older Linux distributions, but it’s
nowhere near perfect, as Mark Shuttleworth himself says.
How to Clean Install a Linux Distribution
When you see an upgrade notification, you don’t have to upgrade to
the latest version of Ubuntu with the built-in too. You can download the
Ubuntu installer from Ubuntu’s website and burn it to a disc (or put it
on a USB drive) before installing the new version of Ubuntu over your
previous version of Ubuntu.
As with Windows, you should ensure you have backup copies of your
important files before installing the new Linux distribution over the
previous Linux distribution.
The Previous Version Rule
Note that you can generally only upgrade from the previous version of
an operating system. For example, you can upgrade to Windows 8 from
Windows 7, but not from Windows XP. Likewise, you can upgrade to Ubuntu
12.10 from Ubuntu 12.04, but not Ubuntu 11.10 – although you could
upgrade 11.10 to 12.04 and then upgrade it to 12.10, if you felt like
living dangerously.
Upgrading is tempting, and upgrade installs are becoming more
reliable with each new operating system version release. However, clean
installs are still the way to go if you want a fresh system without
clutter from previous versions of your operating system. A new operating
system release is a good excuse to start fresh with a clean OS, anyway.
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