Windows 11 upgrade from a clean windows 10 install vs clean install

[sagy101]

Hi,

After days of troubleshooting my new 7900x pc, it finally seems to be stable.

As part of the troubleshooting, i reinstalled windows like 5 times lol, and i really don't wanna do that again and reinstall all my apps.

The last time i reinstalled, i tried windows 10 instead of 11, i want windows 11 mainly because i want the windows management tools, and get rid of aquasnap and power toys which i was using until now on windows 10.

 

So is there a performance difference between doing a windows 11 clean install to upgrading from windows 10 which is also almost clean (it only has like 10 basic programs).

 

i searched for an answer and didn't really find one, all the answers were comparing upgrading from a bloated windows 10 install to a clean windows 11 install, which is obvious which is better.

 

So is there a difference? does it leave residue files? does it really break programs? does it have a performance hit?

 

thank you all for the help

[aDoomGuy]

Well I upgraded but didn't get any Start menu and some other things. 

 

So I then fresh installed. Upgrade will leave residue Windows installation in the form of Windows.old folder but this can be deleted. Purpose of this is to give the user roll back capability.

[sagy101]

13 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Well I upgraded but didn't get any Start menu and some other things. 

 

So I then fresh installed. Upgrade will leave residue Windows installation in the form of Windows.old folder but this can be deleted. Purpose of this is to give the user roll back capability.

Yea I know about the windows.old, but assuming I just delete that.

Any other unnecessary files/processes/services that I won't know about?

 

Or other considerations?

 

And is it probable that alot of stuff won't work and just save myself the headache and do a clean install? Lol

[The Hope]

If you're happy with your current setup, there's no reason to upgrade. windows11 has low adoption rates in businesses, and among users. Hopefully you know by now that Microsoft programmers are the reverse of talented. The older a windows operating system is, the better it will usually work. By that I don't mean that a Windows system you've been using for a long time gets better. You have the famous windows rot that Unix systems have no problems with. I mean reinstalling windows10 may make more sense at this point than installing windows11. It still needs to get security updates so you can't use Vista or XP anymore. You can continue to use windows10 for quite some time.

[aDoomGuy]

Just install Windows 11 clean. I have no problems with 11 after doing the clean install.

[sagy101]

2 hours ago, The Hope said:

If you're happy with your current setup, there's no reason to upgrade. windows11 has low adoption rates in businesses, and among users. Hopefully you know by now that Microsoft programmers are the reverse of talented. The older a windows operating system is, the better it will usually work. By that I don't mean that a Windows system you've been using for a long time gets better. You have the famous windows rot that Unix systems have no problems with. I mean reinstalling windows10 may make more sense at this point than installing windows11. It still needs to get security updates so you can't use Vista or XP anymore. You can continue to use windows10 for quite some time.

Yea i know its less stable but i really want the new windows management functionalities, it really helps my workflow.

I used aquasnap and powertoys to get sorta the same functionality, but windows 11 implementation is better integrated, and overall better.

 

Also btw as a program engineer myself, some of my friend are working at microsoft lol, and they aren't that bad, they not better or worse then any other big company lolz that have tons of employees.

 

1 hour ago, aDoomGuy said:

Just install Windows 11 clean. I have no problems with 11 after doing the clean install.

I guess i will do an upgrade and if it doesnt work well or something reinstall.

[The Hope]

29 minutes ago, sagy101 said:

Yea i know its less stable but i really want the new windows management functionalities, it really helps my workflow.

I used aquasnap and powertoys to get sorta the same functionality, but windows 11 implementation is better integrated, and overall better.

Every time I use windows I always feel like it was designed to troll people, with the exception of windows7 which is the only acceptable windows version I've seen. And I know every windows version since windows XP.

 

On windows11, I specifically find it annoying to open apps. Here I always lose a lot more time than when I use XFCE or any Unix desktop environment. Also, installing apps always takes more time on windows, because it doesn't have a package manager like BSD and Linux systems.

 

In the end, windows11 only has one desktop. You cannot choose another desktop if you are dissatisfied. And the chances that Microsoft developed a desktop that's good for you is close to 0%

 

There, BSD and Linux do much better, because the fact is that people have vastly different preferences in how their workflow is optimal:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Window_manager

[sagy101]

2 hours ago, The Hope said:

Every time I use windows I always feel like it was designed to troll people, with the exception of windows7 which is the only acceptable windows version I've seen. And I know every windows version since windows XP.

 

On windows11, I specifically find it annoying to open apps. Here I always lose a lot more time than when I use XFCE or any Unix desktop environment. Also, installing apps always takes more time on windows, because it doesn't have a package manager like BSD and Linux systems.

 

In the end, windows11 only has one desktop. You cannot choose another desktop if you are dissatisfied. And the chances that Microsoft developed a desktop that's good for you is close to 0%

 

There, BSD and Linux do much better, because the fact is that people have vastly different preferences in how their workflow is optimal:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Window_manager

Ohh I completly agree that Linux is way better, especially as a developer and I do dual boot, but for gaming at least currently Linux is still an headache.

And from all the windows available to me (10 or 11), for me 11 is better because, windows management is a big deal for me.

[The Hope]

1 hour ago, sagy101 said:

But for gaming at least currently Linux is still an headache.

I don't know, I completely switched to Linux when I was 18, that was when Ubuntu was still an ideal system, now it's not the best Linux anymore. Then I started using Linux for gaming (Arch Linux). And even in the days when the DXVK project was just getting started, I noticed that some new games ran better on Linux than on Windows. Eg Assassin's Creed Odyssey had (extremely) many bugs in the first weeks after release on windows. But on my Linux system this first release actually ran almost without any problems. I'm pretty good at configuring wine, that may have something to do with it.

 

Now I game less and I have to say that even FreeBSD is enough for me to game. I only use FreeBSD and I am someone who plays computer games frequently. FreeBSD is much less suitable for gaming than Linux, but that doesn't bother me in the least. I really think it's underestimated how easy it is to switch to FreeBSD for gaming.

 

- You have something like 1237 native games. You can just install these games with the package manager like any other package.

- Then you have cloud gaming, which gives you access to a lot of games:
https://geekflare.com/best-cloud-gaming-services/

- You have https://www.freshports.org/games/linux-steam-utils/ which gives access to quite a few additional quality games. 

- You also have Suyimazu: https://codeberg.org/Alexander88207/Suyimazu 

- You can use VirtualBox or bhyve to virtualize windows in FreeBSD. You can probably play that way too.

- Finally, you have quite a few emulators that you can use in FreeBSD that make many additional games available:
https://www.freshports.org/games/retroarch/
https://www.freshports.org/emulators/dolphin-emu/
https://www.freshports.org/emulators/rpcs3
Etc.

- https://www.freshports.org/x11/antimicro

 

How many games is that in total all together?

 

The answer is that this is probably going to be over 10,000 games, which is way more than what I would need to have fun.

 

Games I often play on FreeBSD are 0 A.D, Xonotic and OpenLara and they have been working fine for years. For example, if I go to the 0 A.D. reddit, I see frequent (windows user) posts that say 0 A.D. crashes on startup. Well this particular game has always started in exactly 1 second (for many years), and shuts down in exactly less than 1 second, never had a problem on FreeBSD. And 0 A.D. has become better than the best Age of Empires, in a lot of areas.

[sagy101]

4 hours ago, The Hope said:

I don't know, I completely switched to Linux when I was 18, that was when Ubuntu was still an ideal system, now it's not the best Linux anymore. Then I started using Linux for gaming (Arch Linux). And even in the days when the DXVK project was just getting started, I noticed that some new games ran better on Linux than on Windows. Eg Assassin's Creed Odyssey had (extremely) many bugs in the first weeks after release on windows. But on my Linux system this first release actually ran almost without any problems. I'm pretty good at configuring wine, that may have something to do with it.

 

Now I game less and I have to say that even FreeBSD is enough for me to game. I only use FreeBSD and I am someone who plays computer games frequently. FreeBSD is much less suitable for gaming than Linux, but that doesn't bother me in the least. I really think it's underestimated how easy it is to switch to FreeBSD for gaming.

 

- You have something like 1237 native games. You can just install these games with the package manager like any other package.

- Then you have cloud gaming, which gives you access to a lot of games:
https://geekflare.com/best-cloud-gaming-services/

- You have https://www.freshports.org/games/linux-steam-utils/ which gives access to quite a few additional quality games. 

- You also have Suyimazu: https://codeberg.org/Alexander88207/Suyimazu 

- You can use VirtualBox or bhyve to virtualize windows in FreeBSD. You can probably play that way too.

- Finally, you have quite a few emulators that you can use in FreeBSD that make many additional games available:
https://www.freshports.org/games/retroarch/
https://www.freshports.org/emulators/dolphin-emu/
https://www.freshports.org/emulators/rpcs3
Etc.

- https://www.freshports.org/x11/antimicro

 

How many games is that in total all together?

 

The answer is that this is probably going to be over 10,000 games, which is way more than what I would need to have fun.

 

Games I often play on FreeBSD are 0 A.D, Xonotic and OpenLara and they have been working fine for years. For example, if I go to the 0 A.D. reddit, I see frequent (windows user) posts that say 0 A.D. crashes on startup. Well this particular game has always started in exactly 1 second (for many years), and shuts down in exactly less than 1 second, never had a problem on FreeBSD. And 0 A.D. has become better than the best Age of Empires, in a lot of areas.

I completly agree with you except that it doesn't really matter how many games.

It just matter that I can't play what I want when I want with no setup, or what my friends want to play.

But I do see Linux getting there in like 2-3 years then maybe I will finally completly switch.

When I have free time, I wanna just run/install what I want with no configuration even if I know how, and play what ever I want.

I value my free time too much.

[The Hope]

15 hours ago, sagy101 said:

It just matter that I can't play what I want when I want with no setup, or what my friends want to play.

In reality, I think this has less of an impact than what a human would 'think'. Suppose windows would get many exclusives every year that are of a very high quality then I would agree with you. But I haven't seen that for at least 10 years now.

 

Let's say I'm going to look at the most played free games: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed

CS:GO, Dota 2 and TF2 were relatively easy to run on FreeBSD.. Apex Legends works on Linux.

Then you still have PUBG. The ratings aren't good at all: 

I can easily say that in all of the top ten, there isn't a single quality free game that Linux gamers can't run.

If you then look at the titles that rank within 10-20, you will see that there is simply not a single top game among them.

 

Here are some of the games I used to play on Linux: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbg2ZEsvNhmcBQucpSc5fqg/videos

This is only a very limited part of my old Linux games.

 

Other games I played on Linux are e.g. Portal 2, Firewatch, Dishonored, The Talos Principle, God of War, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Oblivion, Valheim, Kona, Northgard, Half-Life 2, BioShock, Hitman 2 etc. I can run (almost) all classic Zelda games on FreeBSD and Linux and with better performance than on Windows. When I played L4D2 with friends it was always their windows computer that would freeze and crash, and never my Linux or FreeBSD system..

 

Where are the absolute top games I haven't been able to play on Linux?

If I were to make a list of top games that I haven't been able to play on Linux, it would be a very short list.

 

Then there is also the question, if windows has very few top games that Linux does not, which games do windows gamers mainly play? I think this is answered here:

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/overwatch-2/user-reviews

 

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/elex-ii/critic-reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dying-light-2-stay-human/user-reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-extraction/user-reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/far-cry-6/user-reviews

Etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are a few decent games coming out every year that are definitely worth playing. But as far as I know, almost all of them work on Linux.

 

Stray gets higher performance on Linux than on Windows.
Ghostwire Tokyo, Deathloop, Syberia, Forza Horizon 5 and Elden Ring also work on Linux I think.

 

In the end I see all the time that windows gamers are always saying 'how good windows is' for gaming. But when I see them in action, I see that they have usually given a lot of money, to yet another version of a franchise that seems to have reached its absolute lowest point.

 

That's not 'gaming' for me and I can safely say that I've had more fun gaming on FreeBSD over the past few years than the average Windows gamer.

My favorite game (Dota 2) got better stability, latency and fps on FreeBSD than it ever got on windows or Linux.

 

[sagy101]

19 hours ago, The Hope said:

In reality, I think this has less of an impact than what a human would 'think'. Suppose windows would get many exclusives every year that are of a very high quality then I would agree with you. But I haven't seen that for at least 10 years now.

 

Let's say I'm going to look at the most played free games: https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed

CS:GO, Dota 2 and TF2 were relatively easy to run on FreeBSD.. Apex Legends works on Linux.

Then you still have PUBG. The ratings aren't good at all: 

I can easily say that in all of the top ten, there isn't a single quality free game that Linux gamers can't run.

If you then look at the titles that rank within 10-20, you will see that there is simply not a single top game among them.

 

Here are some of the games I used to play on Linux: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbg2ZEsvNhmcBQucpSc5fqg/videos

This is only a very limited part of my old Linux games.

 

Other games I played on Linux are e.g. Portal 2, Firewatch, Dishonored, The Talos Principle, God of War, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Oblivion, Valheim, Kona, Northgard, Half-Life 2, BioShock, Hitman 2 etc. I can run (almost) all classic Zelda games on FreeBSD and Linux and with better performance than on Windows. When I played L4D2 with friends it was always their windows computer that would freeze and crash, and never my Linux or FreeBSD system..

 

Where are the absolute top games I haven't been able to play on Linux?

If I were to make a list of top games that I haven't been able to play on Linux, it would be a very short list.

 

Then there is also the question, if windows has very few top games that Linux does not, which games do windows gamers mainly play? I think this is answered here:

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/overwatch-2/user-reviews

 

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/elex-ii/critic-reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dying-light-2-stay-human/user-reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tom-clancys-rainbow-six-extraction/user-reviews

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/far-cry-6/user-reviews

Etc.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are a few decent games coming out every year that are definitely worth playing. But as far as I know, almost all of them work on Linux.

 

Stray gets higher performance on Linux than on Windows.
Ghostwire Tokyo, Deathloop, Syberia, Forza Horizon 5 and Elden Ring also work on Linux I think.

 

In the end I see all the time that windows gamers are always saying 'how good windows is' for gaming. But when I see them in action, I see that they have usually given a lot of money, to yet another version of a franchise that seems to have reached its absolute lowest point.

 

That's not 'gaming' for me and I can safely say that I've had more fun gaming on FreeBSD over the past few years than the average Windows gamer.

My favorite game (Dota 2) got better stability, latency and fps on FreeBSD than it ever got on windows or Linux.

 

We got totally off the thread topic lol but I guess the point I'm trying to make is beside what I said already, it's not about if it works, it's about if it works with no extra work, one click operation kinda.

 

I get those work, but you said some of them require configuration, not to mention you probably need to do some pre work to even run windows games at all so...

 

I don't disagree with you, I just think most people won't last on Linux right now at it current state (and I love Linux, I use it alot for work) for gaming.

 

And btw windows definitely has weird bugs and generally weird stuff, but people are used to it and they know people/professionals who can help them with windows, that can't really be said on the Linux side, in my opinion.

 

I thought about giving Linux a try as my main os, and not only my work os, especially since I am already very fimiliar with it (but not on the DE side).

 

But I don't wanna back out on the first issue I have, which will happen when I have like zero free time.

so I will do it when I'm in a more relaxed (more free time) period in my life, hopefully soon lol.

[The Hope]

7 hours ago, sagy101 said:

I get those work, but you said some of them require configuration, not to mention you probably need to do some pre work to even run windows games at all so...

 

I don't disagree with you, I just think most people won't last on Linux right now at it current state (and I love Linux, I use it alot for work) for gaming.

 

But I don't wanna back out on the first issue I have, which will happen when I have like zero free time.

so I will do it when I'm in a more relaxed (more free time) period in my life, hopefully soon lol.

The extra work was largely my own choice. You had Proton and Lutris back then, and I kept using DXVK and Wine manually because I was so used to it, and it gives me more control.

 

Now I would say that in most cases installing Linux games is the same as installing a game in windows. (just click the install button on the game in Steam Proton)

In most cases it is quite the same experience as it would be in windows. There are a lot of games that work already. The games are currently verified by Valve and this process is not very fast as a person has to play the whole game and test all options. But it's moving pretty fast: https://boilingsteam.com/steam-deck-6000-games-playable-verified/

Here’s a graph of the progression over time – we are headed towards somewhere between 7000 and 8000 games by the end of the year.

 

If you're ever going to switch, I'd like to list my favorite Unix systems: Nobara Project, Void Linux, Mint, EndeavourOS, MX Linux, NetBSD, Devuan, FreeBSD and Clear Linux

 

Not all systems are equally suitable for gaming or user-friendly, since these two things are important to you, I would specifically recommend the following systems to you:

Nobara Project, Void Linux, EndeavourOS, MX Linux, Clear Linux

 

Void Linux and Clear Linux are more aimed at intermediate users, but they are not that difficult and are good for gaming.

[sagy101]

40 minutes ago, The Hope said:

The extra work was largely my own choice. You had Proton and Lutris back then, and I kept using DXVK and Wine manually because I was so used to it, and it gives me more control.

 

Now I would say that in most cases installing Linux games is the same as installing a game in windows. (just click the install button on the game in Steam Proton)

In most cases it is quite the same experience as it would be in windows. There are a lot of games that work already. The games are currently verified by Valve and this process is not very fast as a person has to play the whole game and test all options. But it's moving pretty fast: https://boilingsteam.com/steam-deck-6000-games-playable-verified/

Here’s a graph of the progression over time – we are headed towards somewhere between 7000 and 8000 games by the end of the year.

 

If you're ever going to switch, I'd like to list my favorite Unix systems: Nobara Project, Void Linux, Mint, EndeavourOS, MX Linux, NetBSD, Devuan, FreeBSD and Clear Linux

 

Not all systems are equally suitable for gaming or user-friendly, since these two things are important to you, I would specifically recommend the following systems to you:

Nobara Project, Void Linux, EndeavourOS, MX Linux, Clear Linux

 

Void Linux and Clear Linux are more aimed at intermediate users, but they are not that difficult and are good for gaming.

Ty, hopefully I will do the switch sooner then later