Installing (Retail/USB) Windows 10 on new SSD without cloning from HDD?

[TimeOmnivore]

So, I currently have a 1TB WD Blue drive which has about 50GB left. I'm getting myself an SSD (Samsung 850 EVO 500GB), finally, and am planning on installing Windows and commonly played games/programs onto it. However, I can't simply clone my HDD, since it has more shit on it than can fit on the SSD, so I was planning to simply install Windows onto the SSD, then delete all of the Windows files off of the HDD. Then uninstall some games and commonly used programs (POE, web browsers, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc.) and reinstall them to the SSD. I'm also planning on getting a 4+TB HDD early-mid 2018 to prevent further issues of running out of space.

 

So, my questions are:

1. Can I simply do a fresh install Windows to the new SSD, as if I've never installed Windows before, then delete all old Windows files off of the HDD - i.e. the 20+GB Windows folder?

2. Would programs still installed in the Program Files/(x86) folders still work without Windows installed on that drive?

3. Would other programs work as well - e.g. my other Steam games are installed in a separate location (still on the HDD drive, though)?

4. Also would the now old User folder be essentially the same as any other folder - i.e. the default Documents/Downloads/Music/etc. folders would be based on the new(?) User folder I assume would be created when I install Windows on the SSD?

 

Also, I'm fairly certain my copy of Windows is connected to my Microsoft account, if that makes any difference, and it's not an OEM copy.

Also, I don't use the search function on Windows, so I don't particularly care if that gets somehow fucked, if that may be a problem.

 

Please don't tell me I have to uninstall every program, somehow back up all other files to somewhere else, then clone the HDD once it's nearly empty. Unless I truly have to do that.

[PuppyCuDDler]

1. i dont think you can. i think you have to format your HDD and do clean install of windows on the SSD and simply reinstall programs(i did that a few weeks ago because my pc was slowing down).

2. probably not.

3,the steam games will work you  just need to change your main steam folder in the setting of steam.

3.no but you can save them or if you have windows 10 you can change location of those folders in their properties.

 

if your windows copy is connected to microsoft account you can activate your windows license after installing windows.

 

the search function should unless the windows install is broken somehow

 

[TimeOmnivore]

11 minutes ago, PuppyCuDDler said:

1. i dont think you can. i think you have to format your HDD and do clean install of windows on the SSD and simply reinstall programs(i did that a few weeks ago because my pc was slowing down).

2. probably not.

3,the steam games will work you  just need to change your main steam folder in the setting of steam.

3.no but you can save them or if you have windows 10 you can change location of those folders in their properties.

 

if your windows copy is connected to microsoft account you can activate your windows license after installing windows.

 

the search function should unless the windows install is broken somehow

 

So I do, in fact, need to backup all of my files and stuff somewhere, uninstall a shit ton of programs, completely wipe and format my HDD, then install Windows/programs on the new SSD, then install other programs on the now formatted HDD, then copy back over all my other files to the HDD. Right?

 

Something I forgot to mention that may affect this - my HDD is partitioned in two so that one section contains the Windows install (as far as I know) and various basic programs (the Program Files/(x86) folders) plus a few files here and there, and the other partition contains my Steam library, music, videos, and most documents and other files. Could I somehow wipe the Windows partition and leave the other one alone, thereby not going through that particular hassle? Or do I need to reformat everything?

[Chrizl1990]

32 minutes ago, TimeOmnivore said:

So I do, in fact, need to backup all of my files and stuff somewhere, uninstall a shit ton of programs, completely wipe and format my HDD, then install Windows/programs on the new SSD, then install other programs on the now formatted HDD, then copy back over all my other files to the HDD. Right?

 

Something I forgot to mention that may affect this - my HDD is partitioned in two so that one section contains the Windows install (as far as I know) and various basic programs (the Program Files/(x86) folders) plus a few files here and there, and the other partition contains my Steam library, music, videos, and most documents and other files. Could I somehow wipe the Windows partition and leave the other one alone, thereby not going through that particular hassle? Or do I need to reformat everything?

You can do this, but when you load up steam you will need to point it to the steamapps folder. What about any drivers you have installed, can you save a copy of those to a USB? It would make it easier to get your system working properly again.

[TimeOmnivore]

1 minute ago, Chrizl1990 said:

You can do this, but when you load up steam you will need to point it to the steamapps folder. What about any drivers you have installed, can you save a copy of those to a USB? It would make it easier to get your system working properly again.

Yeah, I have a backup of all my drivers on a USB.

I'd imagine I'd have to un/reinstall all of my programs/games though, for Windows to update its registry, right?

[Chrizl1990]

5 minutes ago, TimeOmnivore said:

Yeah, I have a backup of all my drivers on a USB.

I'd imagine I'd have to un/reinstall all of my programs/games though, for Windows to update its registry, right?

I'm unsure what you mean, this will only affect the partition that Windows is installed on. So I don't see how it would affect your other applications? Once you have reinstalled Windows you can just reformat the previous partition.

[TimeOmnivore]

1 minute ago, Chrizl1990 said:

I'm unsure what you mean, this will only affect the partition that Windows is installed on. So I don't see how it would affect your other applications? Once you have reinstalled Windows you can just reformat the previous partition.

I don't know - I'm not sure how the Windows registry works, just completely guessing based on assumptions. My thinking was that when you install something, say a Steam game, Windows would do something in its registry to make the thing you installed work, so I would need to reinstall my games/programs for them to work (since I now have a fresh install of Windows on the SSD). Am I just an idiot, and this isn't how any of that works? So all my installed games (that I don't move to the SSD) on the other partition will still work, without reinstalling them or anything like that?

[Chrizl1990]

1 hour ago, TimeOmnivore said:

I don't know - I'm not sure how the Windows registry works, just completely guessing based on assumptions. My thinking was that when you install something, say a Steam game, Windows would do something in its registry to make the thing you installed work, so I would need to reinstall my games/programs for them to work (since I now have a fresh install of Windows on the SSD). Am I just an idiot, and this isn't how any of that works? So all my installed games (that I don't move to the SSD) on the other partition will still work, without reinstalling them or anything like that?

I don't think this is the case, as @PuppyCuDDler mentioned, all you need to do is reload the steam library after installing Windows. Give this a try and report back when you have booted into Windows.

[TimeOmnivore]

20 minutes ago, Chrizl1990 said:

I don't think this is the case, as @PuppyCuDDler mentioned, all you need to do is reload the steam library after installing Windows. Give this a try and report back when you have booted into Windows.

Alright, thanks.

It'll probably be about a week or 2 though, since I just ordered it yesterday.

[PuppyCuDDler]

generally you cant just move around programs in windows and hope they will work but i know that you can move your steam library around just make sure you do it right and point it in steam and it will work.

 

here is a thread directly from steam here