Re-installing W7 to speed up PC...simple?

[Tiggsy]

I have a PC that came with W7 pro.....lately its running slow and all sorts of problems my IT people cant sort remotely.

So - was thinking of a fresh install, is it as easy as buying a W7 pro disk and putting it in the CD player?

PC is high spec so no need to suggest more ram or something first

[130R]

You must have a license key already so just use that with: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/... Or you could "upgrade" to W10 ..

[rampageturke]

check the health of the hard drive/SSD, disable some programs that launch on startup that simply aren't needed and just uninstall ones you don't use anyway.

If you don't care about your data a fresh install might be beneficial, unless your HDD is on its dying legs

[Slushbox]

Tiggsy said:

I have a PC that came with W7 pro.....lately its running slow and all sorts of problems my IT people cant sort remotely.

So - was thinking of a fresh install, is it as easy as buying a W7 pro disk and putting it in the CD player?

PC is high spec so no need to suggest more ram or something first

Would be wise to check you can download Wifi/Ethernet/other drivers from manufacturers support site first, in case W7 installer doesn't have them. Copy to USB stick, punch card, whatever.

Once the new install is done Windows Update will 'try' to find the rest, tricky without network drivers.

If it's a business marque like Dell/HP/Lenovo they all have their own driver-checkers and installer utilis on their 'Driver' sites.

You might also have a 'Restore' partition on the machine to build an install/utility disk which should have all the drivers.

Windows 7 Update is currently broken on new installs and takes hours not to find anything. There are fixes if you get that far.

[Who me ?]

130R said:

You must have a license key already so just use that with: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/... Or you could "upgrade" to W10 ..

One way of getting the key that is in use on your version of 7 is to use Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder
https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/

Nothing dodgy about it- it just gives you the key your OS uses, very useful if you have lost it.

[Jonesy23]

I don't know what other people's recent experience has been doing clean Win7 installs but I've found that getting the updates to work is a right pain on a fresh install; manual patching required to get things to a point where Windows Update will work to any real extent.

Otherwise it just spins using lots of CPU but never actually getting anywhere however long it's left.

And then you have to make sure to only let the right updates in or things like the telemetry creep in and screw performance again...

[Derek Smith]

I've just completed a complete reinstall of Win8.1. It took a while but there was a distinct new promptness about everything I did on it. I also dumped those programmes I didn't need. The update procedure was prolonged. I was without the computer for a couple of working days.

Mind you, I've just, this week, 'upgraded' to Win10 so that both my laptops and my desktop run the same OS.

[Vaud]

Tiggsy said:

I have a PC that came with W7 pro.....lately its running slow and all sorts of problems my IT people cant sort remotely.

Your "IT people" - is this a big company with what might be a "standard build image" or a small company where anything goes?

I only ask as you might lose access to some things / get fire if it is the former...