35mm
When I first saw the title of this thread I thought it was about personal hygiene. I was going to say, wipe completely in order to avoid the dreaded itch!
 
As far as Windows goes, doing a full wipe/re-install is always best, saves long term hassle and has the best results.
 
I also took the late upgrade for accessibility users from a similar article. Although I am an accessibility user (well technically). It's worked fine for me as far as Sonar etc goes, but Chrome crashes all the time if I try to use it on this machine under win 10. However, I didn't take my own advice and did the upgrade from win 7.

Yup, I wiped my Win 7 desktop and clean installed Win 10.  Smooth as butter.
 
I upgraded my Win 8.1 laptop and got lucky.  Had to do some cleaning up, but it works well.
 
I think the leap in technology from the Win 7 era to Win 10 deserves a clean sweep.  That's an 8 year old technology.  Better to start fresh from that point!  YMMV. 

jpetersen
Wipe and clean install?
What did you do not to have to pay for a Win10 license?

You first run the in place upgrade, activate the digital license, download the Windows 10 media creation tool (on USB or DVD), and install again by wipe and clean.  No activation needed the second time around.

abacab

jpetersen
Wipe and clean install?
What did you do not to have to pay for a Win10 license?

 
You first run the in place upgrade, activate the digital license, download the Windows 10 media creation tool (on USB or DVD), and install again by wipe and clean.  No activation needed the second time around.

Ah! Excellent!
Thank you.

Ah, yes.
 
I record on-site at clients, so I use laptops.
That limits my options.

jpetersen

abacab
You first run the in place upgrade, activate the digital license, download the Windows 10 media creation tool (on USB or DVD), and install again by wipe and clean.  No activation needed the second time around.

I've done my upgrade now (feeling a bit more confident...) so the first step is done.
Suppose I change out the hard drive for a new SSD instead of wiping my existing HD.
 
Trouble?

I think just maybe to be sure, keep the same hard drive in so you don't have to jump thru any hoops with the Microsoft team regarding activation.  Maybe not necessary, but this eliminates that possibility.  I still haven't figured out how Microsoft profiles your system with the new digital licensing scheme.
 
After the clean install, use an external USB hookup (either cable adapter with power and SATA, or full enclosure) with the new SSD drive.  If it comes with one, use the cloning tool software provided with the new drive to clone the internal HDD drive over to SSD.  Then just swap drives and boot! For the first boot make sure you only have one drive connected, so the BIOS correctly identifies the SSD as the new boot drive.
 
Some folks have their favorite imaging or cloning tools that they may prefer, but I used the Samsung migration tool that came with my Samsung EVO 850, and the process was flawless.  Adding this drive was like buying a whole new computer.  Love it!
http://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/ssd-850-evo-2-5-sata-iii-250gb-mz-75e250b-am/

scottcmusic
I think the AV I used on my other laptop was the FREE version of Avast ... not Avira ... I liked that pretty well but they do keep try to get you to upgrade. The think worked pretty darn well and even saved me from a few incoming virus bombs that would have really made life difficult. But I will check into Avira since abacab rated it so highly (I love the genesis album Abacab if that's where you are getting this! Heck, I love old Genesis).
 
One thing that always used to tempt me to upgrade my Avast AV to the paid version was they kept throwing prompts that said words to the effect of, "Avast sees 13 steps it can take to improve the performance and speed of your PC. Upgrade Now to enjoy this smoking feature!"
 
Then the next week it was "Avast sees 23 things it can do to improve the performance ... "
 
So it was an ongoing thing that kept escalating as the laptop deteriorated ... I was always tempted to upgrade just to understand what it was going to do in the registry to make things run faster. Long story short, I never did. Something about messing around in the registry give me the willies.
 
But I like the idea of having at least something on there for when I do have to go online. I wonder had anybody used and liked Windows Defender as their only line of defense?

I think if you are smart about what you click on and invite into your computer, you might be OK with Defender. 
 
I follow a few computer security forums and blogs, as well as some AV test sites.  The scores and reviews for Microsoft products have until recently been strictly bottom shelf as far as detection goes.  I used Avast for several years, and encouraged all my family and friends as well to use it.  But as you noted, it became increasingly bloated.  Then I noticed that their scores were slipping as well.  So I started looking around.  Ended up with Avira.
 
In most of the latest tests reports I have seen, the consistent top three are Avira, Bitdefender, and Kaspersky.
 
These three usually always score at or near 100% detection for known malware in the wild.  There are a few other that occasionally make top scores.
 
Of those three, only Avira and Bitdefender offer free versions.  In all fairness Avast seems to have improved lately, and they have acquired AVG as well.  I have been testing the latest Avast with a Windows XP install that I run in a virtual machine, and it seems to be nag free and lean these days.  Might be worth another look.
 
Another new security tool that I am very fond of is VoodooShield.  It is a whitelist based protection that only allows executables with known good status and signed code, etc. to run.  It is very light on resources, and in "Smart" mode, it only switches on when you open a web browser.  It's approach to security is that running unknown code while you are connected to the web is never a good idea, LOL! 
 
So I run the AV along with VoodooShield now.  I feel better with a lock on my computer!
Free for non-commercial home use.  https://voodooshield.com/

Thanks, appreciate the help.
 
Btw, Abacab was very much in the Phil Collins era of Genesis.
"Old" Genesis surely must be considered the Gabriel era, up to 1974/5

abacab
Now there's a die hard for ya!!!

 
 

Then again I have way too many plugins.  This last upgrade cycle, I skipped entire companies of plugins.  Not many, but several.  
 

jpetersen
Thanks, appreciate the help.
 
Btw, Abacab was very much in the Phil Collins era of Genesis.
"Old" Genesis surely must be considered the Gabriel era, up to 1974/5

Yes sir. Good call. I didn't mean to imply it was old ... well, it's old, just not old as it sits in their catalog. I just meant that is an album that I like very much ... but also that I love their earlier stuff best ... it was two thoughts that I just ran together. My favorite is right after Phil took over as lead singer .. (love peter too, but more his solo stuff) ... Seconds Out being the ultimate to me. I liked them best with Steve Hackett to be honest ... but Mike can wiggle the wires pretty damn well himself! But you gotta give it up for that Firth of Fifth solo on Seconds Out!
 
Sorry for diversion ... we now return you to your regularly scheduled wiping program:

I actually prefer the Collins era.
I have friends who would have me flogg'd and quarter'd for admitting that.
 
Back to the wipes.

But then there is this.  I wish I had Tony's keyboard rig, could play guitar like Mike Rutherford, and play drums like Phil Collins ... in a sold out Wembley stadium ...