Windows 10 has been around for more than six years now. Windows 11 has succeeded, with smoother performance and a more modern interface. However, internally, both systems continue to share many elements, and the vices of the past are still present.
One of the main problems with Windows installations is that, over time, the operating system can become slow or have problems. In versions like Windows XP this was much more evident, but with the increase in power of modern computers and improvements to Windows, this has been reduced.
Before it was advisable to format frequently
In the past, something that was recommended to do on a regular basis was to format the computer to do a clean installation from scratch of Windows, with a frequency that was recommended to be around a year. There were various reasons for doing so.
Among them we found that a computer could be infected by undetected viruses , since the antivirus of a few years ago were not perfect and there were some threats that escaped. Formatting from scratch allowed to kill those viruses.
One flaw that is still present today is that programs create many unnecessary files in Windows. Some are deleted after uninstalling them, but it does not happen like in Linux that everything is deleted, but some traces remain. These files accumulate on the computer, and can occupy several additional gigs in our storage unit, and even slow down the computer. Thus, when storage space was vital, reinstalling the operating system from scratch was vital to recover those precious gigs, since it was more convenient than having to go looking for junk files.
The slowdown of the operating system over time was a reality in the era of hard drives, where if we installed many programs and did not check what was running at startup, we could have to wait minutes to be able to use the computer.
Checking the programs that were running at startup from time to time was essential. Now, with SSD drives, having dozens of programs does not affect the use of the operating system, since we can use it from the beginning comfortably while they are being opened. The problems of loading programs today are more latency than speed.
But not anymore
Windows has also become more flexible when it comes to reinstalling. Currently we can reinstall the system without losing the programs that we have installed, or do a clean installation and all the previous files are saved in the Windows.old folder in case we need to recover any.
Windows 10 has also gained a lot in stability. Gone are the times of Windows 7 or 8.1 , where one day when you start up your computer you could find a black screen and have to recover a previous backup. Doing a clean installation is not necessary if we have not had a serious problem, such as an incompatible driver that we cannot uninstall.
In short, if you have a Windows installation that you keep under control in terms of installed programs, you frequently clean the cache, you have an SSD, you use a good antivirus (Defender itself is great) and you keep an eye on what is running on starting with Windows, you will not have to install the system from scratch.
