Windows 10: 7 ==> 10 Upgrade: What happens to Registry & WINSXS

Win7 works A-OK for me and I see no compelling reason (yet) to go to Win10. However, my Win7 system is old and by now my Registry & WINSXS directory are full of junk. I know that at some point, if I don't do a clean install of something, some bad things will start happening.

So that's why I do plan on moving to WIN10 at some point. But what about the Upgrade option - I understand it does not require reinstalling all current software, which is a very desirable option.

So if I do this (instead of a clean install), what happens to my Registry and WINSXS? Do they get "cleaned up" so that only data required for the new WIN10 installation are kept? Or are they simply updated with WIN10 stuff and thus end up getting even larger and more cumbersome?

:)

 

winsxs

Currently have win 7 pro & not enough space on my ssd to upgrade to w10.

However I have a 10gb winsxs folder.

Will this be freed up when I upgrade?

 

what happens if windows 7 upgrade to Windows 10?

thanks

 

Good question! I would like to know this myself.

 

Hi and welcome to TenForums,
I personally would do a clean install of 7 first and reload all of your programs... without the crap *Wink
Of course with a good running 7 you'll have fewer reasons to upgrade to 10 but at least you'll have a health base.
Cheers.

 

I understand the benefits of a clean install. If I do that, however, I'll first do a clean install of 10 (which will reformat my boot drive) and then install all my software.

But my hope was to avoid the software reinstall. Which is why I asked about how the 10 Upgrade option really works.

 

From what I understand win-10 won't go final until 10-1-15,
After that you'll/ we will have another year to do the free upgrade thing,
That's allot of time so there really is no rush,

Upgrades themselves are hit and miss in an ideal environment
Re-installs really are not that big of a deal,
Upgrades do create an windows old folder so an upgrade will overwrite/ replace the existing os,
Good policy is upgrades rarely fix existing issues so I wouldn't rely on it but fell free to test and let us know *Wink
Cheers.

 

I have a 320 GB HDD with 4 GB DDR3 Memory. My disk usage thing says 95.5 free of 282 GB. Will I need to do a clean install too?

 

MS is working on Windows 10 to do a better job of upgrading from Windows 7 & Windows 8.1.
I always use Macriun to image my disks before any update, so I will give the Windows 10 upgrade a try first and then if things don't seem right I can do a clean install of Windows 10 (if it is doable with the free upgrade). MS is offering the upgrade choice with Windows 10 TP in order for us to test it and see how it does.

Jim *Cool

 

Jesse those numbers don't add up to 320gig's :/
Besides weren't you going to use VMware ?

 

Well, it says on my sticker that it's a 320 GB HDD. I will use VMware until 10 comes out. I will then remove VMware and use the full version of 10.

 

Expansion of the registry is primarily due to third party software. Windows knows nothing and can do nothing about that.

A clean install of an OS is usually better than an upgrade, particularly if the installation is old.

 

That is correct. It is also correct for expansion of WINSXS. Long-term (like more than 4 years) expansion typically leads to some sort of corruption and subsequent obscure & hard to resolve problems.

Well I wonder about that. MS does issue WINSXS cleanup routines after each major OS update. These actually work, but take out only the modules that were used by the previous OS and that were replaced by the update. Obviously doing this prevents reverting to the non-updated version of the OS, but who wants to do that anyway?

If that technique can work for the OS itself, why can't it be expanded/enhanced to work for application installs too? Most major apps use the infamous WIndows Installer package, so this would be the perfect place to implement such a capability.

This whole WINSXS issue got started as a means to eliminate the old "DLL Hell" problem in Win3.x. That, in turn, resulted from the concept of sharing DLL's as a means of saving hard disk space. But now disk space is both inexpensive and plentiful. So a simple fix would be to change Windows Installer to install everything in the application's own directories.

The same concept could work for Registry entries. Remember the old INI files? These worked just fine, but for some reason someone at MS thought they needed to be replaced with something "better." Is there anyone who really believes the Registry is better?

Exactly correct. Which is why I plan on scheduling 2 days to get my 10 installation working correctly. That's a ridiculous amount of time I know, but my past experience suggests it's what it will take. I recognize that this is partly my fault - my system has 2 SSD's and 2 HDD's and I have used Junction Links to reposition various files to non-standard (i.e., off my SSD boot drive) locations. Nevertheless, 2 days to do a clean OS install is ludicrous.

 

Yes it is. It is utterly your own decision though.

It is your only comment I could agree with though.

 

If you have a better suggestion I'd be most pleased to hear it.