Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Uhhh.....remember this is WINDOWS we are talking about. 
I've 'upgraded' a few times, but always had much better results when wiping and installing fresh.
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Windows is by no means unique in that regard. On linux, using a dist-upgrade is somewhat flaky as well -- some estimates say 25% of the time it will fail due to arcane package conflicts.
I use a rolling-release distro, so there are no dist-upgrades but I fall prey to small conflicts on an ongoing basis instead.
Still, the tradeoff is worth it for a tinkerer.
I have no idea what the status is for Mac users, but I would bet they have their own horror stories to tell.
Completely replacing the OS without wiping installed programs, AND keeping all user settings, is a complicated feat. I am not surprised MS hasn't mastered it -- they aren't the only ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crane3
With windows, the big problem is that a "clean" install isn't just a clean install of the OS, but also of ALL the apps one is using that has to be reinstalled, including a "where the h... is that reg id" for this app or that.
So there is a lot of work & reconfigurations to be done along with a clean install of windows. Of course, this all depends on how one uses a computer.
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Unless one has specialized needs, one should not need to be running specialized software that requires licenses. LibreOffice, Chrome/FF, VLC and a few other key FOSS software suffice for most things, and you can even install those en masse through Ninite/Chocolatey.