Clean Install worth it?

I've done clean installs on my previous Dell machines, but may skip it with my new XPS17. Since I only do this once in 3-4 years, each clean install takes me 5 or more hours if everything goes well (and it doesn't). I'm getting old and not sure I'm up for the adventure.

Thinking about uninstalling any Dell/McAfee stuff I don't plan to use and using it as is.

Curious if anyone has seen any specific performance differences between the dell OS load and a clean install, particularly for programs like Lightroom.

Thanks, Old XPStester

 

considering the dell installation package includes a bunch of bloatware, on top of framework consisting of a bloated windows install on an ugly partition system, and then a thin notebook with 2020 hothothot components running RAM/cycle-gobbling 2020 software and OS, I'd say it's worth it.

the time investment sucks (I really feel you there), but honestly the combo of OEM win10 being horrible plus dell superbloat is just not worth it in the long run imo.

i can't offer any metrics but i can definitely say the comp will run hot, inefficient as hell, and almost surely slow until you make a bunch of tweaks anyway.

neither OEM bloat nor windows nor even the Intel Eggfryer Inside™ are anything close to even a few years ago in terms of heat and efficiency and reasonable design considerations, so you will prolly end up wishing for a clean install eventually anyway. the state of affairs for new machines right now is absolutely disgusting .. and only gets worse every year...

so, imo, you may as well just burn the hours upfront and then you're good as you can get for that next 3-4 years (well, other than just managing the endless windows10 update nightmare)

keep in mind the hidden OEM backup partition persists thru normal cleans and must be override deleted.

 

FWIW I also agree with a clan install up front and then I tend to do a clean reset every time MS pushes out one of their 6 month updates, note:
1. These days it may well be preferable to take some of Dells drivers, rather than using the stock ones (the thermal management stuff for example)
2. The more frequent you do the reset, the quicker you can get a machine back up and running.
3. The overall benefits IMO aren't as big as they used to be. I mostly do it these days as I tend to join the insiders program for each 6 month release, which can cause some instabilities to add up.

 

Clean install is a lot easier to do on a new machine.

There is some bloatware that I don't want.

I do clean install from time to time on my old computers. But there is not much bloatware on my system. I also wrote down the steps so have a printed checklist making the process easier and faster.