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How do I Perform a New Installation of Windows?

By , About.com Guide

Question: How do I Perform a New Installation of Windows?

A New Install of Windows is the installation method you choose when installing Windows to an empty hard drive. After you replace a damaged hard drive in your computer or when you're building a new PC from scratch, a New Install of Windows is what you'll need to do.

Since a New Install of Windows is only performed on an already empty hard drive, there's no previous operating system to worry about and no data to back up, making it a relatively simple process.

Answer: A New Install of Windows is accomplished by following the very basic Windows setup process.

The individual steps involved in completing a New Install of Windows can be quite different depending on the operating system you happen to be using:

As I mentioned above, with a New Install there's nothing to backup like with a Clean Install or Repair Install / Startup Repair since you won't be overwriting any information.

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