36 updates is a low number. Last time I reinstalled for a friend (about 2 months ago) I was hit with over 70. And yes, it is a pain. But you can get most of it done in the background. Reinstalling my 60 odd programs would be a bigger pain and redoing all the settings.
thank you all for your time,posts, information & help.
i guess i am going to go for clean install anyway. from where i belong, i have a limited download internet connection which is another reason why i started this thread. but its okay i am going to do a fresh install & install the updates & later, just switch the internet connection to unlimited download. so i am marking the thread as solved for now. maybe it will come of use & i'll get to learn it when i help someone with their computer.
thank you all again :)!
Yes - fresh start as well.
One suggestion for your clean install.
Using Disk Management - Make a starting partition 200MB primary and mark it active and the next partition around 80-100GB for your OS and programs and mark it primary NOT active. Then just run the clean install.
200MB is a much better size for the system reserved and may get you out of some Windows imaging problems down the track. (The 100MB can occasionally fill up with Windows info preventing imaging - with 200MB you're safe).
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