Clean up poorly running computer before the upgrade?

My friend has asked me to help upgrade his computer to 10. The computer is running slowly right now. Past experience with his computer tells me that it most likely has a lot of PUPs and adware, possibly a virus or two. Do I need to clean it up before the upgrade, or will the upgrade take care of removing that stuff?

Thanks

Clean up as much as you can before upgrading.

I would not count on the OS install or upgrade removing any Malware. Absolutely try to clean the system of all Malware before proceeding. Also you could try installing Ghostery and adBlock Plus for your friend, assuming he is using a supported browser. Then install a good paid or free endpoint solution might help too.

Remember you have to disable your current antivirus prior to updating if it's not W10 supported.

Remember you have to disable your current antivirus prior to updating if it's not W10 supported.

Good advice - BD TS 2015 crippled me on a box both right after the upgrade and then a day later after I had removed it and reinstalled the proper version. 100% shutdown all network connections.

I've found a really good tool for removing PUPs is MalwareByte's AntiMalware. You should try using that.

I've found SuperAntiSpyware to be a good remover of cookies and other miscellaneous bad things. Here's the link, click on the red "Free Edition Download"

Watch out for the usual possible installs of items other than SAS when installing. The applications' home site is less likely to have those things, but be vigilant, it's too easy to accidently install a toolbar, a browser, search engines, etc...

In addition to all of the clean up that you do with these other tools, I would suggest that you download Windows Repair from www.tweaking.com and run this utility twice in safe mode and run each step in the program twice. This may fixe a number of errors that have crept in or have been caused by malware, viruses, etc. that don't get fixed by the other tools.

You can also install CCleaner to clean up the junk as well.

Both of the above programs are free.

Thanks for the suggestions. I restored the computer to factory, then did the upgrade.

Thanks for the suggestions. I restored the computer to factory, then did the upgrade.

Good move. Best of luck