better to do a clean install?

i have a bunch of issues with my 8.1 machine, issues with my homegroup and live account. I am getting tons of disk warnings, my machine isnt shutting down properly all the time. I am considering just reinstalling windows, is it better to use the windows option to reset it back to factory defaults or should I reformat the drive and just reinstall windows directly from the disk? There is no option to go directly to 8.1 is there? If I go with the reformat and install from the disk I am going to have to upgrade to 8.1 from there right? That seems to be where alot of people are having issues from... Any thoughts would be appreciated thanks guys

Hi there
Can you get back to your previous OS (Factory reset or whatever). After you've done that try and get the ISO - there's a post somewhere on the Forum on how to get it. Now install from the ISO -- seems a whole lot better than the wretched STORE thing.

Cheers
jimbo

I do a clean install when ever possible. Have a look at this, http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/18309-windows-8-windows-8-1-iso-download-create.html?filter and http://www.eightforums.com/installa...retail-windows-8-1-windows-8-product-key.html

EDIT: I've done the above download from a WINDOWS 8.1 PC. There was some mention that you couldn't but I had no problems.

so theres no way to go directly to 8.1 right? you have to install 8 first? so you guys are saying the best option would be to create an ISO file of 8.1 and do a clean install with my windows 8 disk and than an upgrade from the ISO?

vafangool said:

so theres no way to go directly to 8.1 right?
you have to install 8 first?
so you guys are saying the best option would be to create an ISO file of 8.1 and do a clean install with my windows 8 disk and than an upgrade from the ISO?

Click to expand...

NO to all.

You can clean install from a Windows 8.1 installer.

vafangool said:

so theres no way to go directly to 8.1 right? you have to install 8 first? so you guys are saying the best option would be to create an ISO file of 8.1 and do a clean install with my windows 8 disk and than an upgrade from the ISO?

Click to expand...

The first link I posted above shows you how to download an 8.1 ISO which you can do a clean install with. The second link shows you how to activate it with a Windows 8 product code.