How to Set up a New Computer with Windows 10?

Can I set up a new computer myself?

"I am building a PC for myself from scratch. I just made a bootable Windows 10 installation USB from Microsoft. What do you suggest or think is the best way for me? Am I able to set up a new PC myself?"

Got a new Windows 10 PC or laptop, and want to know how to set up a new computer with Windows 10? Don't worry, here's how to make it. Setting up a new computer takes some time and sounds complicated, but it's definitely easy to do and lets you customize your device freely.

Here's a stepwise guide on how to set up a new computer with Windows 11 or Windows 10. Just doing everything right and in right order, it will save you from system failure and other headaches.

How to set up a new computer step by step?

Undoubtedly, what you care about most is how to install Windows system when you get a new PC. For those computers that have already pre-installed the system, you can power it and follow the prompts to finish the setup. While for those without a pre-installed system, setting up a new PC from flash drive is a good choice.

But no matter which situation you are in, after system installation, there are several things you need to do before you start enjoying your new PC, so that you can keep your system working normally.

1. Update Windows

The first thing you should do is to check Windows update on your new PC. Follow the steps to download and install all available Window updates.

Step 1. Click the Start menu and click the gear icon to open Settings.

Step 2. Go to Updates & Security and click Check for Updates. Then, Windows will do its thing automatically, wait patiently.

Step 3. Click Check For Updates button multiple times until it says there's nothing available.

2. Get rid of bloatware and install new software

Some computer manufacturers have preloaded some software on the PC and most of them are useless. Although keeping those applications won’t do hard harm to your PC, it will probably slow down your computer. Thus, getting out of bloatware is a smart move on how to set up new PC for daily use.

Step 1. Click Start menu and click the gear icon to open the Settings.

Step 2. Go to Apps item, you will see a list of installed software on your computer.

Step 3. In App & features section, find and click on the item you don’t want, and then click the Uninstalled button to remove it.

After uninstalling all bloatware, it's time to install your favorite software to customize your new PC. You can get the software from Microsoft App Store or its official websites.

3. Secure your new PC

Since the Internet environment is dynamic, your new PC is surrounded by various threats like viruses and malware. There are three ways you can use to protect your computer.

The first one is to use Windows built-in protection application - Windows Security, you can go to Settings > Updates & Security > Windows Security to see if there is any yellow icons reminding you to take action.

The second way is to download professional antivirus software to keep any suspicious things away from your new PC.

The third way is to clean up your computer at a regular time by using a PC cleaner for malware. This can erase the virus or malware carrier and cut off the contact between computer and threats.

4. Check your drivers

Drivers can tell your Windows system how to make use of its hardware components. A missing driver may cause some annoying problems such as the file cannot be accessed, Disk Management does not show drives, etc. Thus, even a brand-new computer should be checked for drivers. Let's see how to set up a new computer with Windows 10 by checking drivers.

Step 1. Type “device manager” into the start menu’s search bar to open Device Manager.

Step 2. All the drivers will be listed, check for missing or outdated drivers carefully.

5. Make a backup of your new PC

A new PC seldom has problems, but a stitch in time saves nine. Therefore, it's suggested to back up your system, important files, or anything you don't want to lose when your computer crashes ahead of time. Here, we recommend AOMEI Backupper, the best backup software for PCs.

It can help you create a system image within seconds and let you restore your computer to its previous state whenever system failure happens.

After getting all the above five things done, you can begin to enjoy your new PC.

Bonus Tip: How do I transfer everything from my old computer to my new computer Windows 10?

However, some users find it complicated to build a new computer step by step. Luckily, there is an easier way to quickly set up a new Windows 10 PC - disk clone. Disk clone refers to transferring everything from your old computer to your new computer, and all customized settings will be kept.

So if you don't want to spend lots of time following the guide on how to set up a new computer with Windows 10, disk clone is a better option. Here, we recommend you a handy disk cloning tool called AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Its high compatibility makes it outstanding among so many similar software on the market.

It's available to all editions of Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP/Vista systems as well as all kinds of hard drives. Besides, it supports cloning MBR to GPT easily, copying larger hard drive to smaller one, and more. Most importantly, it will never let you restart or reinstall the system again and again, which is a precious feature for hard drive cloning process.

The demo version will help you experience how to set up a new computer with Windows 11 or Windows 10 quickly and easily by cloning hard drive:

Step 1. Take out the system disk from your new PC and connect it to your old computer. Launch and open AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Go to "Clone" and "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk and click "Next".

Step 3. Select another drive as the destination disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to "Sector to Sector clone", and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to improve the reading and writing speed of the SSD. 

Step 5. After returning to the main interface, check the pending operation and click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.

Step 6. After finishing the disk clone, reinstall the cloned hard drive back to your new PC. Restart your new PC to get into BIOS setup, change the boot order and boot from the cloned disk, and then you will set up a new computer with the same settings as the original one.

Conclusion

How to set up a new computer with Windows 10? This passage has given detailed steps from five aspects. If you are the one who is not well organized, disk cloning should be the better choice to set up a new PC.

With the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, setting up a new computer is no longer a tricky task. In addition, this software allows you to migrate only OS from old PC to new PC, transfer User Profile to the new device, or move programs to another PC.