Emacs 24.3 on Windows, how to upgrade to the most recent version?

I'm a new Emacs user and I'm using Emacs 24.3 on Windows. I've already installed and configured some packages. Now I want to upgrade to 24.4, since I need some of the new features. How can I do that? Simply back up .emacs.d and remove everything in the emacs folder, then download and unpack emacs 24.4 and recover .emacs.d?