Advantages of reformatting ?

NachT · 9 Jul 2008 at 16:51

A lot of people format / reinstall windows every now and then, even if it's not needed. Why do people do this? Does it speed anything up, any advantages?

Wouldn't a simple defrag / scan disk do the same?

bledd · 9 Jul 2008 at 16:56

speed increase

no ammount of defragging, removing temp files and registry cleaning will give the same result

also, the more people format, the better they tend to be at backing up (imo)

mr.sly · 9 Jul 2008 at 16:56

Placebo effect most of the time I would guess. Although when I used XP I did find it go progressively slower over time. I've not had that problem since switching to Vista though.

Burnsy2023 · 9 Jul 2008 at 17:03

As a general rule I don't; I don't see the need. Although Bledd has a point about backups

Burnsy

AbsenceJam · 9 Jul 2008 at 17:03

It's mostly placebo. You go from your current install to one with very few processes and then you slowly add stuff in so it's a gradual change. If your drive isn't fragmented and you keep track of services/startup items you're all good.
Excess registry entries and files make no difference.