How often do people reinstall their operating system

AbsenceJam said:
Only when it breaks / new system.
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same here, i'd only reinstall if a driver (or other, spyware for example) has screwed the system.

i see no need in rebuilding every couple of months, tbh i have better things to do than regularly reinstalling windows and all my apps and changing my settings to how i had them before!
 
when i feel it's getting a bit slow or when i don't have any school work and can afford to risk losing work, so i never format between jan and june :p
 
Only when i do a major upgrade, i.e. every few years
It's just so much hassle moving mydocs, remembering which programs i need, where the discs/CDkeys are, copying my emails blah blah blah.
 
I've always reinstalled XP every six months or so, but I get the feeling that Vista can go longer without slowing down than XP could, so will probably leave my Vista install for at least a year...
 
Probably about every 4-6months on vista ultimate, actually xp was about the same. Although its just a case of rolling back to an image then updating windows plus a defrag. Usually do it to get rid of all the junk I accumulate on my windows drive, all my docs etc are on another drive.
Do a full install from scratch every 12 months with updated progs etc.
 
Would it be possible for someone to make a step by step guide of how they reinstall from beginning to end. So including the order in which they install drivers, updates, programs and what configuration they use for their set up. For example programs on a separate partition etc. Bascially an idiots guide to reformatting.

Thanks.
 
Recently ( for the past 6 to 8 months ) I have been going to Vista64 and back again to XP64 on my main rig because I want so much to go with Vista64 on that PC, but its just not good enough compared to XP64, not enough stuff works as good as it does with XP64, and surprisingly, I am also starting to find more software not working on Vista64 where its fine on XP64, so as of late, its a monthly task, but with fairly acceptable reasons.

My No.2 PC gets an F&R perhaps once every 3 to 6 months

My LAN PCs are done on Jan 1st every year.

The oldest setup I have that has not been reinstalled is my wifes old 486 but thats purely being kept as original as possible purely in a "I told you it can still do it" capacity ... And for a laugh. Its got Windows NT4 and is perfectly capable of accessing the internet just fine ( Sort of )
 
unclebob123 said:
Would it be possible for someone to make a step by step guide of how they reinstall from beginning to end. So including the order in which they install drivers, updates, programs and what configuration they use for their set up. For example programs on a separate partition etc. Bascially an idiots guide to reformatting.

Thanks.
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Everyones ideas are different.

Mine are simple

I have Windows on C: and only a few vital thigns go in there, such as the Anti-spy/virus / DeFragger / System tools and such, but NOTHING else

D: has my apps and games normally, Games I put in D:\Games\ and everythign else I usually change the C:\Program Files\ to simply D:\Program Files\

My C: is a 36GB Raptor, its currently got 29GB Fre on it ( Fresh install today funnily enough ) but even with Vista64, it had 17GB free.

My E: is always Media and F: always junk... Junk mostly being the contents of the My Docs folder that are older than a few days, so only the most used / recent stuff is in C:

I also have all my torrents downloads going to a seperate HD which I dont know why, but thats M: and my ISO Images for Daemons tools is T:.

I also setup my CD/DVD Drives in a similar manner too!

CDROM = Z:
CDRW = W:
DVDROM = R:
DVDRW = V:

Now, at this time, my No.1 PC has 3 DVDRW DRives and so, they re taking up R: V: and W: with my Daemon tools Drive being Z:
I also have a ZIP250 and thats on O:

I also have my directory structure laid out simply too!

Music for example ( Mostly MP3 of course ) are all

E:\ TYPE \ ARTIST \ ALBUM \ SONG

for example I could have

E:\OGG\Queen\Works\IwanttoBreakFree.OGG

Movies are similar :-

E:\Movies\AVI\DebbieDoesOCUK.AVI

or Home movies are slightly different as I need them organised a bit more with the date, this one is JAN-2006 ( Not going on the day )

E:\Movies\CAM\2006-01\Holiday in The sun.AVI

All fairly logical to me, and as all my PCs are setup in this way, I know that I can find any file anywhere on any of my PCs with out looking for it, and given that I have a few hundred thousand files on 14 PCs, and I can find any given file absolutely instantly, because I know where it will be purely on the structure of the directories, I think that this way does work.
 
FatRakoon said:
E:\Movies\AVI\DebbieDoesOCUK.AVI
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:D:D

You just put it in movies :eek:?
I hide 'that' stuff.



For me:

C: general rubbish, loads of apps, xp OS, hidden naughty films.
E: general rubbish, loads of apps, some games
H: 300gb of Films, naughty films2, some games
m: 200 gb of game backups, 230 gb of game installs, 60 gb of music
d: new 500gb hdd, any games/movies/music that dont fit on M and H go here, Vista OS
 
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I use to do it all the time with my bought xp pc ,was so easy to just reboot with the install cd but with my self build xp its a nightmare and don't plan to do it again unless I really have to !
 
Tripnologist said:
Once every year or so.
I just keep a ghost image with my core programs + updates installed so once that's been put on, I just need to install any new updates and any games I'm playing and away I go. Completely finished in less time than it would take just to format and install XP.
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Im thinking about doing it the easy way too, when I come to reinstall. Cos I have a image file of my drive C when I had just installed vista, apps and games. Ive copied all my games from drive d to my backup drive, so I can copy them back to drive D after restoring drive C.

Is it worth doing a low level format on both drives before restoring the data?
 
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Its not worth doing a Low level no. In fact, you should not need to ever do one.

Also, for what its worth, years ago, the debate of Ghosting vs customized install CDs came up and me and a mate gave each other a challenge... At the time, my setup was a Barton2500@3200 in an NF7S Mobo, and 2 basic IDE drives... I think the C: was a Maxtor 40GB and the D: was a 120GB Seagate, but Im probably wrong, and he said that he can restore his ghost image of XP and install all his drivers quicker than I can do a fresh install and install mine

He was wrong. Of course I had all my drivers intergrated into the install and he could easily have done that , but my full install from blank HD to ready to roll was 8 minutes, a further 5 minutes and I was playing UTClassic... Less than an hour later I had everythign all installed and running as it was before the challenge.

I dont bother ghosting - I find it useless and too much effort ,and the silly thing is, that I own 14 PCs so thats somehtjing that I could find useful, but I really cannot be bothered to do it... There is more fun in *** install.
 
FatRakoon said:
Its not worth doing a Low level no. In fact, you should not need to ever do one.

Also, for what its worth, years ago, the debate of Ghosting vs customized install CDs came up and me and a mate gave each other a challenge... At the time, my setup was a Barton2500@3200 in an NF7S Mobo, and 2 basic IDE drives... I think the C: was a Maxtor 40GB and the D: was a 120GB Seagate, but Im probably wrong, and he said that he can restore his ghost image of XP and install all his drivers quicker than I can do a fresh install and install mine

He was wrong. Of course I had all my drivers intergrated into the install and he could easily have done that , but my full install from blank HD to ready to roll was 8 minutes, a further 5 minutes and I was playing UTClassic... Less than an hour later I had everythign all installed and running as it was before the challenge.

I dont bother ghosting - I find it useless and too much effort ,and the silly thing is, that I own 14 PCs so thats somehtjing that I could find useful, but I really cannot be bothered to do it... There is more fun in *** install.
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Ghosting a cleanish hdd (windows + a driver pack+ some basic apps) takes 5 minutes :S. A new windows install takes 15mins ( from the mo u press a key ''to launch windows setup from cd'' + an hour more to install drivers, updates, apps, etc...

there is nothing fun in installing, I hate installing anything, utter waste of time, hence I never remove stuff, so I never have to reinstall it.
 
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snowdog said:
:D:D
You just put it in movies :eek:?
I hide 'that' stuff.
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Hide? Why? Do you share your PC with others? I hope you regularly clean out your 'Documents' shortcuts. ;)

If you share, you could always fully encrypt a Windows partition for yourself and dual boot. Separate user accounts work, but there can be 'leaks'. :p
 
No but got mates coming here sometimes and they like to hunt my pc for stuff...

They never looked in Windows/system32/some random subfolder though.
 
FatRakoon said:
Its not worth doing a Low level no. In fact, you should not need to ever do one.

Also, for what its worth, years ago, the debate of Ghosting vs customized install CDs came up and me and a mate gave each other a challenge... At the time, my setup was a Barton2500@3200 in an NF7S Mobo, and 2 basic IDE drives... I think the C: was a Maxtor 40GB and the D: was a 120GB Seagate, but Im probably wrong, and he said that he can restore his ghost image of XP and install all his drivers quicker than I can do a fresh install and install mine

He was wrong. Of course I had all my drivers intergrated into the install and he could easily have done that , but my full install from blank HD to ready to roll was 8 minutes, a further 5 minutes and I was playing UTClassic... Less than an hour later I had everythign all installed and running as it was before the challenge.

I dont bother ghosting - I find it useless and too much effort ,and the silly thing is, that I own 14 PCs so thats somehtjing that I could find useful, but I really cannot be bothered to do it... There is more fun in *** install.
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XP might have been approaching that quick but just getting Vista to acknowledge that you're trying to repair/install etc takes probably 5 minutes (is it slow for everyone else??) so reinstalling is just no fun at all.

Admittedly I find it easier now than when I had an NF4 board because I would invariably forget to download the latest nforce drivers so I'd have a bare XP install desparately in need of gfx drivers etc but not ethernet drivers to get onto the internet and find them with.

I also remember slapping my forehead and calling myself names when I thought I'd been clever and downloaded all the latest drivers for a superfast reinstall and then stores them all on my NAS drive therefore meaning once again I needed to go and find my mobo cd because I had no flaming ethernet drivers.

This doesn't appear to be an issue with intel chipsets but its never ever what I'd call fun... trawling through "software" folders to find winrar/office/AVG and then getting the newest version of itunes and then ading 50GB of music and oh.. no.. not ever if I can help it.

And I concur with those saying vista seems much harder to damage, I don't really notice any speed difference or incompatibilities in my move from xp32 to vista 64 (except that bloody xfi card) and I love vista to bits.

Really don't think I'll need to start afresh unless I get a virus or a broken hard drive or a bad driver really wrecks things but I've got confidence in vista that 9/10 times it'll be able to weather the storm :)
 
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