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how often do you re-install your OS ?

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I'm a re-install junkie. I know how my computers are supposed to perform and the second things go wrong I reinstall.

I just switch back to Windows 2000 from XP because of all the problems I had with XP and now that I reinstalled 2000 it runs like a champ again. (also product activation sucks)

I do run a RAID configuration so that comes into the equation, I think XP would have worked out a whole lot better if I didn't use RAID.
 
yeah i am a bit neurotic about the performance of my system,
the slightest problem, that can even have no baring what so ever on my use, but i HAVE to fix it!!

so when irregular feezing results for no apparent reason, i head down the re-install path...

what do you use Mem ?? ontrack ??
never heard of it ??
worth it hey ??


how doe it work/ what does it do exactly ??

 
i couldnt give an accurate answer because i tend to 'move up' before i need to reinstall.

got my first "real" computer (i.e. not a 386 with DOS 😉) about a year ago now, installed win98se, after maybe a month i got win2k and installed that, i ended up reinstalling win2k a couple of times over the proceeding 6 months, and by the end of that 6 months i had played with redhat for a while and installed debian. that was last winter, and since then (past 6 months or so) i've been using nothing but debian. for the time being, it is great. i'm sure it will be my OS of choice for quite a while to come. but once i build up a fleet of computers i will be playing with many things. openbsd, qnx, osx, and gentoo come to mind. hey what can i say, i'm a busy guy 😉 (i've been working on McData lately 😀)
 
Compaq and Sun both have 800Mhz+ chips and you can install NT 4 and Win2K (up to RC3) on Alphas, I had it on mine for a bit just to see it run. I currrently have Debian GNU/Linux on it and with over 5000 apps in their distro I'd say that's plenty general use for me =)
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Ok, here is a more general use for me: play Soldier of Fortune2, Counter-Strike and Operation Flashpoint without rebooting the machine.

Can the Alpha or Sun do that? No.

If I didn't play games, I wouldn't care much about processor upgrades or which chip they run on. But because I tend to play a lot of Win32 based games, I support what will run my applications well on a day to day basis.

Take games out of the equation, I'd be running some other OS and processor for sure.

vash
 
Ok, here is a more general use for me: play Soldier of Fortune2, Counter-Strike and Operation Flashpoint without rebooting the machine.

Can the Alpha or Sun do that? No.
Click to expand...

The Alpha might. Win2K has built in 32-bit PE executable support, and NT 4 has FX!32 for it. The only real problem would be finding drivers for a fast video card.

Take games out of the equation, I'd be running some other OS and processor for sure.
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So get a PS/2 so you can buy a real PC =)
 
thanx Mem , its got heaps and heaps of options and stuff hey


if i get that, and use it with Norton Ghost (so i can reqlly fiddle with it) my OS should be rock solid
*fingers crossed*


hey to everyone, the poll here is very different to what i got from a poll in overclockers

their i got 2-4 months being the most popular and here 12+ months

curious......

 
The Alpha might. Win2K has built in 32-bit PE executable support, and NT 4 has FX!32 for it. The only real problem would be finding drivers for a fast video card.

Take games out of the equation, I'd be running some other OS and processor for sure.
Click to expand...

So get a PS/2 so you can buy a real PC =)
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Alpha won't run the games, even in emulation, fast enough for me to play competitvely, let alone stable. Also, video drivers, for an Nvidia card, aren't available on the Alpha, so its pretty useless for a gaming machine. If I had a Matrox card, its a different story, but I don't know if the latest Matrox cards have Alpha versions. Last, but not least, Win2k doesn't support Alpha or MIPS. NT4 is outdated and dead for what I want in terms of hardware support, so I don't plan on going backwards.

For someone who knows true, workstation level processors, you know little of how to get a Win32 game running at good speeds. 🙂 People, like me, need to be able to do it all: game and work. To do those two things well, I need a processor that can do them well. Alpha, MIPS, and Sun do NOT cut it.

When we talk a database server, or a rendering farm, then we can talk non-x86 processors.

vash
 
Alpha won't run the games, even in emulation, fast enough for me to play competitvely, let alone stable.
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Maybe, maybe not. All the games you mentioned are quake derivatives and as such use OpenGL so they'd run fine in NT 4 =)

Also, video drivers, for an Nvidia card, aren't available on the Alpha, so its pretty useless for a gaming machine
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Honestly a 64-bit chip for any 'gaming machine' is pointless.

Last, but not least, Win2k doesn't support Alpha or MIPS. NT4 is outdated and dead for what I want in terms of hardware support, so I don't plan on going backwards.
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Win2K installs and runs on Alpha up to RC2, infact my PWS600au came with Win2K on it.

For someone who knows true, workstation level processors, you know little of how to get a Win32 game running at good speeds
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The only games I play are Q3 and CivIII and they both run great for me.
 
If an image counts,... I set up me computer with all the programs I use a lot then make an image. After I try several programs and decide to keep any, I will reimage, install the programs I like, and then ,ake a new image. Usually I do this about every six months.

I reimage the computers at work every six or eight months or when a new person starts.


Regards,
NoLegs
 
I say yes, a reimage counts. Because all you're doing is making the reinstall less painless. You're still reverting to an earlier state because you broke something.
 
Originally posted by: KouklatheCat
Before I got my wife her own computer I was having to reinstall ever couple of months. With all the crap she downloads and installs.....GRRRRRRRRRR
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He He....Let me guess, The programs wouldn't happen to be AOL, Yahoo, and MSN messenger would they? I go through the same thing as you.

😉
 
Maybe, maybe not. All the games you mentioned are quake derivatives and as such use OpenGL so they'd run fine in NT 4 =)
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Hrm, not all of those games work on OpenGL. Operation Flashpoint is NOT OpenGL at all. Half-Life and Alpha don't mix, I've tried and it bombs. Have you actually ran games other than Quake3 and Civ? Operation Flashpoint and Unreal Tournament, along with the vast majority of DX8 games will not run under NT4. With NT4, I'm limited by the titles I play/use. You're not a competitive gamer, its not a big deal to you, but it is to me.

Honestly a 64-bit chip for any 'gaming machine' is pointless. Win2K installs and runs on Alpha up to RC2, infact my PWS600au came with Win2K on it. The only games I play are Q3 and CivIII and they both run great for me.
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Yes, I have agreed that a 64bit chip will be gaming pointlessness -- but I want the 64-bit chip for something I can do later, not NOW. Games are what I play NOW and I also work on things that do benefit from 64bits. Next generation games are going to utilize some serious power, I wouldn't be surprised of some of those games are going to be utilizing 64 bits.

Win2k installs on Alpha up to RC2, but I'm stuck with that OS and nothing more. Sure, RC2 is stable, but what if one of my COM objects only works with a released version of Win2k? Where am I? Stuck up a creek without a paddle.

What I need is a gaming processor that can do everything I want NOW and everything later. Hammer is it, I'm going to buy that chip to run games and workstation level applications. I'm not going to screw around with a beta OS, or a *nix OS when I can have something that is tested, released, supported AND runs everything I want, along with my employer.

When that happens, call me with your Sun/Alpha/MIPS/CISC solution. Until then, x86 just plain owns.

vash
 
Win2K, about once every year on avarge I'd say.
I tend to treat Windows rather badly(as in install and uninstalling loads of programs and such), which Windows doesn't allways appreciate, especially not in the long run.

Debian, dont know, haven't yet.
 
Operation Flashpoint is NOT OpenGL at all. Half-Life and Alpha don't mix, I've tried and it bombs. Have you actually ran games other than Quake3 and Civ? Operation Flashpoint and Unreal Tournament, along with the vast majority of DX8 games will not run under NT4. With NT4, I'm limited by the titles I play/use. You're not a competitive gamer, its not a big deal to you, but it is to me.
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The way you typed it I thought OF was a subset of CS or HL, sorry. I know DX8 won't work on NT4, I never said it would. The other games you mentioned were OGL which would be fine in NT4.

At this point I'm just playing devils advocate, I know how dumb it would be to get an Alpha for games =)

I also work on things that do benefit from 64bits. Next generation games are going to utilize some serious power, I wouldn't be surprised of some of those games are going to be utilizing 64 bits.
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you can do 64-bit (even higher precision I think) math with current chips. The only thing a 64-bit chip gets you is a bigger per-process address space, 2G can be limiting to some apps but not many and if yun Win2K AS (I think you need AS) you can make it a 3/1 split instead of 2/2 to squeez out 3G per process.

And for the record, x86 chips 'owns' at nothing, except being cheap.
 
TextAnd for the record, x86 chips 'owns' at nothing, except being cheap.
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Well, you have to admit, they are rather impressive in uni processor performance, overtaking most RISC chips these days.

Scalability is another matter though 😉
 
basically never, only 2 times:
-P1 hard drive formatted itself somehow, i put RedHat 6.1 and now it wont load into X and mobo won't recognize other hard drives so now it's garbage (i suspect magnets had a role in this)
-Celeron 500 just suddenly started to boot into a screen with symbols like (*^#($U@(&*$#$ so i installed Linux Mandrake 8.0 and it works beautifuly.

my current computer has WinXP on it and it's fine so i won't f*** with it. my 80386 has Win3.1 and it never crashes and MS Word works perfectly and the printer works so i won't f*** with it.

if it ain't broken yet, don't f*** with it 🙂
 
After I upgraded to W2K from Win 98 SE first 3 or 4 months I had to re-install W2K like 20+ times but now it is stable so I am not sure if I need to re-install again in the future unless it corrupts files.
 
I did it 3 times this past week alone because my system is freezing and crashing.
Took a few bios flashes and install, still breaking it in and hoping its stable.
I have a slipstreamed cd and all my programs sits on one cd so it doesn't takes long, also have a seperate install partition.
 
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