How often do you reformat your computer?

[Nothinman]

I do have backups but I don't ghost my drives.......never really tried.....I like the fresh install and have never lost anything that I needed yet...the problem with ghosts is that underlying problems can still exist after the ghosting process if your O/S was already developing problems....

You're supposed to make the image before you start introducing problems, otherwise there's no point.

Work machines are different.....they don't get abused nearly as much as home machines(in my experience). they are usually locked down as well to stop computer retards messing them up....

I'm on our network security team and I have local administrator access, I can do whatever I want to my work machine.

 

[meatyocre]

I used to format/reload XP Pro every 3-6 Months. now I am much more careful with downloading junk. I only use PB with OS-X to download now. My XP machine has had a good solid year with zero problems. A good maintenance schedule is helpful!

 

[Texun]

Not until I screw something up or have a major hardware upgrade. I would guess as often as 9 months and sometimes longer than a year. Since I started using FireFox and SpySweeper with AVG my system stays a lot cleaner. I scanned with SS for the first time in almost a month and came up with 0 bugs. I used to format every 6 months due to "Crud Creep," but I can now say that Windows runs the same way *every* time - no pun or sarcasm intended.

 

[joex444]

Haven't reinstalled Windows since April '04, and that was due to a new RAID chip on a new mobo (Athlon XP 3000+/400). Other Windows machine I did in June (Athlon 900), due to newly found hard drives (had 40GB, then added in a 20, 40, and 60, made it into a JBOD array with the onboard RAID and reinstalled on a "160"GB). Never reinstalled on the laptop (got it Jan '05). On my Linux one (Celeron 1100), which I've had for about 2 weeks working, I'd say 2 times. It crashed before install about 10 times, swapped mobo+cpu, still crashed, realized it was due to how I partitioned drives (had /boot on RAID1, put it on normal partition, then proceeded to make a RAID5 array at / -- three 20GB drives). Then, the 3 other Windows ones haven't been reinstalled in atleast 1 year (2x Celeron 1100; Athlon 1300). I have this problem where I have to use RAID, I don't know what it is. I think this adds up to 7 at my house... Note: The Celerons were free, I only bought the AMDs

As far as regular reinstall/reformats, I don't believe in them. I think that if you screw it up enough you'll have to, but its irregular. For some dang reason I don't get any viruses or malware, and I do the shadiest things without any anti-virus program. Amazing! Yeah, the registry gets larger and larger with install/uninstall, but it's not much larger, and I don't notice any performance decrease.

At work, I have Windows 2000 Server (P4 1.7 Socket 423) that I use every day and inherited from the previous worker in January (they literally just stopped showing up, no 'I quit' or anything). Best I can tell, it had been installed a couple years ago. Also have a 4 Processor Xeon with a 4 drive RAID5 SCSI and 2 drive RAID1 IDE with W2K Advanced Server that has never been reinstalled since we got it, some time ago -- the Xeons are 400MHz.

 

[Geforcer]

For me, it's usually 1 time a year, 2 at most. This year I've made an exception though Already did it about 5 times due to hardware issues.

 

[Stas]

i do it twice a day LOL

 

[fuzzynavel]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I do have backups but I don't ghost my drives.......never really tried.....I like the fresh install and have never lost anything that I needed yet...the problem with ghosts is that underlying problems can still exist after the ghosting process if your O/S was already developing problems....

You're supposed to make the image before you start introducing problems, otherwise there's no point.

Work machines are different.....they don't get abused nearly as much as home machines(in my experience). they are usually locked down as well to stop computer retards messing them up....

I'm on our network security team and I have local administrator access, I can do whatever I want to my work machine.

Valid points.....but if you ghost as a form of periodic backup then you may have the issues I described before. If you just have a nice clean install of your chosen OS then you may as well ghost it once you have all of the relevant updates.....that is one thing I haven't been bothered to do.....slipstream windows updates into my install....

I kinda guessed you would be some sort of computer admin from some of your previous posts.....nice having perks!!!

I'm just a lowly worker and locked down PC's annoy me...but I have worked with some strange people over the years who make me understand why this practice is in place!!

But as a network security dude you will have a fair knowledge of what you can and can't do......there won't be the curiosity of "what if I change these settings" because you will have done it all before and seen the results of other people doing it!!

Sounds like a fun job.....too bad I chose chemistry instead of carrying on with computer science at University!