how often do you reinstall Windows XP?

[nikko]

After I do a reinstall of XP Pro, my computer runs great for a while. It boots up fast, it doesn't freeze, it doesn't give me weird error messages - basically, it works like it's supposed to. But invariably a couple months later, things start going downhill. Within six months, it's acting so tweaked out, that I feel compelled to do a reinstall because it's easier than trying to troubleshoot all the weird little things my OS starts to do.

Is that normal? How often do you guys reinstall? What, if anything, can I do to keep my OS happy and stable? I do the usual stuff like have a firewall up, and current antivirus and antispyware programs installed. But beyond that is there stuff I should be doing? How important is defragging? My current OS hard drive is 250 GB. It's pretty packed with data, so my free space sometimes gets to be as low as 1 or 2 gigs. Is that bad?

Finally, I'm about to do a new system build, so I'm wondering if it would be more efficient to have my OS and all program files on one smallish drive, while putting all my data on another drive. Would that help?

 

[hclarkjr]

i reinstall about every 6 months or so, more depending on how many motherboards i have bought lately others will tell you that you never to need to reformat and others will tell you that yes every 6 months or so is good. my personaly, i say every 6 months or so to keep registry cleaned up and keep that fresh install feel.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: nikko
After I do a reinstall of XP Pro, my computer runs great for a while. It boots up fast, it doesn't freeze, it doesn't give me weird error messages - basically, it works like it's supposed to. But invariably a couple months later, things start going downhill. Within six months, it's acting so tweaked out, that I feel compelled to do a reinstall because it's easier than trying to troubleshoot all the weird little things my OS starts to do.

Is that normal? How often do you guys reinstall? What, if anything, can I do to keep my OS happy and stable? I do the usual stuff like have a firewall up, and current antivirus and antispyware programs installed. But beyond that is there stuff I should be doing?

No, that's not normal (although you haven't really defined what it is that is making you want to reinstall). My main computer is going on almost two years with the same OS install (through a motherboard swap, no less), and it doesn't appear to have any stability problems. If you're into super-overclocking or install every beta driver and piece of software you can get your hands on, though, you're more likely to have problems.

How important is defragging? My current OS hard drive is 250 GB. It's pretty packed with data, so my free space sometimes gets to be as low as 1 or 2 gigs. Is that bad?

In terms of stability? No. It could be hurting performance if you are installing and uninstalling lots of things and developing a lot of fragmentation.

Finally, I'm about to do a new system build, so I'm wondering if it would be more efficient to have my OS and all program files on one smallish drive, while putting all my data on another drive. Would that help?

Keeping the OS on a separate partition makes it easier to reinstall, but it won't help you not screw up your system.

 

[narutofan36]

does reinsalling windows xp have any bad side effects? my friend tells me yes

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: narutofan36
does reinsalling windows xp have any bad side effects? my friend tells me yes

Other than using up a lot of your time and forcing you to reinstall all your security updates (and your programs unless you are doing a Repair Installation)? No.

 

[Bluestealth]

I can rebuild my windows system in 2 hours, nliteos + file backups 4tw. After a certain point it seems to refuse to shutdown/restart or there is some piece of malware that I cannot get rid of, or left my system damaged. Say 6 months to 1 year.

 

[MrChad]

I've had this current installation for years, and the only reason I reinstalled then was hard drive failure.

A properly maintained Windows install should last as long as your hardware does, with no loss in performance or stability.

 

[DasFox]

This is totally bogus, please then someone show some real actual proof to this, because I know Microsoft would never mention anything of the sort.

One if you know how to clean the system, check for corrupt or missing files, etc.., as well as knowing how to deal with the registry and clean it, clean up the system from spyware, malware, trojans, viruses, etc.. defrag and run other diagnostic checks, truth is you'd really never need to reinstall Windows.

People I don't mean to be down right rude, or anything, but if you know how to properly use certain tools, as long as you never have any hardware failure then you never need to reinstall Windows.

With the proper use of tools a Windows system can be made as squeaky clean as a fresh instal. Reinstalling all the time you're just wasting your time and not learning how to properly care for the system in the first place.

Now granted it depends how bad someone let the system get wrecked in the first place and if it became a real nightmare, then a reinstall would be simpler to deal with. But if you are letting the system get that out of hand then you need to learn to run and control it to not get to that point, so that in case you had a very huge amount of software installed, then doing a reinstall, getting the system back to the same working state, might be more of a pain.

Anyway you look at it there is no substitute for learning how to run the OS properly, so one never faces these problems unless there is a hardware failure.

Doing a reinstall for the sake of bad system maintenance is like saying instead of changing the oil, filters, sparkplugs, etc.. in a car engine, doing the preventive maintenance, I'll just buy a new engine every 10,000 miles to make tune ups easier.



ALOHA

 

[Fish11]

I wonder if reg cleaners are the cause of most of the problems? Seems like whenever I would help a friend they used reg cleaners and just deleted what it said. IMO, if you don't know how to manually clean your registry you shouldn't use any cleaners either as you don't know what you're deleting.

 

[DasFox]

Jv16 is very easy to use and doesn't mess up anything it is up to the user to make the choice as to what to do with the information it gives you. There are somethings it does that you can't do by hand manually.

The amount of time looking for broken entries in the entire registry by hand, I want to know that trick, LOL

ALOHA

 

[Fish11]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Jv16 is very easy to use and doesn't mess up anything it is up to the user to make the choice as to what to do with the information it gives you. There are somethings it does that you can't do by hand manually.

The amount of time looking for broken entries in the entire registry by hand, I want to know that trick, LOL

ALOHA

That's my point.

 

[DasFox]

What's your point?

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Fish11
I wonder if reg cleaners are the cause of most of the problems? Seems like whenever I would help a friend they used reg cleaners and just deleted what it said. IMO, if you don't know how to manually clean your registry you shouldn't use any cleaners either as you don't know what you're deleting.

Most registry cleaners are crap.

 

[nikko]

Originally posted by: DasFox
One if you know how to clean the system, check for corrupt or missing files, etc.., as well as knowing how to deal with the registry and clean it, clean up the system from spyware, malware, trojans, viruses, etc.. defrag and run other diagnostic checks, truth is you'd really never need to reinstall Windows.

People I don't mean to be down right rude, or anything, but if you know how to properly use certain tools, as long as you never have any hardware failure then you never need to reinstall Windows.

With the proper use of tools a Windows system can be made as squeaky clean as a fresh instal. Reinstalling all the time you're just wasting your time and not learning how to properly care for the system in the first place.

thanks for the feedback. so what tools are you talking about? how/where can i learn to "One if you know how to clean the system, check for corrupt or missing files, etc.., as well as knowing how to deal with the registry and clean it, clean up the system from spyware, malware, trojans, viruses, etc.. defrag and run other diagnostic checks"?

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: Fish11
I wonder if reg cleaners are the cause of most of the problems? Seems like whenever I would help a friend they used reg cleaners and just deleted what it said. IMO, if you don't know how to manually clean your registry you shouldn't use any cleaners either as you don't know what you're deleting.

All registry cleaners are crap.

Fixed that for you...

 

[mechBgon]

I reinstalled WinXP when I re-purposed my former work rig to be my home rig. After it's had a bit of confidential client info on it, it can't be disjoined from the domain and simply sent home to run around loose as a home computer. Not kosher. Time for DBAN.

I also burned my new work rig's Windows installation to the ground with DBAN after running a piece of slightly-questionable code... better safe than sorry. I'd done a SHIFT-DEL to perma-delete the sample, then hit ENTER to confirm that Yes I want to delete that, but for some reason the ENTER was interpreted as "run it!" D'oh!

The work rig's WinXP installation will probably get plowed under again whenever Vista comes out.

 

[DasFox]

Yes that is true most are, but jv16 PowerTools 1.4 is not crap. jv16 PowerTools happens to be a leader with Registry cleaning.

I have personally used it for the past 7 years it will not wreck anything. You first just need to understand what you are doing, afterall working in the registry is not a task for newbies and even if you had very little experience and you remove things, a backup registry file is created that you can simply click on and install the entries back into the regsitry, there is nothing simpler then this and that is not crap.

Talk facts just don't spout off nonsense, PLEASE help the OP to learn, show them something constructive, I am no newbie I have been in computing 20 years I know excatly what software is good and what is not.

I know just about every piece of software made for Windows and have probably used 25% of them.

ALOHA

 

[DasFox]

nikko you can do like you are doing and ask lots of questions, personally before fourms where big and around much at all, I use to surf all the software sites out there, Zdnet, Cnet, MajorGeeks, etc.. and more and more.

I read reviews in the magazines, and reviews at the software download places and any reviews I could find on Google and before long I started to learn what was popular and worked.

Then off course when something looked really interesting I just checked it out and installed it. Becoming a software junkie is one sure way you will learn by experience.

And after just doing something as simple as all of this in time you will be a pro too, it's not that difficult with the wealth of information out there to learn how to run your system and keep it going strong year after year.

ALOHA

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Yes that is true most are, but jv16 PowerTools 1.4 is not crap. jv16 PowerTools happens to be a leader with Registry cleaning.

I have personally used it for the past 7 years it will not wreck anything. You first just need to understand what you are doing, afterall working in the registry is not a task for newbies and even if you had very little experience and you remove things, a backup registry file is created that you can simply click on and install the entries back into the regsitry, there is nothing simpler then this and that is not crap.

Talk facts just don't spout off nonsense, PLEASE help the OP to learn, show them something constructive, I am no newbie I have been in computing 20 years I know excatly what software is good and what is not.

I know just about every piece of software made for Windows and have probably used 25% of them.

ALOHA

Do you have any concrete benchmarks showing performance improvements after using this jv16 software? Probably not, because most of them do nothing to improve performance, other than provide a vague notion of registry "cleanliness".

I've had to manually muck around in the registry before, but it's always been on an ad hoc basis. If you really need to modify the registry and you understand what you are doing, there's no need for any software other than regedit.exe.

 

[nweaver]

nice to see informed users talking about reg cleaners. I just don't trust them. You also don't need to clean the registry if you are running your machine correctly. it's like "a file cleaner to clean out files on the drive". no point, the only reason you would want to "clean" the registry is for a specific problem, with a specific fix. If your registy is getting bloated and full, I would point you to vmware and tell you not to bloat your main OS, and put all that 'l33t' freeware/shareware in a virtual os to eliminate problems.


so, bottom line for the OP never...if you reinstall more often, I would review your computing habits and fix those

 

[gsellis]

What MrChad, Stash, and nweaver said. Leave the reg cleaners off. Quit trying to fine tune it and everything will be stable. I have never had to reinstall a XP machine that I was not destructively testing. My main video editor has been running XP since day 1, and my backup editor has been running XP since release to manufacturing.

Consider turning on System File Protection if you are have files being 'replaced'. Leave the registry alone. Applications are going to uninstall their settings (or should) on removal. The registry is not a data store, so no application should be writing data to it. It they are, call the mfgr. If you think your user reg is too big, create a new user and delete the user and the profile. But big user registers are usually only a problem with roaming profiles if they do happen.

Black Viper = :thumbsdown: (He is trying to help, but it is all for naught and there are risks.)

 

[dclive]

Strongly agree - don't use registry "cleaners". They're a waste of time and do bad things.

I reinstall when I get new hardware, but only if I can't boot said new hardware with my old hard drives (or I don't feel like using Ghost to ghost from SCSI -> IDE or PATA -> SATA.) Otherwise, why reinstall?

 

[m3rcury]

Used to do it every few months on the family computer. Got sick of it, and put Ubuntu on it. Haven't had to touch it since (a year ago).

All the system is used for is email/surf/listen to mp3. Strange thing is that my parents actually prefer it to windows now.

 

[mordantmonkey]

i went two years without re-installing my OS, even then only because of a MOBO/CPU change. I've never cleaned the registry. however i always run a firewall, and NOD32 antivirus, and only install reputable programs. Also i use a second computer for daily crap(web, email, etc.)

 

[stash]

I have personally used it for the past 7 years it will not wreck anything. You first just need to understand what you are doing, afterall working in the registry is not a task for newbies and even if you had very little experience and you remove things, a backup registry file is created that you can simply click on and install the entries back into the regsitry, there is nothing simpler then this and that is not crap.

Talk facts just don't spout off nonsense, PLEASE help the OP to learn, show them something constructive, I am no newbie I have been in computing 20 years I know excatly what software is good and what is not.

Take your own advice. Please show us some concrete performance benchmarks that show a benefit from running a registry cleaner. Good luck.

Why good luck? Because you will not see any significant or noticable performance increase from removing registry entries. You just won't.

Not to mention that HOW these things work is almost completely arbitrary, because it has to be. How does a program know what registry entries are unneeded? You'll definitely see some noticable performance changes when the tool delete an 'unnecessary' value that causes an application (or worse) to stop working.

Just take a second and think about this logically. The registry is a database with literally thousands and thousands of keys, values, etc. Removing a few things here and there is not going to do jack.