I love me some freshly washed Windows (do Mac OSX users do the same?)

[MrSquished]

Had a high-end laptop's SSD hard drive die on me so I bought a new one and replaced it this past month. Re-installed Windows 10 and boy that thing is snappy now. It was just over 2 years old and I had not re-installed Windows since. It was snappy before but now it's noticeably snappier.

So since I was re-installing on the laptop, figured I'd give my almost 1 year old high-end custom self-built PC the same love. Adobe lightroom had gotten sluggish for some time, and Chrome was acting up too. Re-installing those apps didn't do the trick. So I gave my SSD desktop drive the fresh WIndows 10 re-install and it is even more noticeably snappier than the fresh OS on the laptop. It's obviously higher end components vs the laptop as well. Lightroom and Chrome are behaving very well. So lovely!

I didn't think you had to re-install windows on SSD's often at all vs a mechanical drive. But I was wrong. Do you guys with SSD's give Windows some fresh install love every so often? How often?

Also Mac OSX users, do you guys do fresh installs of your OS every so often? Do you notice your puter getting sluggish after some time even with SSD's running the OS?

 

[lxskllr]

Gnu/linux doesn't appear to benefit from a fresh install. My work machine has an install that's been upgraded twice since 2012, and started life as a netbook. It works as well as day one.

 

[Eug]

With SSDs it's fine, but I find that's the case with both Windows and Mac OS X... errr... macOS.

But for Windows 10 I had to do a fresh install because the updates didn't go perfectly, and it was a good time to eliminate all the extra junk anyway. Mind you, my Windows machines don't see heavy use, so perhaps I would not notice it as quickly.

Was your SSD's partition properly aligned before? Cuz if you had cloned a HD to SSD, your partition may have been misaligned, meaning slower performance. Reinstalling the OS may mean properly aligning it too.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Had a high-end laptop's SSD hard drive die on me so I bought a new one and replaced it this past month. Re-installed Windows 10 and boy that thing is snappy now. It was just over 2 years old and I had not re-installed Windows since. It was snappy before but now it's noticeably snappier.

I have a question, was it running Win10 originally? Or some other version of Windows? Reason I ask is, I thought that the Anniv. Edition (1607) only just came out in Aug., at the one-year Anniv. of the release of Win10.

Also, I've read quite a few reports that Win10 (especially 1511) is "snappier" than prior OSes. I think I believe that too, I've test-installed it on my C-60 mini-PCs, and once the initial install settled down, it seemed a bit better than Win7 64-bit was on the same hardware.

So, perhaps more was at play here, than simply the "freshness" of your Windows install.

 

[Carson Dyle]

For old and sluggish hardware, there may be some benefit. My current desktop system is getting on four years old and I've installed, uninstalled, upgraded software continuously during that time and it feels just as fast now as it did when new.

Any system that's used extensively over a period of time is a royal pain to start over from scratch. So much software, so much customization, plugins, themes, tweaks. It would take me weeks to get this system back to anything like its current state, and I'd be sure to miss a lot of things.

 

[Eug]

I have a question, was it running Win10 originally? Or some other version of Windows? Reason I ask is, I thought that the Anniv. Edition (1607) only just came out in Aug., at the one-year Anniv. of the release of Win10.

Also, I've read quite a few reports that Win10 (especially 1511) is "snappier" than prior OSes. I think I believe that too, I've test-installed it on my C-60 mini-PCs, and once the initial install settled down, it seemed a bit better than Win7 64-bit was on the same hardware.

So, perhaps more was at play here, than simply the "freshness" of your Windows install.

Not sure if 1511 is faster than earlier versions of Win 10. Is it?

Certainly it's a lot less buggy though. The launch version of Win 10 was a buggy mess.

 

[MrSquished]

I have a question, was it running Win10 originally? Or some other version of Windows? Reason I ask is, I thought that the Anniv. Edition (1607) only just came out in Aug., at the one-year Anniv. of the release of Win10.

The laptop, a Dell XPS Touch 15, came with Windows 8 and then got the free upgrade to Windows 10. The desktop was built early February of this year. It had been running Windows 7. I bought and paid for a Windows 10 license and installed that fresh on the new desktop build.

Was your SSD's partition properly aligned before? Cuz if you had cloned a HD to SSD, your partition may have been misaligned, meaning slower performance. Reinstalling the OS may mean properly aligning it too.

Maybe that's part of it. see above. The desktop SSD was never partitioned though. However the laptop SSD I partitioned when I got it on Windows 8. This time though I kept the laptop SSD unpartitioned. I read there was little to no benefit from partitioning SSD's.

 

[Eug]

The laptop, a Dell XPS Touch 15, came with Windows 8 and then got the free upgrade to Windows 10. The desktop was built early February of this year. It had been running Windows 7. I bought and paid for a Windows 10 license and installed that fresh on the new desktop build.




Maybe that's part of it. see above. The desktop SSD was never partitioned though. However the laptop SSD I partitioned when I got it on Windows 8. This time though I kept the laptop SSD unpartitioned. I read there was little to no benefit from partitioning SSD's.

That's not what I meant. I'm no expert but...

You still have to partition a drive to use it, even if it's just one single partition that uses up the entire drive.

There are different optimal partition alignments depending upon the type of drive. If you are upgrading a platter drive install to an SSD, and you do a direct clone, you nay also copy the same partition alignment too. That would be bad because it would slow the performance of the SSD significantly (although it would otherwise work fine). If you did a repartition and clean install though, it would automagically align the partition correctly for SSD's maximum performance.

http://lifehacker.com/5837769/make-...ned-for-optimal-solid-state-drive-performance

 

[VirtualLarry]

Maybe that's part of it. see above. The desktop SSD was never partitioned though. However the laptop SSD I partitioned when I got it on Windows 8. This time though I kept the laptop SSD unpartitioned. I read there was little to no benefit from partitioning SSD's.

Uhm, all "Fixed Disks" have to have a "Partition Table". Just because you never manually split it up into different volumes, doesn't mean that your disks don't have partitions.

 

[MrSquished]

my bad. Both SSD's have a single partition now then. Before the laptop SSD had two partitions, the desktop SSD only had one. I never cloned anything.

 

[Kaido]

Yeah, reformat at least annually. With Windows it's more like at least a couple times a year. From a USB stick with Win10 to an SSD, the install is pretty quick these days.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Gnu/linux doesn't appear to benefit from a fresh install. My work machine has an install that's been upgraded twice since 2012, and started life as a netbook. It works as well as day one.

Yeah I find Linux installs don't not get "old and used up" like windows does. Windows seems to get clogged up over time and just overall slower and fatter. Like you can trim 10's of gigs by simply doing a reinstall and reinstalling all the programs you had before. It's weird.

I still have a Fedora Core 9 install from like 2008 running lol. The yum repos are long gone and I can't even update it anymore but it just chugs along. I really need to migrate that stuff to a new system, but I just never get around to it. 858 days of uptime lol. Even when I do migrate stuff off it, I almost don't want to turn it off.

I did have a server that pushed like 1200 days of uptime once though, but it went down due to a UPS issue. This one was at a data centre.

To be fair Windows has gotten better, in the win98 days I had to reinstall almost monthly. It would just get really slow and start crashing a lot for no reason. Win2k is still the best Windows OS ever.

 

[MrSquished]

Yeah, reformat at least annually. With Windows it's more like at least a couple times a year. From a USB stick with Win10 to an SSD, the install is pretty quick these days.

Agreed. That's what I did. USB stick to both laptop and desktop. It was the fastest install of Windows I've ever seen. It felt like 5 minutes. It was like Donald Trump's sex life.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wait Windows finally supports installing from a USB stick now? About time lol. I hate dealing with optical drives/discs.

 

[MrSquished]

Wait Windows finally supports installing from a USB stick now? About time lol. I hate dealing with optical drives/discs.

Hellz yeah it does. A few clicks from a Google and I was downloading Windows 10 to a thumb drive. They have to, a lot of laptops these days are lacking an optical drive.

 

[Rubycon]

Wait Windows finally supports installing from a USB stick now? About time lol. I hate dealing with optical drives/discs.

Since about 2007 IIRC.
It makes slipstreaming so much easier too.
No more multi session discs.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Yea, I don't do fresh installs unless absolutely necessary. If I have 'slugishness' I figure out what is causing it and fix it. Usually takes less time than a reinstall + everything else.

Also why I am not a fan of in place OS upgrades to completely different versions. I'd rather just build a new computer fresh with the new OS and use it for whatever I'm doing.

But then, that is if you actually use it for things other than web browsing and odd end menial tasks.

 

[Kaido]

Wait Windows finally supports installing from a USB stick now? About time lol. I hate dealing with optical drives/discs.

For Windows 7 & Server 2008, you can use the official Windows USB/DVD tool to write the ISO of your disc to a USB key: (use ImgBurn to rip the DVD to ISO first)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

For Windows 10, that tool includes a copy of Win10 via streaming download, no ISO required. For reference, the activation method takes your key & puts it into an online database matched to your hardware set, so they don't care about physical discs anymore because once your computer is registered, all you need to reinstall is the stick & it will auto-activate:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/

I recommend a fast USB 3.0 stick to speed up installation. USB 2.0 can be really slow & 3.0 sticks are cheap these days. I keep a metal one (waterproof, shockproof, magnet-proof, temp-proof, x-ray proof, 5-year warranty) on my keychain; $29 shipped on Amazon for a huge (128-gig), brand-name (Samsung) stick off Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-128GB-Flash-MUF-128BA-AM/dp/B017DH3NOW/

If you want to do older operating systems or have multiple ISO files available to install via USB, you can get an optical disk emulator, which is basically a portable USB drive with some fancy software that fools your computer into thinking a selected ISO file is an actual disc (very useful for older systems that want to boot off a CD instead of USB). I have a USB 3.0 Zalman; they sell the empty case for $45:

https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-VE350-External-Enclosure-ZM-V350B/dp/B019C23H06

Just add a HDD (recommend SSD tho, even a small cheap 120-gig SSD will cover all versions of Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.).

 

[Kaido]

Yea, I don't do fresh installs unless absolutely necessary. If I have 'slugishness' I figure out what is causing it and fix it. Usually takes less time than a reinstall + everything else.

Typically what I do is:

1. Install the OS
2. Install the drivers
3. Install the OS updates
4. Optionally, install, activate, and update the apps (Chrome, Office, etc.)
5. Use Macrium Free (the new Norton Ghost) to clone the system to an image

That way, you get a master image that you're comfortable with. Sometimes I'll do a bare master image & then a second one loaded with apps, because if it's been awhile since I re-installed, I may not want the default suite of apps anymore & it's better to go with a bare image (rather than doing a fresh Windows install, having to scrounge up the drivers again, wait for updates, etc.). That way you're only doing system updates between the time of your image creation & now, which saves some time. Plus restore is quick because you can do it via USB or a HDD dock or whatever.

 

[SearchMaster]

My MacBook Pro 13" from late 2011 has gone Lion -> Mountain Lion -> Mavericks -> Yosemite -> El Capitan -> Sierra. I can't say I've noticed any slowdowns at any point (though it did need a bump from 4GB to 16GB immediately after purchase). I probably wouldn't have even gone through the upgrade process but it's pretty much required if you do iOS development (they'll introduce new versions of XCode that won't run on older versions of the Mac O/S).

 

[purbeast0]

I've been through 2 Hackintoshes and never once had to reformat because things were slowing down. I've been on a MacBook Pro for almost a year now and it's just as speedy today as it was the day I purchased it. It's pretty incredible to think that I can boot the laptop and it's up and running in 9-10 seconds, with all apps loaded up that were running when I shut down. And these aren't notepad type of applications, it's strictly development tools + chrome and irc.

 

[purbeast0]

My MacBook Pro 13" from late 2011 has gone Lion -> Mountain Lion -> Mavericks -> Yosemite -> El Capitan -> Sierra. I can't say I've noticed any slowdowns at any point (though it did need a bump from 4GB to 16GB immediately after purchase). I probably wouldn't have even gone through the upgrade process but it's pretty much required if you do iOS development (they'll introduce new versions of XCode that won't run on older versions of the Mac O/S).

How you could develop on a 13" screen baffles my mind!

 

[PricklyPete]

How you could develop on a 13" screen baffles my mind!

Agreed.

I'm on MacOS as well. Current laptop is over 4 years old (original MBP Retina), and I have never noticed a slow down (now on latest operating system and the computer is snappy as ever).

 

[Eug]

Yea, I don't do fresh installs unless absolutely necessary. If I have 'slugishness' I figure out what is causing it and fix it. Usually takes less time than a reinstall + everything else.

Also why I am not a fan of in place OS upgrades to completely different versions. I'd rather just build a new computer fresh with the new OS and use it for whatever I'm doing.

But then, that is if you actually use it for things other than web browsing and odd end menial tasks.

On my desktop I was on Win 7 from 2010 to 2016. I think I may have reinstalled once after swapping in a video card, back in 2013 or something like that. The video card worked fine without reinstalling the OS, but I had some Netflix performance issues and I couldn't figure out why, so I just tried a fresh install. Didn't help. (I had the Netflix issues both before that video card install and after.) It turned out the culprit was AMD's Cool 'n' Quiet. Turned that off and Netflix stopped stuttering. Took me a friggin' YEAR to figure that one out.

I re-installed fresh though when I upgraded to Windows 10 in 2016.

 

[SearchMaster]

How you could develop on a 13" screen baffles my mind!

I'm a warrior!

But I might upgrade before year end anyway.