Alternative to formatting & going through the whole LONG windows/drivers/apps install process
This is what Ghost & Drive Image Pro are for.
(i used to use ghost, but ive recently switched to PQ Drive Image 2002 6.0 and Im VERY pleased with it)
Partition your hdd in at least 2 partitions.
Install windows on drive c: (clean install) with no drivers installed.
Install all your apps on drive d (or any other partition other than c)
Make an "image" of your clean install of windows.
Anytime you want a clean install of windows, for troubleshooting or whatever, just restore your clean image & install whatever drivers you like.
(takes about 4min to restore an image on my rig)
You wont lose your games/apps cuz theyre on a different partition than windows.
Although, sometimes youve gotta re-install a game overtop of itself cuz it needs to have its keys installed in the registry on drive c:.
USUALLY you dont lose any of your savegames by doing this.
Or you can save the registry keys as you install your apps & keep them in a folder, so you can "merge" them into the clean registry when you do a clean install(image restore).
Then just create shortcuts of the apps .exe files.
Actually, none of this is near as complicated as it sounds.
And after some practice, youll wonder how you ever lived without being able to image your hdd.
To me (and many others) , its always nice to know that everything is "right" & there isnt any "old" crap left over in your registry that could cause problems when constantly trying different detonator drivers, catalyst drivers etc..
And i like to do a "clean install" (image restore) every 3 months or so, just to keep my systems running clean.
I keep these following images on my systems.
Image 1 - Clean install of WinXp / NO UPDATES / NO DRIVERS (kept this until im sure im happy with SP1..lol)
Image 2 - Clean Install of WinXP / ALL UPDATES / NO DRIVERS
Image 3 - Clean Install WinXp / ALL UPDATES/ ALL DRIVERS / ALL MY EMAIL & PROGGIES I ALWAYS USE / No games.
Image 4 - Clean Install of WINXP / ALL UPDATES / ALL DRIVERS/ ALL MY STUFF INSTALLED
( i replace this with a new one every couple of weeks as since im constantly installing/uninstalling games & apps)
My setup:
Drive c: WinXP
Drive d: My downloads folder, my backup folder with all my drivers, wallpaper,benchmark proggies, kazaa, clone cd & anything else i wanna "KEEP".
Drive e: GAMES ONLY
Drive f: CDRW
Drive g: DVD
Of course im now running 2 x 80gb hdds so i have enough space for all these images.
I know it seems like alot, but its actually SOOOOOOO much easier to keep your system running flawlessly & organized like this , than it is with only 1 partition with no backup images to help ya troubleshoot.
Also, it helps if a virus would happen to get past your anti-virus stuff, or your registry got corrupted or any other system crippling thing ya can think of that would require hrs of troubleshooting or re-installing windows.
Normal way = About an entire day formatting & re-installing all your stuff.
My way =
4 min , im back at the desktop smiling like nothing ever happened. LOL
Sheesh...did i just type all that crap just cuz I had a "thought"...