Frequency of Clean Installs

I've only reformatted once, when my current HP desktop was ridiculously slow and I figured I'd never get to the bottom of the mess so I reformatted with the "recovery discs." After I deleted the HP bloatware (Norton 2003, AOL, lol), my boot times improved from 1 hour, to 40 seconds. Internet Explorer came up in 1 second instead of 2 minutes. I took an Acronis 7 image after I got everything to how I wanted, and I make a new image every month. If I ever need to nuke the system again, I won't have to deal with HP bloatware (or re-install SP2, various other windows updates, current drives/firmware, and finally my programs).

 

Once a year for me. I always do clean installs, never have used a "system restore" disk.

 

Never for me.

 

When I was using XP on my desktop it was each 2-3 months. Since I'm using Vista, I can't really say because I had to do it each month due to a messed up thing I did, such as changing HDD registries lol.

The next time will be when they release SP1. I don't know how it will turn out but so far Vista seems to take less harm from the time than XP.

 

once every 3-4 months. i sure wish windows didn't slow down with age. stupid registry.

 

Who the hell has the time to format once a month?

 

Is it normal for a Vista clean install to take only 40-45 minutes? Thats how long mine took.

 

Between 2001 and around 2004 I used to do a clean reinstall of Windows 2000 roughly every six months - not because there was actually any apparant need to, I just felt it was the easiest way to clean up the mess of applications, utilities, games, saved data and all sorts of crap I had lying around on my disks.

These days I absolutely hate doing a clean reinstall. The actual OS install obviously doesn't take long - but then there's all the basic OS tweaking and setup to be done, and then the really gruelling part, installing and configuring all your applications, restoring backups from external disks and a bunch of other small and large tasks before you feel the system is actually in a fully operational state again.
All in all I'm usually looking at at least 10+ annoying hours before I feel everything is back to normal (or at least I was with 2000, might be a quicker with Vista, though I doubt it's by much).

I guess I could cut many hours of that time by using image software, but somehow I've always managed to forget that, and it doesn't take many days after an install before it's really a bit too late for that - unless you want an image that's almost as cluttered and messy as you old installation .

So basically, these days I'm not inclined at all to reinstall unless something appears to have gone horribly wrong on an OS level and it doesn't seem to be fixable in any other way.
I've yet to experience that though, because the last three or four years I've had so much failed hardware that I've barely managed to go a full year with the same computer (or major hardware replacements like mainboards, CPU, harddisks etc.) .

 

Mine takes 25-35

XP SP0 was like 2 hours, SP2 was 50 minutes for me.

 

Clean installation is a pain in the neck. You have to reload all your programs and tweak again. I don't clean install anymore. I just do CCleaner and defrag.

 

Geez, Calvin, you just don't know what you're missing! You're missing some really great times, not reformatting and reinstalling Windows along with everyone else. See, that's what you get for living such a good, clean life. You should be thoroughly ashamed.


Edit: Forgot - I'm using an old machine which we've had about 3.5 years. Windows has been reinstalled twice.

 

Oh, ok so I am doing it right. XP used to actually take like an hour to delete everything on the drive. I noticed that with Vista it paused for a second and then went right to installing Vista, I wasn't sure if I had screwed something up or not.

 

Well if i get another desktop i might consider it, or maybe i'll do it with my xp.

 

I usually have separate partitions for windows and programs and data so can do clean installs once in a while.

However some programs even though they are mostly installed in programs partition still put some files in program folders in windows partition therefore if format windows partition and do clean install then would corrupt some of the programs.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

In addition, nearly all applications have entries in the registry, so after reinstalling the operating system those programs won't work anyway. Instead of using that approach, I recommend doing a fresh install, adding your favorite applications and drivers, and then making an image using BartPE and Drive Snapshot. I have a USB drive that I use expressly for that purpose. If I need to reinstall, I just restore the pristine image. After that, I visit Windows Update, install the latest and greatest, then make another image.

 

Vista & Linux only use quick format, XP gives you the choice. That's why. It would take about 5 seconds if you did a quick format too.

 

Ya, but wouldn't that leave little bits of files that cannot be overwritten behind?

 

I do an XP clean install whenever something major comes out...like SP3.

 

I wouldn't think so.

 

Interesting point.... the last new computer I got I just took the drive out of the 2 year old AMD computer and stuck it in the new Dell optiplex C2DUO and off I went. @ or 3 reboots, install some drivers, and I was back in action. That inmpressed me to a really scary degree. And it has been rock solid since.
It has been almost three years for my desktop. I keep threatening to do it, and then I get real work Since it is running quite well, I put off the reformat. On my laptop, I do not use it enough to warrant it. Mainly if I travel, and I HATE to travel. I do INTEND to use it for demo of my services, but that involves cold sales and... well, you know the story

I usually do a factory re-install just to see if it works when I get a laptop. I use XP no on both. I must say that XP has been remarkably free of the crap that used to mean a re-format in Win98. Really solid. And I put the darn computer thru some fairly serious install/un-install abuse. Every once in awhile, it does seem to get messed up, and I usually ignore it if at all possible, and it fixes itself. I find that un-installing AV and AS and maybe some other gunk in the system tray usually does the trick. Dave

 

Since receiving my laptop I've done a clean install 3 times, but it was due to Windows Update messing things up. Now I have everything figured out and a fresh image on my external HDD so I have no need to format more than once a year.

 

I try for somewhere between half a year to a year. When I was still using 98 I'd go for twice a year, but XP is pretty good at not crapping up, so I've been tempted to reformat less and less...

 

I simply use Acronis to bring the system to the pristine state it was at 2 weeks old or so. It takes about an hour with no babysitting required and my data unchanged on another partition.

 

I have an image of my OS and programs so if I am having problems its easier to simply restore the image. My Vista "user" folder is on the "d" drive so 99% of my application settings are restored automatically. Refreshing the image takaes about 15 minutes. I do this after I play around with a lot of different software. Its probably unnecessary but it helps me know exactly what I'm working with in case I have any problems.

BTW - I use Complete PC Backup and Restore in Windows Ultimate

 

You know, bc, I've tried that app - even bought version 9 or 10 (can't remember which for sure), but never was able to get it to work. Not sure if it's because there was something wrong with the program, my methods of use (very strong possibility LOL), or I'm just an idiot too dumb to be using modern programs.

 

It took 20 mins for me.

 

Once SP1 begins being built into Vista OS discs, I'll do another clean install with that. It probably won't be another year or so before I reformat again, unless something crazy goes wrong in between.

 

Ok, well I exaggerated if I was doing something wrong. It did in fact take more like 30 minutes for me.

 

I usually do a clean install once every 4-6 months because as usual windows slows down over time and the registry gets clogged with nonsense entries. I will be doing a clean install next month when SP1 is released.

 

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Were you having problems with the boot disc loading USB drivers and such?

 

Once a week, Why!?!?!?

 

He's a rookie . Maybe he just wants to .
Viruses can force you to format quite often.
I reformat whenever I am forced to (usually because I want to try something new, the Vista drive gets full or just want to).

 

I used to format my PC A LOT.

But that's how I learned to build and fix PC's.

Many times it was because of damn viruses that I downloaded (good old P2P days).
Or maybe because of new software that would just take over the OS and make it unstable.

With Vista, I stopped doing that. Replacing Hardware is much easier now since the OS will not crash as often as XP would when detecting new hardware changes (big changes such as a motherboard).

 

By doing a repair XP would work after a replaced motherboard, but still not the same thing.
Yes, Vista is much less sensitive about changed hardware (CPU + motherboard; had to change both and it still worked afterwards).

 

Yeah, at least Bittorrent is now way bigger than kazaa/emule so no more problems if you pay attention a bit to rhe comments.

And more, doing a XP repair takes longer than re-installing it lolé I must have did it 3 times and each time I had to reinstall after because it was so damn slow anyway

 

With XP I used to format every 2-3 month, but I find that now Vista doesn't slow down and degrade with time like XP does. I will however format when I get the Vista disk with SP1 built in. For now ccleaner and defrag works fine.