Wolfie00
My dog is an elitist
Premium
join:2005-03-12
1 edit | reply to dave
Re: [XPHome] How often do you do a clean install?
said by dave  :one of the shortest between Windows releases Not hardly. Only the Vista release and the Win2000 release took longer, and they were both celebrated disaster areas. OK, this is one of those very rare occasions where I'm going to argue with you, but I acknowledge that you're technically correct, and I shouldn't have made that insupportable statement about the short timeframe between Vista and 7 -- but I do have an explanation!  My major point -- about the incredible longevity of Windows XP, which continues to survive despite Vista and may indeed survive Windows 7 -- remains.
Herewith Wolfie's history of those aforementioned OS's!
My explanation is that all those short release cycles were special cases. NT 3.5 followed on a completely new and incredibly ambitious OS architecture in 3.1, the likes of which had never been done on a PC before. 3.51 was essentially a service pack. 4.0 was accelerated by huge pressure to replace the clunky GUI with one that conformed to Windows 95, which is probably why it was rushed. Windows 2000 took a good respectable timeframe.
Win XP followed fairly soon only because Windows 2000 was an interim release that had been intended for, but then pulled back from, the consumer market. It was in no way a "disaster" -- it was a terrific OS -- the foundation of XP -- but not fully-featured enough for the consumer market. Once 2000 evolved into XP, it was a stellar OS that was hard -- virtually impossible -- to beat, and Microsoft fiddled with elaborate and ultimately doomed plans for years trying to invent killer new features, and finally introduced a steaming pile called Vista that had virtually none, and merely worked moderately well except for requiring 8 times the memory and being incompatible with a lot of stuff. The "moderate" release timeframe between Vista and 7 IMHO was that it was as fast as Microsoft could transform the steaming pile into something that people might actually pay money for again! 
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mike31mets
join:2004-10-30
Bronx, NY
1 edit | Vista runs great for a lot of people and was a lot more stable out the box than XP was. If your measure for success is adoption of an OS, than Vista is doing better at this point in time than when XP was released despite the circumstances (such as XP having to compete with 2000). It will be interesting to see how Windows 7 fares when it is released. If people don't like Vista because of how the 'interface' was changed, I can't fanthom how they will like Windows 7 (which btw I like) despite the positive reviews. In fact I wouldn't be all that surprised that Win7 will be competing with Vista for a few years for the simple reason that Vista resembles XP more in interface than Win7 does.
EDIT: link to story »www.informationweek.com/news/win···07600845 |
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Loco
Premium
join:2002-11-09
So Cal | reply to lmacmil
I always keep a "Ghost" image of my hard drives....for every pc that i own, up on my server.
Re-installs take only minutes. |
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not quite right
I'm not cool enough to be a Mac person
join:2001-06-23
Puyallup, WA
| reply to BoulderHill1
said by BoulderHill1 :said by dave :said by not quite right : Never quite understood why people will put up with a poorly running machine, or spend 10 times longer trying to fix a hosed install. Never quite understood why people think systems run poorly if they're not frequently reinstalled, or why people so readily decide to reinstall without even understanding the problem first. I think there is an assumption here that people "think systems run poorly if not frequently reinstalled". That is not the case. The system runs poorly for other reasons such as it has been jacked with, infected with some sort of malware/scareware, major settings tampered with, etc.. As Not Quite Right said, why spend all that time trying to fix a hosed install that in most cases never really fixes the problem, when one can save all personal data, wipe the drive and reinstall th OS in 1/10th the time. I have in the past done all the typical things one would do to "fix" infected, compromised or otherwised hosed machines such as running the whole battery of AV scanners, spyware tools, HiJackThis, etc. only to lose hours and hours of time and still have a machine that does not work properly. I do this on a regular basis for my customers. They will bring me a machine that has been compromised in one way or another, typically due to some sort of malware infection. I will invariably ask them what personal data they have on the machine that they do not want to lose. Then the typical repair route is to backup that data, wipe the drive, reinstall the OS and other software and updates, and then restore personal data. Customer recieves back a machine that I am completly confident will work and work as it should. All this for $50.00 Thank You! ..... at least someone got the point I was trying to get across. Believe me when I say I've seen more poorly running machines than I ever have good running ones.
You power users have to realize you are not the norm, and I wasn't really talking to you.
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"Not many people know this, but I happen to be quite famous." |
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cork1958
Cork
join:2000-02-26
Fruitport, MI
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Charter Pipeline
| reply to lmacmil
I'm down to 5 machines in the house now. Used to have 7.
All 5 are at least 2 years old on their current installs due to reformatting from Linux back to Windows.
Went through a phase there where I thought Linux was REALLY cool. 
Otherwise,
None of those machines had ever been reformatted.
Count me in as another who doesn't know why some people think this is must thing to do just because.
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benc
Premium
join:2007-06-17
Glen Carbon, IL
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| reply to lmacmil
Usually, I wait until I figure that everything breaks. I keep the data I want to keep on a second hard drive, both because it makes installing the OS easier (a special backup isn't necessary), and because in some cases the performance is probably better.
Although generally speaking, years can pass before I do an OS reinstall.
I did perform an install back in February, but that was because I replaced the mobo, CPU, RAM, Video Card, Sound Card, and Power Supply. That and because of the amount of RAM, I had to switch to XP-64 (since I didn't want to do Vista).
Other than that, I probably wouldn't have performed the reinstall.
To test or use other OSes, I just use Virtualbox. If I make a huge mistake, then no big deal. I wipe out the virtual PC and no harm done.
On this note, I used to know a guy that performed a reinstall every six months, and he used Linux. That sounds a bit excessive I think, given the fact that it involves a lot of work and of course you aren't paid to do it. |
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Tyreman
join:2002-10-08
| reply to lmacmil
Using Acronis here with Vista 32 so I just load another image.
In the old days if doing a lot of programs and uninstalling on say 98 then reformat once a year maybe.
I may have hosed it once or twice and had to do it sooner i forget now
I didn't have Acronis then
When I ran XP (I still have it loaded on another drive to my current setup) the first load of XP I tortured it to see what it would do then reformatted again in a I think about 2 months
I then started using Acronis.
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Southern Ontario,Canada |
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Tyreman
join:2002-10-08
1 edit | reply to Wolfie00
XP actually is still pretty popular around.
Lot of businesss use it and home consumers.
Its been a real hanger on.
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Southern Ontario,Canada |
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louist
And So It Goes
Premium
join:2001-12-01
Oakland Gardens, NY | reply to lmacmil
I image all XP machines and find that I need to refresh systems about ever 18 months on average.
HOWEVER: I have 3 Vista machines that have never needed such treatment. Working fine even after as much as 18 months. |
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ultracooldave
@verizon.net
| reply to lmacmil
I use acronis imaging for 17 partitions on 8 computers-could not live without it!
I generally create a small partition (50gig) on which the main programs and OS resides, any data goes on other partitions. This way, should I want to do a "clean install" the size is small and to restore an image only takes a few minutes.
I usually have one image of just the initial install, another image of the usual main programs and another image of the whole OS partition which is updated every week or so. Anything really important like my ms money back-up I keep on an ext. harddrive.
The whole idea of imaging is no matter what happens to your OS partition-virus, registry problem, new prog or update problem, harddrive fail-you are in a position to quickly restore without actually going through the actual install/activation of each and every program and setting. |
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mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL
| reply to lmacmil
For both work workstation and home laptop, every 6-9 months. I use to run from OS upgrades now I try them out when they are beta. My XPS M140/Inspiron 630M came with XP, then ran Vista, and now running Windows 7. Supposedly it is impossible to run Windows 7 on the Intel 915 chipset but after a 1 or 2 hours of monkeying around I got it working. I like tinkering and when I really screw things up its easier to do a reinstall most the time, since I have few necessary programs.
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dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Verizon FIOS
2 edits | reply to Wolfie00
I meant that the overall Windows NT 5.0 project was apparently a disaster area, not that the software that was eventually released was a disaster area (apart from the conversion to a stupid marketing-driven naming convention, namely "Windows 2000").
By 'disaster', I'm talking about promised features being dropped, the whole thing about this being the version planned for integration with the consumer OS (which is why they renamed it, bah!) and then it wasn't. Not to mention the schedule slips. I think there was even a development reset in Windows 2000, the same way there was reported to be one in Vista.
Alas, it was a long time ago in software-years, and I have forgotten the events that were at the time burned into my brain (as a developer eagerly awaiting the death of Windows 9x, a clear case where one should be careful what one wishes for in case it comes true). |
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burner50
Pinlifter
Premium,VIP
join:2002-06-05
EN22wm | reply to lmacmil
every 12-18mo no matter what, every 60 days on my wifes computer... If my wife didnt use my computers i would probably not have to do it at all. |
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r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium
join:2001-11-14
St John'S, NL
·magicjack.com
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·AT&T Midwest
| reply to KB24
said by KB24 :
Usually I do it yearly.
It would take about 5 hours to do everything. Backing up your hard drive to external drive will take an hour...thats about 50G or so worth of files. Actual installation is 30 to 45 minutes...driver installation is another 20 minutes. Applications about half an hour...or install by demand. Then putting back your 50G is another 1 hour...then customizing it like it use to be another 15 minutes.
It's okay because I usually leave the OS installation and the backing up of files and putting it back. So I'm only in front of the computer for a total of 1.5 hours.
This will clean all those dll's you don't need and registry will be fresh. Also you don't need to look for those applications you don't need anymore or plain useless and uninstall it one by one.
Why would you waste your time doing all that???
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For those of you playing a drinking game.... MY FRIENDS! |
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dave
Premium,MVM
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio
·Verizon Online DSL
·Verizon FIOS
| said by r81984 :Why would you waste your time doing all that?? So that the registry will be 'fresh' of course.
There's nothing so off-putting as a registry that has a, um, stale odor that even its best friends won't tell it about. |
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r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium
join:2001-11-14
St John'S, NL
·magicjack.com
·Cox HSI
·Insight Communicat..
·AT&T Midwest
| said by dave :said by r81984 :Why would you waste your time doing all that?? So that the registry will be 'fresh' of course. There's nothing so off-putting as a registry that has a, um, stale odor that even its best friends won't tell it about. Are you serious???
Why are people are so paranoid about what they do not understand?
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dadkins
Can you do Blu?
Premium,MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA
·Comcast
1 edit | reply to dave
I think it will be ok if I leave these for now |
said by dave :said by r81984 :Why would you waste your time doing all that?? So that the registry will be 'fresh' of course. There's nothing so off-putting as a registry that has a, um, stale odor that even its best friends won't tell it about. Nothing like running a reg cleaner either. 
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jabarnut
Light Years Away
Premium,MVM
join:2005-01-22
Galaxy M31
| reply to r81984
said by r81984 : Are you serious??? lol....are you serious about dave being serious???
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I had a life once.....now I have a Computer and a Modem. |
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r81984
Fair and Balanced
Premium
join:2001-11-14
St John'S, NL
·magicjack.com
·Cox HSI
·Insight Communicat..
·AT&T Midwest
| said by jabarnut :said by r81984 : Are you serious??? lol....are you serious about dave being serious??? Are YOU serious???
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For those of you playing a drinking game.... MY FRIENDS! |
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jabarnut
Light Years Away
Premium,MVM
join:2005-01-22
Galaxy M31 | Heh...only if you are. |
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