I would have to say that I only ever install Windows when I am either installing on new hardware, or installing a new version of the OS (as is the case with my install of Vista x64 recently).

So far, the xp machines I manage in my fathers office have yet to be reinstalled over the past year. Despite that one of them seems to have problems pop up from nowhere sometimes despite being clean. I would reinstall it to freshen it up but he tends to lose his mind if even one thing is out of place. So I just leave it as-is..

not really a bug in windows XP/2003, your deliberately trying to crash it. under normal circumstances, XP and 2003 are fine. that sort of thing could crash anything.

Well, *MOST* things really rather than anything...

http://mechresource.myvnc.com/upload/w98_explore_0da.png

uhm I should reinstall I said .... 5 months ago, now my C: drive with 50 GB has about 2 GB free, my D: with 50 GB, has 6 GB free and my E with 100 GB has 12 GB free. My System (Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB RAM) takes 5-10 minutes!!! to start. But I never want to reinstall, the whole mess with drivers and programs and internet etc. I use it until it's broken... and then I use Vista Beta on another partition and if that is also broken i will instal XP x64, finally!

I use imaging software. Brilliant solution. This saves me a lot of time!

I use imaging software. Brilliant solution. This saves me a lot of time!

Shoshoni,

I do too and I've outlined my process here and in other forums so many times my fingers are sore from all the typing, but did you notice that we're still in the 12% group?

I guess it's the old addage, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".

That sounds like something a wise old Indian would say.

I got my own copy of Norton's Ghost on a driver disk that came with a new motherboard. So for me it was FREE, but I've found it for sale on the internet for as low a price as $6.95. (your own search results may varry)

I tried installing it into windows but I found that was totally redundant, as the program has to shell out to DOS to run the Ghost.exe program file. So why bother and load windows and my hard drive with another large program. I just run it from a Boot Floppy or Boot CD and it's so much faster and efficient.

Since I keep all my HD partitions in FAT-32 mode, I can delete my pagefile, old Restore points and all the other garbage files that build up in windows, from a simple batch file on my boot disk. (It's all menu driven) That winds up reducing the size of my Ghost Image file by almost 2 gigabytes. So much so that I can get my backup image file on a single DVD, which Ghost does for me automaticly.

How sweet it is!

For a quickie backup which I do several times a week, I just let Ghost write the Image to my second HD.

That takes all of four minutes with my SATA drive. When I do the backup to a DVD it takes about a half hour.

A restore from the HD image, takes only a few seconds longer than making the backup.

That sure takes all the drudgery out of doing a restore if some new piece of crap software or windows update goes haywire on me.

I store my DVD copies of my HD in a vault about twenty miles away for top security.

Keeping ones HD clean on a weekly basis goes a long way toward NOT having to reload windows.

I even wrote a DOS batch file to dump all the folders that windows uses to store junk files.

I added a few folders that certain programs like AVG use as cache or quarantine.

I put a shortcut to that batch program in my Startup folder for a daily cleanup.

I've detailed that cleanup process in other threads so I won't repeat it here.

Happy Computing!

Andromeda43 B)

I do too and I've outlined my process here and in other forums so many times my fingers are sore from all the typing, but did you notice that we're still in the 12% group?

I must say I am surprised, too, that about 12% use imaging software.

I wonder how people get away with installing so frequently when all their software require reactivation. Doesn't all the software only allow you to activate once, and if you reactivate again, you have to call the company and explain why you are reactivating?

It depends for me. Lets say i have Windows XP Pro SP2 with updates intergrated up to July 30. I will image it for backup purposes. When the new updates surpass 20+ updates i will again get the latest updates intergrate them then reinstall my pc with the most recent drivers and software updates, then make the image.

I do 1-3 months also ! And thats with alot of tinkering. But re-install is quick and painless .

Me it seems to be about 1-5 times a year depending on how much I upgrade it or get board and play with the registry

Normaly it's because of upgrades, if I so muchas add another case fan, I re-install (heaven forbid I get a new HD or Videocard, my wife thinks I exploded )

I do it Monthly, sound good?

Cheers

MC.

NO one who really knows what he's doing would just reinstall Windows for the heck of it.

Too many little thingys get lost in the process.

Windows Registry Restore is for those little 'OOOOooops' that occur every now and again.

For the major '' Aw s***z! " that occur once in a year or so, there's Norton's Ghost.

If you have a current Ghost Image on a backup drive or partition, you can reload it in just minutes and be back to where you want to be in short order without ever loosing any important data.

Totally re-Installing Windows is totally INSANE!!! And, completly UN-Necessary.

I've been using GHOST for my weekly backups now for several years and I've never had to re-Install Windows.

Why should I, when I have weekly Ghost backups going back several years.

If I ever want a file that I deleted two years ago, all I have to do is use Ghost Explorer and look into an old backup Image and extract the needed file. It's truly a 'Piece of Cake'.

I can recover any file that's been on my computer for the last three years. Can you do that?

If you're serious about Computer Security, use Ghsot at least once a week to make backup copies of your HD.

I run Ghost from a boot floppy or CD.......Nothing is easier!

Happy Computing,

Andromeda43

Since i found out about Acronis True Image, I've been using that. If I need to clean my computer or Windows XP starts getting all messy, I prefer imaging it. Saves more time just to reinstall everything and much quicker too.

Norton Ghost is terrible. I do not recommend it to anybody.

Norton Ghost is terrible. I do not recommend it to anybody.

Nahhh! Never had a problem with Ghost yet.

i never heard of a imaging program clean a windows install, i do know that they overwrite exiting partitions, files , etc to the the image you have. Basiclly it kills all data on the partition it is imaged and then puts the image on tht partiton.

I have my system configured as followed

Hard Disk 1 (WD Raptor) Windows installation

Hrad Disk 2 (WD SATA) Documents drive.

Reason for this configuration is in the event i need to restore my last good image i do not need to worry about loosing my data.

Andromeda can probably write a book on Ghost.

You don't work for symantec, do you?