Last Straw, Advice please

[marc]

Yes, it's true, I have reached my last straw. I believe
I am ready to reformat my C drive and start anew... My
system (I'm sure with the help of my son's downloading)
has developped a few rather obnoxious quirks. It will not
turn itself off the "normal way", it needs to be hard
booted every time (specifically, one must hold the power
button for approx 4-5 secs for it to turn off); no way to
power itself down. I am running a 1.7 with 768 DDR RAM
and 40GB drive, with XP. I have tried to restore to
aprevious date; no go. I have run the latest McAfee; no
help. AND it's running slower than ever... I realize
it's impossible to specically diisect my dilemna, but any
feedback would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks, Marc

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

Yes, it's true, I have reached my last straw. I believe
I am ready to reformat my C drive and start anew... My
system (I'm sure with the help of my son's downloading)
has developped a few rather obnoxious quirks. It will not
turn itself off the "normal way", it needs to be hard
booted every time (specifically, one must hold the power
button for approx 4-5 secs for it to turn off); no way to
power itself down. I am running a 1.7 with 768 DDR RAM
and 40GB drive, with XP. I have tried to restore to
aprevious date; no go. I have run the latest McAfee; no
help. AND it's running slower than ever... I realize
it's impossible to specically diisect my dilemna, but any
feedback would be greatly appreciated...

Hmm.. Probably would be better to do a wipe/reinstall.

But before you do, try defragmenting your hard drives, doing a disk cleanup,
uninstalling all applications you don't need, scanning for adware/spyware,
scanning for viruses, turn on your firewall, etc.

How to do most of those is described in detail in the built in help and
support of Windows XP. Look there and SEARCH for things like "defragment"
and "disk cleanup" and uninstall" and "firewall". The rest (and some of
that) can be found in more detail (at least a starting point) at:

http://tinyurl.com/elb9

Yeah - it's a quick page I through together, but it might be useful to you
in cleaning up and/or at least preventing these problems if you decide to
reformat your computer. heh

--
Shenan Stanley
"Just trying to help"
-------------------------
How to use XPs Help and Support
http://tinyurl.com/fltf

How to Use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups
http://tinyurl.com/fkja

How to use Google
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
http://tinyurl.com/fkmc
-------------------------

 

[S.Heenan]

Yes, it's true, I have reached my last straw. I believe
I am ready to reformat my C drive and start anew... My
system (I'm sure with the help of my son's downloading)
has developped a few rather obnoxious quirks. It will not
turn itself off the "normal way", it needs to be hard
booted every time (specifically, one must hold the power
button for approx 4-5 secs for it to turn off); no way to
power itself down. I am running a 1.7 with 768 DDR RAM
and 40GB drive, with XP. I have tried to restore to
aprevious date; no go. I have run the latest McAfee; no
help. AND it's running slower than ever... I realize
it's impossible to specically diisect my dilemna, but any
feedback would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks, Marc

Often times a clean install is the way to go. Your system specs should allow
for a fast machine after a little tweaking. Backup anything you can't do
without and format the harddrive. You may want to create a few partitions
while you're at it.

 

[sqr [MVP] [MSFT] etc.]

It will not
check and see if the power saving feature APM is enabled in the bios.

This is normal if the power button in the bios is set to "soft off" which is
the preferred method.

you might have installed a critical update which is slowing down the machine
uninstall them and start over.

 

[marc]

-----Original Message-----

check and see if the power saving feature APM is enabled in the bios.

In APM, everything seems to be the way it should. ie:
power=off and sleep=stanby

This is normal if the power button in the bios is set to "soft off" which is
the preferred method.

you might have installed a critical update which is slowing down the machine
uninstall them and start over.

Uh, sure. I don't know what or how, sorry...

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

XP doesn't have any cruft that accumulates like 9x. A re-install doesn't
speed up XP or solve any problems that can't be solved more directly.
But it does orphan your old user profile data and you have to take
ownership of the folder and rename it before you recreate your old
account name.

If that explanation doesn't satisfy you, remember you are asking me to
explain why something doesn't apply. The onus is on you to explain how a
clean install does do something useful in XP.

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

Please explain to me how any Windows based OS does not benefit from a
periodic clean install ? A clean install should "cause problems
recovering user data". That's the whole point of doing it. Wipe the
slate clean. I did make it clear to backup anything worth keeping.

XP doesn't have any cruft that accumulates like 9x. A re-install
doesn't speed up XP or solve any problems that can't be solved more
directly. But it does orphan your old user profile data and you have
to take ownership of the folder and rename it before you recreate
your old account name.

If that explanation doesn't satisfy you, remember you are asking me to
explain why something doesn't apply. The onus is on you to explain
how a clean install does do something useful in XP.

I think there is a misunderstanding here about a CLEAN installation VS a
Repair Installation.

CLEAN install - to me - means Wiping the drive and starting from scratch.
REPAIR install - to me - means reinstalling the OS over itself -
essentially.

I have not seen the benefits of a REPAIR install except of last resort.
Every time I have done a repair installation, it was just for long enough to
get some things off the machine afterwards so I could format and begin
again - after a thorough hardware test.

However - a clean (I did a DoD wipe and started from a clean slate - not
really - but to make sure you know what I mean by CLEAN) installation CAN
fix issues that exist on a machine that is slowing it down. From lousy
"removals" that some software does to infections and other infestations that
some people collect somehow. Not only that, but it can result in a better
installation to begin with - because I would much rather have a CLEAN
install I did than anything DELL or COMPAQ or whoever did with all their
proprietary stuff.

Even in XP and 2000 - there are still programs that leave their traces -
they might do it on purpose or because they were badly written. I don't say
that they cannot be cleaned up - but for 75% of the people, they would learn
much more from actually FINALLY installing from a clean slate than trying
(or paying someone to try) to clean up the mess that has become their
system.

And what about those poor souls that upgraded from 98/98SE/ME to XP and
already had years of use and abuse where they installed "freebies" from the
net and uninstalled them improperly and such collected up on the system that
doesn't magically "disappear" when they upgrade? They would 100% benefit
from a clean install - if they take the time to understand what they need
and how to go about it.

Kent - I love your answers - but you statement:

"A re-install doesn't speed up XP or solve any problems that can't be solved
more directly. But it does orphan your old user profile data and you have to
take ownership of the folder and rename it before you recreate your old
account name."

While true in one sense - for computer savvy folks, most problems can be
solved more directly with time, patience and the right tools and know-how -
It's thrown off by 'S.Heenan's statement about a CLEAN install - not a
re-install. Unless they backed up their profile somewhere else in a way
that would keep it protected and owned by said person - then a clean
installation would not have this issue. It doesn't "orphan" it in a clean
install - it wipes it completely. heh

--
Shenan Stanley
"Just trying to help"
-------------------------
How to use XPs Help and Support
http://tinyurl.com/fltf

How to Use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups
http://tinyurl.com/fkja

How to use Google
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
http://tinyurl.com/fkmc
-------------------------

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

If you do not carry out basic "good house keeping" practices on your machine
(defrag, removal of junk programs, run utilities like spybot/adware,
correctly remove redundant programs etc) your machine will suffer and a
"clean" installation occasionally will no doubt solve these "problems".
However, if you do carryout basic good practices there is no need to "clean
install from time to time" as you advocate.

Your machine does not "slow" down without reason. If the processor is
engaged in redundant tasks, then remove/stop those tasks. If the the
machine requires defragging, run the defrag utility. As Kent advised, there
are far easier ways of maintaining your machine than by reinstalling the OS.

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

If you do not carry out basic "good house keeping" practices on your
machine (defrag, removal of junk programs, run utilities like
spybot/adware, correctly remove redundant programs etc) your machine
will suffer and a "clean" installation occasionally will no doubt
solve these "problems". However, if you do carryout basic good
practices there is no need to "clean install from time to time" as
you advocate.

Your machine does not "slow" down without reason. If the processor is
engaged in redundant tasks, then remove/stop those tasks. If the the
machine requires defragging, run the defrag utility. As Kent
advised, there are far easier ways of maintaining your machine than
by reinstalling the OS.

I never "advocated" either way. I agree, for those who know what they are
doing, a clean installation should be necessary only in extreme conditions.
75% of people do not - in terms of their computers - "know what they are
doing". If they did, I certainly would not have the job I do now. *grin*

Definitions again:

CLEAN INSTALL - Wipe all information and start over.
REINSTAL - Install OS over itself - repainring broken files.

I merely stated that Kent and S.Heenan were having an argument over TWO
different things. A Clean install will not do what Kent said a Reinstall
would do(and a reinstall could do that - not necessarily - but could) and
S.Heenan perhaps should not advocate a clean install, but if the person did
not take care of their system because they do not know how, the best choice
(unless you happen to be their computer repair person and want/need their
money) for them may be to do a reinstall and learn how to maintain the
system properly.

Essentially - it is a matter of ability and/or finances and/or time. Where
I may be able to fix my sysem from just about any software-state I can
manage to get it into back to where it was before I started
"experimenting" - other people may not have this ability or the time it
would take to learn it. Where it may be okay to take it into an expert to
have it cleaned (and 3/4 of the so-called experts are side-line coaches who
don't know what they are doing and will just recommend a clean install
anyway) for som, for others, the cost would be too much for something they
just want to surf the web, check email and type a few documents on. Thus
why so many people ask in these newsgroups "how do I start from scratch."

I have full respect for both of the posters I responded to. I have seen
nothing but kind words, patience and reasonable answers from the both of
them. If they take this as a personal attack, then they didn't read it or I
have mis-judged. If you took it as an attack against them, please re-read
it - it was meant as a defuser, not a fuse.

--
Shenan Stanley
"Just trying to help"
-------------------------
How to use XPs Help and Support
http://tinyurl.com/fltf

How to Use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups
http://tinyurl.com/fkja

How to use Google
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
http://tinyurl.com/fkmc
-------------------------

 

[Shenan T. Stanley]

If you are saying that a clean install, meaning a wipe of the disk
and a start-over, speeds up the system in a way that can't be
accomplished short of a clean install, I disagree. (I don't think you
said that.) I think it's always better, but not always faster, to fix
the plumbing problem rather than blow up the house and build it
again. If you or someone else disagrees, that's fine, I see your
point. I like to fix the problem, some people just want their system
back and they aren't worried about losing data. Other people are very
bothered by losing data and I sympathize with their woes when they do
a clean install prematurely.

If you said that a clean install speeds up systems that are having
problems in ways that a re-install doesn't, I agree.

And if I and S. Heenan are talking about two different things (clean
versus re- installs) then I'm sorry for the confusion. I dislike both
clean and re-installs, so I tend to lump them together. I've been
running a Pro and a Home version of XP since the early beta with no
repairs and no clean installs (although System Restore has saved my
posterior a few times!) But I spend hours trying to figure out how to
fix things so that the next person can fix it rather than blow it up.

And I must confess that a repair install is the only way to fix a few
rare problems, short of a clean install.

We do think alike.

I never WANT to recommend a clean install (or a reinstall) unless I have to.
There are some cases where I have to decide: spend 8 hours attempting to fix
or 4 hours ghosting and unattended installing it back to normal and copying
files back - also knowing I have the ghost image - so NO files are missing.

I hate doing it so much that I have spent most of my career making it so
that doing as clean install is so automated that I can do everything else i
would rather be doing as it occurs.. Whether by making universal ghost
images to using a few select unattended installation methods, modified and
customized as needed. That way it is, at the very least - more comfortable
when I have to do it.

Personally - I have only done repair installations twice. I hate those
actually more than a ghost and a clean install. Mostly because usually by
the time the machine gets into my hands, the user has decided thet Bonzi
Buddy, Gator and Kazaa ARE necessary. Not only that, but the last admin
allowed it! Sheesh.. So a little cleanup, joining the domain and applying
the right policies.. look - a clean machine that will stay clean. heh

--
Shenan Stanley
"Just trying to help"
-------------------------
How to use XPs Help and Support
http://tinyurl.com/fltf

How to Use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups
http://tinyurl.com/fkja

How to use Google
http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
http://tinyurl.com/fkmc
-------------------------