My system is crashing and I need to restore my computer to its original
settings and wipe out all updates, upgrades, etc.
No, you don't *need to* do that, and in fact it's almost always a poor
thing to do. You should troubleshoot the system, find out what's
causing the problems, and fix it. Reformatting and reinstalling should
be a last resort, to be done only if everything else fails.
With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to reinstall
Windows (XP or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0, 3.1, WFWG
3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista,
and now Windows 7, each for the period of time before the next version
came out, and each on two or more machines here. I never reinstalled
any of them, and I have never had anything more than an occasional
minor problem.
It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost
any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and
reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them. It gets you off the
phone quickly, it almost always works, and it doesn't require them to
do any real troubleshooting (a skill that most of them obviously don't
possess in any great degree).
But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your
programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and application
updates, you have to locate and install all the needed drivers for
your system, you have to recustomize Windows and all your apps to work
the way you're comfortable with.
Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may
have trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs?
Can you find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data
backups to restore? Do you even remember all the customizations and
tweaks you may have installed to make everything work the way you
like? Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and far
between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only after all
other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have failed.
And perhaps most important: if you reformat and reinstall without
finding out what caused your problem, you will very likely repeat the
behavior that caused it, and quickly find yourself back in exactly the
same situation.
If you have problems, post the details of them here; it's likely that
someone can help you and a reinstallation won't be required.
Are there steps to do so
and how do I find them or what do I do. Need to get this done quickly please
help. Kim I have Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
Assuming that you have an OEM computer, you need to check your
documentation or contact your OEM (Dell, Gateway, etc.) for
instructions. The procedure varies depending on what computer you
have.
