Performance increase via XP reinstall or just a clean-up

[BillW]

A friend of mine was forced to reinstall XP. Even though it was a lot of
work because he also had to reinstall all his applications, he said that
performance was significantly improved. I have heard and read this
elsewhere that a reinstall can improve performance.

Are there things that a reinstall does to improve performance that other
less drastic tasks might accomplish? For example, I'm assuming that a
reinstall will yield a clean registry which could be accomplished with a
registry cleaner. Is that an example of a less drastic task yielding the
same performance increase without the more laborious task of an XP
reinstall? Just curious.

I certainly don't need or want to reinstall XP, but would always welcome a
performance increase if it didn't require too much effort. Thanks.

 

[R. McCarty]

XP is a platform. Of course a fresh install is perceivably faster. But as
a platform you want your own applications on it. It's those apps and
the resultant temp/work-space files that eventually causes XP to slow.
I don't have anything against a "Fresh" install, but lots of times it is not
necessary. My primary PC has had XP running for years now and is
running as fast/efficiently as the day it was installed. Probably what
you really need is a good cleanup. But many people I deal with seem
to do a yearly re-install ( like cleaning out the Garage). Just be sure to
backup/image your system before taking the "Fresh" install route.

 

[Amnon Feiner]

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I certainly don't need or want to reinstall XP, but would always welcome a
performance increase if it didn't require too much effort.  Thanks.

May XP users and "Experts" will not admit, but XP slows down severely with
time. bloated registry, fragmentation, swap file issues and other stuff
slows it down, This is why your friend is absolutely right! he does get
better performance now, for the next year or so.
Solution? there are few, most of them are invloving free utilities from the
internet, and understanding how XP works, how to clean-up swap files,
registry etc. Personally. although I have 3 systems running XP at home, I
do not use it. I use Linux SuSE 10.0, believe it or not, other then one
kernel update, I did not reboot for close to 9 month, and I am not shitting
you, it is a different type of world.
If you continue to run XP, you need to realize that cleanup is a part of the
daily process. Deleting "deleted" (sdelete from sysinternals.com) files,
running contig (sysinternals.com), cleaning up temp directories (del %temp%
and del %tmp%), emptying IE temp files after you close IE and so (work with
FireFox if you can). If you run Mess-Office, it just adds to your misery.
Try OpenOffice.org if you can. Outlook is a memory and space eater, (190MB
of installation), try Mozilla Thunderbird (8MB).
In short, the less Microsoft apps you run on Microsoft OS, the better you
are.
- --
TIA
Amnon Feiner
http://www.woodcontour.com
Solid Wood and Stone PC Peripherals
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[Malke]

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May XP users and "Experts" will not admit, but XP slows down severely
with time. bloated registry, fragmentation, swap file issues and other
stuff slows it down, This is why your friend is absolutely right! he
does get better performance now, for the next year or so.

This is simply not true. If the end user installs crap programs,
malware, bloatware, and does no maintenance - sure the system will slow
down. But like Mr. McCarty's computers, my XP systems have been going
for years and they are just as peppy as when I first installed them.
Even the boys' machines which are used far more heavily than my XP box
have responsive, happy operating systems.

I'm sorry, but if your machines are slowing down, you're not taking care
of them. And I'd like to point out that doing the maintenance itself
takes very little time, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes a week.

Malke

 

[Amnon Feiner]

I'm sorry, but if your machines are slowing down, you're not taking care
of them. And I'd like to point out that doing the maintenance itself
takes very little time, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes a week.

Which is exactly what I said. the difference is, that the "default" home
user does have your knowledge, and probably never will, because he should
not. i do not mean to turn this forum into Windows bashing, but let's face
it, Microsoft made medicracy an household name in behalf of convenience.
Believe it or not, one of Windows biggest problems, is allowing the first
installing user be an administrator without warning them of the
consequences. From that point on, he can load crap, knowingly or not. I
work and install Windows and Linux on daily basis, and cannot even start
telling you about the conceptual difference.