The problem with Windows...

[Angus]

Hello

I am a software developer and am always installing and uninstalling and
generally buggering about with my PC. I find that every 6 months I get
things like:

1. PC slow to bootup or slow to login.

2. Some software just stops working.

3. Misc other niggles.

So I have to save all my data, reformat and re-install everything. It can
take a full day to do all that.

What strategies can I use to make the re-installing quicker. Should I
install a fresh copy of Windows and get basic apps working then make a ghost
image? (I can't ghost every night because I always have a shedload of data
on my laptop - and I need it there because I go consulting off-site - and
yes I do backups of course ).

Any ideas on reducing the hassle of all this would be much appreciated.

Angus

 

[Singapore Computer Service]

Hello,

I am a software developer too - my current copy of freshly XP was installed
when SP2 was released.

I find that if you keep to installing trusted software, defrag, clearing out
temp files, etc will help in performance maintenance.

Also, use MSCONFIG, SERVICES.MSC and HiJackThis to root out all those
non-needed running background apps. Eg - Nero installs some thing called
NeroCheck which I removed, thought it had no performance impact.

Upgrading RAM also helps to store those programs in memory.

Otherwise, if you still want to go by the reinstallation method, ghosting
the bootup partition to a separate partition after installing all drivers
and applications seems to be a good idea for me. Then you can backup your
mails and settings to the other partition and simply ghost it back (and move
back your settings) when you feel XP is getting problematic.

 

[Zilbandy]

I am a software developer and am always installing and uninstalling and
generally buggering about with my PC. I find that every 6 months I get
things like:

1. PC slow to bootup or slow to login.

2. Some software just stops working.

3. Misc other niggles.

So I have to save all my data, reformat and re-install everything. It can
take a full day to do all that.

What strategies can I use to make the re-installing quicker. Should I
install a fresh copy of Windows and get basic apps working then make a ghost
image?

I make a backup image of C drive, my main drive for OS, programs, and
critical data, every three days. I maintain a months worth of those
backups on an external USB2 hard drive using Acronis True Image. I
also 'archive' the backup made on the first of each month for a year,
space permitting on my 250 gb external drive. This seems to work for
me. My backups involve about 9-10 gb per image, compressed size (14 gb
of uncompressed files,) and take me about 20-25 minutes with my modest
laptop computer. Restoring an image from my bootable cd rom with the
Acronis software program on it takes a little longer than the backup,
but under 30 minutes, in my case. Works like a charm, and is
definitely better than spending a day or more fiddling at the computer
installing crap and reconfiguring everything.

I plan on getting another USB2 hard drive soon so I can have a backup
of my backup . . . you never know when something might happen. :/

 

[ANONYMOUS]

Do a clean install with all updated drivers and hotfixes and duly
activated if necessary (enterprise versions don't need activation).
Then Ghost it using Symantec Ghost software and save these on Cds or
DVDs.

Reinstalling will now take less than 10 minutes!! from these CDs and/or
DVDs

hth