Am I weird or what?

[EricB]

virtual machine and backing up windows are 2 separate things. I mentioned that using one or the other would solve your problem. you can't restore an regular image to a vm

 

[J9Darkwing]

Gotcha Erik.
Thanks for the advice. I've been playing with vmware for most of the afternoon and it's very cool. Now when I find a new program I want to try I'll load it into my virtual Vista 64 box and make sure it works before trashing my OS. And if I do happen to screw it up it looks like Acronis is going to perfect for restoring.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I generally reinstall my PC's OS every 6 months on average. This is now because I use Ubuntu Linux which has a new release every 6 months, but I generally reinstall XP about that time too, because usually by then I've got some laggy startup programs that I really don't need, one or two instances of spyware that I don't bother to erase, some messed up system settings, etc. My PC uses recovery CD's so I don't worry about limited activation retries.

 

[J9Darkwing]

The last computer I bought that was pre-built was a compac. P4 2gig or so that ran like a P2 1gig right out of the box because of the factory installed crap they had loaded on it to try and sell me stuff. Guess what, the restore disk was loaded with all that crap too. From then on I buy my pc's in pieces and built them myself with just the OS.

 

[veedubfreak]

Heck, lately ive been rebuilding my computer so often that reinstalls just kind of come with the territory. But if anyone knows more about the restore in Vista i'd love to get some more info about it, as my gaming rig is about to get vista 64 home premium and my soon to be HTPC is getting vista 32 home premium.

 

[J9Darkwing]

My understanding is that only vista ultimate and business edition have the full disc imaging program. Premium and basic just have your run of the mill restore.