How often do you reinstall XP?

[EricB]

6-12 times a year. my guide

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-keep-winxp-really-fast-stable-156582/

read the guide that I posted

 

[oldskool]

Bookmarked it, thanks Eric (from another Eric).

But I am also interested in what others are doing for backups regarding reinstallations of XP. I am just curious what others are doing, say external hard drives, some other storage medium ?

 

[superdave1984]

I usually do a format/reinstall about once a year depending on how much I have done to it. Thrashing isn't always remedied by a good defrag so eventually your computer will slow down noticeably.
One big tip, burn ALL your drivers to CD. At the very least your NIC driver so you can go to the manufacturers site and get the rest if needed. However some prebuilt PC's have custom drivers that are very difficult to find even on their website.

Backup your data and go for it. It's really as simple as putting in the CD and following the prompts. Delete the current Windows partition and either create a new one or just use all of the space available. And don't use the quick format. Depending on the size of your drive and other factors, allow an hour or more for the whole job. Formatting a large drive takes a while.

 

[Hefemeister]

For backups I use 2 external hard drives. One on site and one off site rotated monthly. For a business I would rotate weekly.

I only backup data ie pics, documents and music.

For a reformat I use a separate data drive so I just do a clean install on my os disk and I am good to go.

 

[KSoD]

As often as needed. Sometimes it is just a couple of weeks cause of a new Beta Build being released other times cause of a serious crash cause of other Beta Software. But when not Beta Testing i would say at least once a month.

 

[macdawg]

Every couple of years I'll reformat.

I only install lightweight apps that I really need, if I ever do uninstall something I use regclean, ccleaner, and autoruns to make sure anything uninstalled is really off my system.

Keeping windows xp very clean like this I've never noticed a slowdown the last couple of years.

I do like to do a full uninstall and re-install of firefox from time to time, because I have found old firefox installs seem to slow down over time.

 

[bagelred]

One big tip, burn ALL your drivers to CD. At the very least your NIC driver so you can go to the manufacturers site and get the rest if needed. However some prebuilt PC's have custom drivers that are very difficult to find even on their website.

See I'm lost already. What drivers? Where? I mean, I have all the installation CD's when I first bought the computer. That isn't enough?

Already I'm confused and I haven't even started yet......

Backing up I understand. I have an external HD and I literally can back up my entire C drive. But I wouldn't even know what drivers to reinstall or where?

 

[KSoD]

Please read teh Sticky that says Read First. It is there for a reason and offers much.

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/tired-losing-drivers-when-you-reinstall-xp-168321/
http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-keep-winxp-really-fast-stable-156582/
http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-install-missing-drivers-182727/

There is 3 topics that can explain a lot. there are also guides all over the internet on what to do.

Installing Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

The only times I've had to re-install Windows XP (SP3) is when I've migrated to another laptop.

 

[EricB]

What I do is reinstall xp and the drivers, configure my drives, and run windows update. then I put all of my essential software on it.

then I make a drive image backup. I restore xp from that.

I test a lot of software and a lot of them don't work together or sometimes my system just get a little too slow for my liking