How often do you reinstall your OS

I'm glad no one has piped up and said how much better ME is over XP. Now this thread would turn UGLY

 

Funny you should mention it, but...

What seems like a long time ago, there was much discussion about staying with 98SE, but did I listen? No,o,o,o,o. So I bought a Dell from a friend at a great price with XP, Pentium 4, yada, yada. It (was) running great! Then "IT" happened... the crash. (1) My Taskbar is barely visible, but won't expand, (2) When I try to open WORD I get "This document could not be registered. It will not be possible to create links, etc." (3) It won't print (says I have no printer). It was printing just fine yesterday !?. (4)It's suddenly slow as molassess. Takes forever to boot up. (I'm almost out of breath). (5) When I try to go online, I get another weird message, and of course... no OE, either. Oh, and did I mention that I'm typing this post on my "old" PC with 98SE? Yep, I hooked it back up and, whammo, she fired right up; as if to say, "Where ya been? I've missed ya!"

Since I had no idea how long it had been since it was loaded, I reloaded XP. For one, brief shining moment I thot "It's gonna do it ".. yes! yes! But, alas, No, No I haven't put too much on the new machine, so I won't lose alot. Everything's pretty much backed up. Should I just shoot it and start over? I'd appreciate any help I can get. Thanx!

 

miracleman
Since this was a sudden and unexpected problem, try using the System Restore feature on XP. If it doesn't work, start your own thread. We'll get you through it!

Throwing fat on the fire: XP is superior to 98 in a dozen ways, but especially in security, and "new hardware" recognition...

Johanna

 

Isn't that only true IF THE USER keeps the Windows Updates up to date. And even then isn't it IE that is full of holes and not the actual OS ?

And to add more fat. I have just as much TRASH on this XP machine as I do on the Win98 SE machines. It gets just as much junk e-mail which if I am not carefull with it could load this thing up with a Virus/Trojan.

Just today I had 3 e-mails that AVG told me that they were Virus Loaded. That has NOTHING to do with OS security.

Windows XP Pro is no better at security than SE if the USER does not keep AV/Trojan software and a Firewall installed.

Windows XP WILL NOT stop stuff from getting in from a site THAT THE USER connects to. I had one of them try just recently but AVG warned me so it did not really get in.

BillyBob

 

Sorry, BB, I meant the privacy of different accounts on a system, or an XP network of machines, NOT internet security. Encryption, password protection, shared and hidden files, user rights, etc... Probably more important for corporate or business consumers than home use, but packed with tools to customize explicitly.

Another advantage of XP is the Recovery Console and ASR, as well as the convenience of a simple "System Restore ".

Johanna

 

Thank you Johanna for clearing that up.

That says to me that how the system is used makes a lot of difference which version is better. For the use you mention XP may be the better OS. For my use SE is just as good.

Even though I have three machines on the LAN nobody can get to this one because I have NOTHING shared. So they can't see it anyway. But any Network games work fine. But I can also stop that with the Firewall.

So it still comes right back to BillyBob as the user/owner of this machine when it come to who can do what over the LAN. It has NOTHING to do with the OS.

I can also set the other machines so that I can not get to them. Would be rather stupid but I can do it.

I can not say anything about the Recovery Console and ASR, as I have used neither.

But as to "System Restore ". all I can say is " When it works." I just checked and there are no RPs for July 3,4,5 but there are for 6 & 7. It is supposed to make an RP around 6:00 to 7:00 PM. I know the machine was on at the times the RPs were supposed to be made. Now WHY did it not make them ?

That is why when I am going to make changes I check the RP BEFORE doing them. If I had not checked and made my own I would have been burned a couple of times when I did not like what I did.

In other words I think the OS gets blamed for a lot of stuff it is not to blame for.

And also ( so I have found out ) sometimes we make a change that we think only effects one area. SURPRISE that ain't true.

BillyBob

 

i like to reinstall every 6 months, just to make sure i have no corrupt files. luckily, i keep a ghost image of a clean minimal install so i don't have to reativate it.

 

I don't reinstall regularly, but if my system starts misbehaving I'll reinstall. I don't find reinstalling too much of a headache. I keep all my files outside of my profile so they are easy to isolate and back up. Although I tend to try different software packages (propably the cause of the problems that lead to reinstalls) the number I rely on is small and it's easy to get them back up and running.

I also tend to use bog standard hardware nowadays (I'm not an eager games player - I mostly work with Office and Web apps that can easily be handled by any new PC). Since Win2k, drivers haven't been a problem. I don't go through the old head ache of having to remember where I put my video drivers.

I don't see why a Win2k/XP computer shouldn't run for years without a reinstall. I've plenty of windows 98 pcs on my network that are years old and still on their original build, and both 2k and XP are far better Operating Systems (so is NT4 IMHO).

If it isn't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, it is often easier to start from scratch.

 

As an aside: The last PC I put together at home - I had a spare hard drive, so I used that to store ghost images of the main drive so I could rebuild it quickly if anything went wrong. **** thing is probably the most reliable PC I've ever had and hasn't missed a beat. Why is it always the computers you haven't backed up that fail!!!!!

 

I had ME on a machine for ONE WEEK ONLY.

Is that enough said.

BillyBob

 

One week. That long