Lately for me it's been yearly, but I'm also not so obsessed with running XP that's been slimmed down with the latest nLite anymore.
Zxian recently got me fond of Acronis True Image. I don't reformat anymore, I just restore my HD with a 5 GB image file stored on my second harddrive. I can screw up all I want now. lol

What I do is make a base image - a fresh install. Then install my software then make another image. Then personalize with my accounts and make another image.

All of these images are < 1.6 GB. I keep them on a separate HDD rather than burn 'em on a CD. It takes minutes (< 5) to go back to whichever state I need to.

I did once burn the image to a DVD but with the updated versions (using RyanVM), I gave that up. I'll never use that DVD, so I just store it on HDD. DVD restore would also be slower!

Of course, you're HDD can fail, like my second HDD did - I lost everything. But again, you can alway reinstall.

I reinstalled XP Pro SP2 yesterday using a UA disc. Straight away, without even logging in, I made an image using Acronis True Image. This way I hope I will never reinstall Windows again on this computer, even though I kind of enjoy it [ ] if I am really bored and have nothing else to do / or if there is a significant hardware change. The main thing that stops me reinstalling / restoring images frequently is that the computer is shared between 7 people, so I don't like messing with or having to setup their accounts / settings etc. all the time. Afterwards, I made an image after all the Windows Updates had been applied, drivers installed and major programs which I hope to restore whenever something even slightly goes wrong. There will always be a use for re-installing Windows [apart from killing time and boredom] despite the obvious advantages of disk imaging.

between twice a month and once every 3 months, depends on how many new stable releases of programs i use have an update or when I find enough tweaks to redo it. otherwise I just reimage a few times a month, I like a very clean system.

• Install date: November 2004
• Operating system: Windows 98SE
• Planned reinstall: when HDD crashes

Hi my dear friends!

I Ghost my system whenever it is necessary. A clean install of XP takes toooo much time for me since I have to install about 3 GIGS of other software as well.


Take care and kind regards,

Paul van Bommel

every christmas

Reinstall only when my Windows dies

The neat thing about Ghost 2003 (Ghost.exe) is that it will run from a DOS boot disk (floppy or CD) and it will burn its image file to a second partition, second hard drive or even to a CD or DVD. It will also span CD/DVD's if the file size exceeds the disk size.

I make quickie backups to my second partition on my SATA drive, at least two or three times a week. Then about once a week or so, I make the backup to DVD. Ghost installs itself on the DVD as the boot sector and thusly makes the DVD self booting.

Good drive maintenance keeps my backup Image file size down to what a DVD can handle (with max compression).

Running Ghost 2003 from a boot disk bypasses all the windows BS and gets the job done in the fastest possible. time. On my SATA drive that takes only four minutes. Burning to a DVD takes about a half hour or so.
No bid deal.

Now, for the worlds best defrag, do a Ghost backup followed immediately by a Ghost restore and all files are rewritten in perfect order with NO spaces and NO fragmentation.
Afterward, my HD looks like THIS, when viewed by Windows Defrag.

A reinstall of Windows is NEVER required if you have a Ghost image on a DVD of your system all set up the way you want it.

Of course if you're a total masochist and really into PAIN.....reload windows to your hearts content.
You have my blessing!

Andromeda43

Wow. Once a year surpasses once a month. I think the gap between once a month and once a year has a lot to do with it. Maybe if there was once every 6 months, it would have looked a little different.

I would have to say that I only ever install Windows when I am either installing on new hardware, or installing a new version of the OS (as is the case with my install of Vista x64 recently).

So far, the xp machines I manage in my fathers office have yet to be reinstalled over the past year. Despite that one of them seems to have problems pop up from nowhere sometimes despite being clean. I would reinstall it to freshen it up but he tends to lose his mind if even one thing is out of place. So I just leave it as-is..



Well, *MOST* things really rather than anything...
http://mechresource.myvnc.com/upload/w98_explore_0da.png

uhm I should reinstall I said .... 5 months ago, now my C: drive with 50 GB has about 2 GB free, my D: with 50 GB, has 6 GB free and my E with 100 GB has 12 GB free. My System (Athlon 64 3000+, 1 GB RAM) takes 5-10 minutes!!! to start. But I never want to reinstall, the whole mess with drivers and programs and internet etc. I use it until it's broken... and then I use Vista Beta on another partition and if that is also broken i will instal XP x64, finally!

I use imaging software. Brilliant solution. This saves me a lot of time!

Shoshoni,

I do too and I've outlined my process here and in other forums so many times my fingers are sore from all the typing, but did you notice that we're still in the 12% group?

I guess it's the old addage, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".
That sounds like something a wise old Indian would say.

I got my own copy of Norton's Ghost on a driver disk that came with a new motherboard. So for me it was FREE, but I've found it for sale on the internet for as low a price as $6.95. (your own search results may varry)

I tried installing it into windows but I found that was totally redundant, as the program has to shell out to DOS to run the Ghost.exe program file. So why bother and load windows and my hard drive with another large program. I just run it from a Boot Floppy or Boot CD and it's so much faster and efficient.

Since I keep all my HD partitions in FAT-32 mode, I can delete my pagefile, old Restore points and all the other garbage files that build up in windows, from a simple batch file on my boot disk. (It's all menu driven) That winds up reducing the size of my Ghost Image file by almost 2 gigabytes. So much so that I can get my backup image file on a single DVD, which Ghost does for me automaticly.


For a quickie backup which I do several times a week, I just let Ghost write the Image to my second HD.
That takes all of four minutes with my SATA drive. When I do the backup to a DVD it takes about a half hour.
A restore from the HD image, takes only a few seconds longer than making the backup.
That sure takes all the drudgery out of doing a restore if some new piece of crap software or windows update goes haywire on me.

I store my DVD copies of my HD in a vault about twenty miles away for top security.

Keeping ones HD clean on a weekly basis goes a long way toward NOT having to reload windows.
I even wrote a DOS batch file to dump all the folders that windows uses to store junk files.
I added a few folders that certain programs like AVG use as cache or quarantine.
I put a shortcut to that batch program in my Startup folder for a daily cleanup.


I've detailed that cleanup process in other threads so I won't repeat it here.

Happy Computing!

Andromeda43

I must say I am surprised, too, that about 12% use imaging software.

I wonder how people get away with installing so frequently when all their software require reactivation. Doesn't all the software only allow you to activate once, and if you reactivate again, you have to call the company and explain why you are reactivating?

It depends for me. Lets say i have Windows XP Pro SP2 with updates intergrated up to July 30. I will image it for backup purposes. When the new updates surpass 20+ updates i will again get the latest updates intergrate them then reinstall my pc with the most recent drivers and software updates, then make the image.

I do 1-3 months also ! And thats with alot of tinkering. But re-install is quick and painless .

Me it seems to be about 1-5 times a year depending on how much I upgrade it or get board and play with the registry

Normaly it's because of upgrades, if I so muchas add another case fan, I re-install (heaven forbid I get a new HD or Videocard, my wife thinks I exploded )

I do it Monthly, sound good?

Cheers
MC.

NO one who really knows what he's doing would just reinstall Windows for the heck of it.
Too many little thingys get lost in the process.

Windows Registry Restore is for those little 'OOOOooops' that occur every now and again.

For the major '' Aw s***z! " that occur once in a year or so, there's Norton's Ghost.
If you have a current Ghost Image on a backup drive or partition, you can reload it in just minutes and be back to where you want to be in short order without ever loosing any important data.

Totally re-Installing Windows is totally INSANE!!! And, completly UN-Necessary.

I've been using GHOST for my weekly backups now for several years and I've never had to re-Install Windows.

Why should I, when I have weekly Ghost backups going back several years.
If I ever want a file that I deleted two years ago, all I have to do is use Ghost Explorer and look into an old backup Image and extract the needed file. It's truly a 'Piece of Cake'.
I can recover any file that's been on my computer for the last three years. Can you do that?

If you're serious about Computer Security, use Ghsot at least once a week to make backup copies of your HD.

I run Ghost from a boot floppy or CD.......Nothing is easier!

Happy Computing,
Andromeda43

Since i found out about Acronis True Image, I've been using that. If I need to clean my computer or Windows XP starts getting all messy, I prefer imaging it. Saves more time just to reinstall everything and much quicker too.

Norton Ghost is terrible. I do not recommend it to anybody.

Nahhh! Never had a problem with Ghost yet.

i never heard of a imaging program clean a windows install, i do know that they overwrite exiting partitions, files , etc to the the image you have. Basiclly it kills all data on the partition it is imaged and then puts the image on tht partiton.

I have my system configured as followed

Hard Disk 1 (WD Raptor) Windows installation
Hrad Disk 2 (WD SATA) Documents drive.

Reason for this configuration is in the event i need to restore my last good image i do not need to worry about loosing my data.

Andromeda can probably write a book on Ghost.

You don't work for symantec, do you?

Depends, At one time I used the same installation for almost 2 years (!!!) other times I did an installation after a few months.

Generally, as I got more accustomed to the nature of WinXP (and more importantly, when I FINALLY accepted the fact that Norton IS (2005) hasn't been ANY good, except for screwing up your system BADLY with no good reason, and switched) I've been able to keep my installations longer.

BTW, my current system has been around since December the 1st, 2005 (when I got my new 250 SATA II WD Chaviar SE16 ), that makes it about 8 months old, in these 8 months I rarely shut it down/rebooted it (I leave my PC open 24/7 for downloads ) and I still have no problems (other than the apparent fact that I need more than my lousy 512 MB RAM but I don't want to update but rather upgrade my system when the time is right...).

So, in general I feel that WinXP (Pro) can be a truly stable system if you treat them nicely

once a week!

That's odd. I've been using Norton Internet Security 2005 Antispyware version and haven't had a problem. I've never had any spyware problem.

I know people hate Norton products but it's worked for me so far.

Where does one find the time to install once a week?

well, i reinstall OS once a month(average).

i reinstall a lot too, but im a kid, so i have tons of time

Reformatting and reinstalling is such a waste of time now that I've become used to imaging software. Takes me 5-6 minutes to rollback to a perfectly working OS, no trouble whatsoever. I just can't watch it take over a hour to reformat and then another 20-30 minutes to install Windows, then 2 hours to install and configure everything. The only time I think I would bother to reformat is when I was creating a new image file from scratch. I'm kind of picky about what goes on in my registry.

hey jeremy, i want to learn about that imaging software any link, or any thread.

thanks

I have to say I'm one of those who did a new unattanded disk every month and was continuously testing new disks but now I've moved over to imaging the hard disk. I do the following once a month after patch day:
1. Roll back to last base image of Windows XP and Office 2003
2. Update XP with autopacther and then go to Microsoft update for anything else
3. Create new base image
4. Reinstall programs

Takes about 30 mins in all.

I'm amazed! But not amuzed

With all the information that's out there on how to keep ones computer clean, neat and running at rull efficiency, still there are those reformatting and reinstalling windows.

Why, I scream, at my computer screen.....WHY?
It's absurd, insane and a huge waste of valuable man/woman hours.

If that were done in the business community, the costs in time lost and manpower would be astronomical.
I managed a huge mainframe computer for my County for about two years. Every evening we did an "End of Day" backup of everything done on that computer, all over the county, for that day.
At the end of the month we did a total system backup. It took several hours to complete.

Today, home computers are nothing but micro-miniature Mainframes.
They run a whole lot faster too.

When I set up a new system or a rebuilt one for one of my customers, I tweak it, tune it, and get it as perfect as humanly possible and then I make a Ghost Image of the C: drive and save it to a bootable DVD.
Toshiba does this for their Restore DVD's.

If ever the HD shoots craps or some piece of crapolaware screws it up, I can do a restore in about 30 minutes from the DVD and be right back in business, with everything exactly the way it was when I did the Ghost backup. There's absolutely NO reason to ever reinstall from an XP CD.

I do this on my own system at least twice a week after doing a very thorough HD cleanup.
With proper HD maintenance, I still get my entire C: drive on a single DVD.

I've posted my entire process in another thread, this very day. I won't repeat it here.

Good Luck,
Andromeda43

Once a Month but if the system works fine with the tweaks, once a year....i play 2 much with tuneups and registry values

Depending on what stuff i download and test, but usually once a month.
Thinking of doing an image with ghost sometime

When you've screwed up the registry to where windows won't boot again, then the Ghost Image is your best friend, but....
For those little Ooooops where you've just screwed up your desktop or something simple, a quick
System Restore will solve the problem in just a few minutes.

Use the appropriate fix for the problem at hand.

Using C4 to crack eggs would be a bit of "OverKill" don't you agree?

Reinstalling windows to fix a small problem is likewise 'OverKill'.

That's the type of response I'd expect from the "Geek Squad" but not from a real tech.

NO tech would blow up his house to kill a few ants.

That's a pretty rediculous analogy right? So is reinstalling XP when you don't really have to.
Since the day I first installed XP, several years ago, I've never reformatted and reinstalled XP.

The Ghost.exe file (Norton's Ghost 2003) and mouse.com on a bootable floppy or CD does the best job of making a disk image of anything I've ever seen in 26 years.
It's quick, easy, highly efficient and sometimes just plain FUN!

Following a backup with an immediate restore, does a fabulous Defrag.
As seen Here.

I'll share all the info on how to make this disk for anyone seriously wanting it.

Cheers,
Andromeda43

only 9 more votes and we hit 200!

WOW OMG he can ADD! LOL just kidding and trying to blow off some steam...

i havent reloaded my laptop in quite a long time now, im proud of myself

And, I'm proud of you too.

In the business world, when you have to completely reload a computer, it's often a complete disaster.
When you work in that environment for as many years as I did, you learn to do "Maintenance" to prevent those disasters.
And, of course, Backup, Backup, Backup!

Remember: "The only bad backup is the one you decided NOT to do".

thanks

heres how i back up my computer. i use savepart. its on that thread that i linked too. its a good free piece of software too. works quite well.

Am I sorry I didn't backup my hard drive. It failed and I lost everything. Oh, well. You have to learn to live on.

when i used to use windows as my main os (i use linux now) i would reinstall every few months, no more then 6 months

Once a year on my main machines, every weekend on my test machines...
even if my main develops problems I try to stick it out by sorting the
problem, it's the only true way to learn how things work by fixing them,
formatting everytime you have a problem is just the easy way out, &
no experience to be gained as such...
Iv'e learned more about the system by fixing it, than I would from
re-installing it...

Norton Ghost rules! Install, update, tweak then image... Putting the image back takes only a few minutes vs. 1 hour + to format, install windows, programs, run updates, etc., etc...
@Andromeda43 You`re ever so right!

There wasn't an option for "When the $#!t hits the fan"

I installed XP on my current system in January of 04. It's still running fine. With 98 I reinstalled every year, because it would eventually start wiggin out. I have a seperate dirve with a Ghost image as a backup. I run periodic incramentals for the data. Hopefully if, god forbid, my RAID fails, I should be able to boot to the backup drive & install updates.

I feel that XP is a solid OS as long as you saty on top of the maintenance. I plan to reformat when I build a new machine next spring. Shooting for 3 years, Woohoo!!

Ususaly half a year, but this last instalation is over a year and keeps going. Don't go on pr0n sites FTW!

Fabulous.....absolutely fabulous!!!

I evaluate so many new programs each week that my computer can get messed up in a heartbeat.
SO, I try to follow my own (good) advise and Backup, Backup, Backup!

I've developed this crazy system where I have all my partitions (two drives) set up in FAT-32 mode.
I use Ghost 2003 as my backup program....not the full GUI, but the Ghost.exe file on a bootable floppy (or CD).
From that humble beginning, I can boot up my system, clean out the pagefile, old restore points and all the junk files before I run Ghost. This saves me about 2 gig's of space in my Backup Image File.

With my well tuned system and SATA hard drive a Ghost backup of C: takes me less than five minutes.

I turn right around and do a Ghost Restore to C:. Another five.

The result is a C: drive that's perfectly ordered with NO spaces and NO fragmentation.
As soon as XP boots again, it remakes the pagefile and a new restore point.
My freshly Restored HD looks like this:



I do this at least twice every week.
The backup Image files are stored on my backup drive for a quickie Restore and written to DVD once a week for permanent backup in case the house burns down or blows away in a hurricane. The backup DVD's are kept in a vault in town about twenty miles away.
I haven't had to reinstall windows and do a complete reinstall of everything in several years.
I never will.

Cheers!
Andromeda43