I was curious as to how often members reinstall their OS, Windows XP in particularly.

I myself reinstall probably twice a year but this year, I started playing around with unattended installs and automating drivers installation. Therefore, I reinstalled quite a few times to test, but I'm not counting that.

I roll back my ghost image moreso than do a complete reinstall.

I do several test installs\reinstalls on vmware daily but for my main personal system I reformatt @monthly.

Half a year or 3 months after finished one project.

twice a year, but this month alone i probably did 100 vmware installs. windows is a hard beast to tame.

i'm proud to say that i haven't been infected with any spyware in years, and not infected with a virus/trojan in probably 8 or 9 years.

Hmm, I do it weekly, becease I play to much with dlls and registry.

I reload my system with last month's image. Apply the monthly patches and re-image before doing anything else. All testing done with either VPC or my flea market special
jd

Do it once a month on my computer. Or I format it if my computer plays up. Normally I leave it there if it works properly, no need to format it,

WTF, Click to send and I have 3 posts????? Mods could you please delete 2 of the 3?

Thanks
jd

I've got to reformat my HDD and reinstall Windows XP. I do it once a year and this thread just reminded me to do it!

every 1-3 months

It is really very often, even more than thrice a day at time. My installations span over three different hdds. I use more of standalone programmes and this helps me to get the os rolling in almost 14-17 min. with all unattended installs.

Not often enough (my main system that is)...
Usually a few times a year.

I like to have a clean and fresh system, but I just hate reinstalling!

I think I once used the same installation (XP) for almost 1,5 years without reinstalling, I didn't have a single spyware/malware/virus (since I know what I do). The system was as fresh (almost) and clean as the day it was installed.

I reinstall when I feel like it's been quite a while since last time or when some program/driver/whatever has screwed something up badly (which happens sometimes, but not very often).

Even though I use my own very customized (constantly improved and updated) unattended installation, there are lots of progs and drivers that I for various reasons don't want to add to the DVD.


For testing installations I use VMWare and I sometimes use real hardware too, but not very often my main system.

I reinstall as an when i need it. for example my main computer had a very good fast and stable xp install that i put on in 2004. worked better than any install i have had before running 24 hours a day untill the hdd crashed but on other computers i reinstall 2 or 3 times a year and when i reisntall i can do it up to 10 or 20 times, basicly untill i am happy with the way it is all working. if microsoft can ever fix the strange way you can get good and bad installs from the same cd i would be very happy. but then again that is as realistic a hope as there launch dates!

XP, about every 5 or 6 months. my XP installs seem to get buggy around that time. 98 i have never had to reinstall on any of my PCs. (except once when i was messing around in dos mode with some german file manager (dont ask) and i accidently deleted the /windows/ folder ^_^;; oops)

also i have not got a virus or infection of any kind for years.

Never - that's what imaging software is for

http://wmwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Unattended_MCE
http://wmwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Una..._Server_2003_R2
http://wmwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Cre...a_WINDOWS_Image
http://wmwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Har...sk_Partitioning

You serious? When I had 98 I had to keep reinstalling it.

im dumb, and my dad has sorta started a little joke. whenever he gets home from work now, he asks me what OS i have on any of my computers. i reload them almost 2 or 3 times a day now cuz its summer lol. oh well, im just weird i suppose, but hey, its good practice for the future

although i reload a lot, iv never had a virus or any crap like that, so im happy

every half year, with defrags monthly, sometimes more if i break something
however it can be upto 50 times in one day if im developing microwinx related things

More often its once a year, sometimes every 6 months.

The XP needs to be reinstalled yearly, but my 98se has been installed since... 11th June 2001 08:12:50

How to determine when your Windows was last installed: http://www.forensicexams.org/component/opt...art,0/limit,15/

More than once a month. Between two partitions. Doing that until I have an install that I am completely happy with. I joined MSFN two years ago and not had any malware on my pc since.

DL

Humm, during the windows 98 era, I reinstalled 98 more often than XP. 98 tended to become unstable and crashed a lot.

XP, on the other hand is stable for me. Only reason I do a reinstall is if it gets infected with spyware or when I install too much crap and I need to refresh.

We have a highly customized unattended install w/several aspects integrated into our AD schema, so after troubleshooting various issues I need to rebuild a couple times a year. I could do my own unattended install, but I like to work from the same type of build the user's are working on and my system lacks the butt to run a virtual device.

I end up reinstall becuase of adware, virus, spyware. not all of the softare out there is 100% finding spyware. I sure wish that was true.. or some unkown reason my pc slows down. that why I end up reinstalling windows xp.

you've got to stop looking at that porn man
lol,jk. have u tried nliting internet explorer out of there? i know that once i did that, all of my problems went away.

it very trouble to install OS, now many good software can sovle system problem, it mustn't to do it.

uh, wheres the 'never, its fine' option.

Every six to eight months, more or less... It's time for a format right about now...

I reinstall approx once a year for XP, if I feel like it.
I have never had a problem with adware, spyware, virus using Internet Explorer.

1 to 3 times a month

This dosnt include every other day with VM Ware Workstation

Whenever Windows starts to break down to the point that it becomes a major problem, which is usually about every 6 to 8 months. I intend to switch to using images soon though. :-p

I used to format alot. Atleast twice a month or more for a while, just because things didn't seem right on an install, lol.

that doesnt make sense

In earlier times when I was "sloppy" using Windows 98 I had to reinstall very often
since I broke the system occasionaly.

Later I did never really have to reinstall since I always could repair
the system with "sysrec" which only over-installes on the current system.

So I do very well on my Windows 98 now.

On my Windows XP Laptop I never had to reinstall yet.

[offtopic]
Did you hear about this:
http://www.msfn.org/board/New-Bug-in-Windows-XP-2003-t78399.html
[/offtopic]

Now B2T!

not really a bug in windows XP/2003, your deliberately trying to crash it. under normal circumstances, XP and 2003 are fine. that sort of thing could crash anything.

About every half a year. When things start to really crawl, it is usually time to reinstall. I try not to keep anythign importanat on the workstation itself, and keep my data on a linux server lol

Generally speaking, the OS doesn't get trashed. It's the garbage that it stashes in little out of the way places that eventually builds up to the place that performance is affected.

I searched through my own system to locate all the folders where "crapola" is stored.
I then put all those locations into a list and made that part of my XPCleanup.bat program.

I then put my cleanup batch file in my startup folder for a daily cleanup.

A well maintained computer will NEVER need a re-install of the OS.

Reinstalling winders makes as much sence as putting a new motor in your car because the oil needs changing.

NO intelligent person would ever do that.

Cheers

True, but at least on a car you can find the oil drain. I hate having to play Sherlock Holmes all the time to figure out what crap is floating around that I don't need.

I used to do it every three months but now that i use nlite and addons i do it every month

Once a month, that's what uA discs are for

I am lazy and reinstall is time consuming.
So I try it once a year.
Hehe...

I reinstall often for testing and me usually screwing something up.

I try to use a Virtual Machine, but there are times when you need to see how it's going to react in the real world.

I'm surprised not a whole lot of people use imaging software (such as Ghost or TrueImage).

If the image is crapped and you don't have a UA disc, you'll have to start from scratch.
I made a ghost bootable dvd and tried to include the image on it but the maximum size dvdrws I have are 4.7gb

when i reload my computers i dont have much to install anyway, so i just reload it manually. that way i never lose my touch

My own personal system had to have XP reinstalled once. Of the 500 or so I have at work, we reimage from a standard base as a last resort and is very infrequent.

Why is there no "twice a year" option? I used to reformat either once every month, or once every 3 months. Now, with my new, stable machine, I'm able to go about 6 months before I need to reclaim the TB of storage I have (in a RAID 0+1 config, which amounts to 465GB useable space).

In retrospect, I should have had a selection for twice per year, but initially, I didn't know which selections to choose.

I reload about every 6 months or so.

depends on the amount of crap i install
or windows has got a problem
but every 3 months or so
reload from a image
and every 7 to 9 months do a good clean install of windows