Windows XP forum: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS?

the windows kernel is spaghetti code compared to *nix variants, thus easily can become corrupt but it does not have to be. problem is that the manufacturer is more interested in profits than creating a quality product. even the developers are mostly from asia, known for its cheap labor...

The spaghetti code also exists within the various *nix/Linux kernels. The old "microkernel" architecture is no longer there since long, and there are huge dependencies between the kernel and even between the loadable drivers (called 'modules' in Linux). If you have ever tried to manage the system updates on Linux, the automated updates will fail for each module that have been tweaked locally or installed from packages that are not part of an existing supported pack from your distrib. It then becomes wuite difficult to manage the versioning, so you're stuck to using only the "official" packages maintained by your distribution provider. except for pure standalone applications that just use some basic libraries.
The set of dependencies in most *nix/Linux programs are extremely more difficult to manage in the sources, you can look at the various "configure scripts" and numerous packages you have to preinstall before compiling them, with specific versions. That's why many softwares for *Nix/*Nux only come supported with specific distributions. The effective danger, on *nix/Linux is to start with a distribution and finally find later that it is no longer active or no more supported by your important application software. That's the main reason why *nix/Linux is used mostly for server applications, and with very few desktop applications. *nix/Linux still needs a coherent GUI and some standards to build applications with them.
So may be the future of *nix/Linux on desktop will be within virtual environments, rather than on C/C++ packages: I mean here better support of advanced GUI features within standard libraries of languages like Python or Java or a .Net port, to reduce the dependencies in application code, or using common libraries of famous browser tookits like Mozilla, WebKit, and Qt, to build applications on top of it. But there will still be a lack of unification for the desktop integration (having to manage various desktop shells, or various system repositories for installable application packages, is a mess of spaghetti code, and lots of difficulties for managing upgrades and their dependencies: this means that these systems are too often installed with too mange packages than those that will be actually needed; in which case a desktop *nix/Linux installation can now require even more installed gigabytes of code on disk than Windows itself, whose layering and reuse of code has considerably progressed, notably in Windows 7 that is very promizing).

I just tried to backup a full installation of Windows 7 Ultimate (final release for manufacturers) in its default settings (which requires a disk space of 16GB in order to complete the installation, including all its internal working files), and after some post-install cleanup, I was very pleased to see that the full installation only required a bit more than 6 GB of disk space plus 1 GB for its default paging file (i.e. Seven Ultimate successfully runs within 8GB, including with the addition of an alternate web browser, and its current system updates). This is much less than Windows Vista.

Note that when backing up a complete system (including several partitions) to a VHD file, that file can be compressed for faster transfers over a network, however compressed VHD files cannot be used as live writable disks, so they are not bootable; however you may use offline defragmentatin tools on VHD files to minimize the partition usage, prior to resizing the partition, in order to reduce the size of the VHD file: it does not have to contain physically all the data from unused partitions).

This practice is mainly a hold-over from the Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 days, however it is sometimes necessary to remove some bad settings or drivers or perhaps the remnants of a boot sector virus. Back in the good-ole-days (LOL) of Windows 3.1, computers, especially developer's computers, would crash often, sometimes several times a day. This would corrupt system files, drivers etc. at random making the machine exhibit strange problems. It was next to impossible to troubleshoot this strange behaivior and rather than spend days trying to figure out what was wrong, it was simpler and faster to start over. Also, the hard drives were not nearly as reliable as modern hard drives and would sometimes add to the problems. Formating the drive ensures that even if a boot virus or other nasty was present, it would be wiped out.

As I said, this is not necessary with XP or later OS except on very rare circumstances. These OS guard the system files and other vital files and are many times more stable than the old OSes. I am a developer and I have not had a BSOD on XP in several months, probably less than 6 total with XP in more than 5 years. I used to get that many in a hard day with W31.

Hi, you don't say if you only use your machine to write code or for everything.

See my answer to last week's question:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.html?messageID=3097493&tag=nl.e497#3097493

[The title was "People are too quick to reinstall Windows "; and the first paragraph was:

People are too quick to reinstall Windows, and too slow (FAR too slow) to consider that when a computer isn't working, the problem might be the computer (and not the software).]

There is an old saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat all problems like nails. This is kind of like that: Often people (in particular telephone tech support people) don't know what to do, so they give this advice. For THEM, it works, because "reinstalling windows" can take hours or even days, so the problem goes away, for hours or days. Note, however, that in their mind, the "PROBLEM" isn't the problem but rather the customer who is seeking assistance. Hey, if we just got rid of all of our customers, there would be no problems !! Think how much easier life would be.

So much for today's lesson on how to win friends and influence people.

Ok, let's look at VALID reasons to reinstall Windows:

1. Malware and Virus': If a system gets a virus/malware infection, reinstalling Windows may be the only way, the best way or the fastest way to fix the problem. These infections alter critical Windows files as well as installed user programs and, sometimes (but fortunately rarely) data. Some of them cannot be removed, in other cases hundreds or thousands of files may have been altered and a complete reinstallation may be the only way, the best way or the fastest way to fix the problem. IF, that is, the system is really suffering from such an infection.

2. Registry corruption and bloat: One of the most important components of Windows is the "Registry", a database of everything that is on the comptuer and that has been done to the computer. This includes both hardware and software. As the computer is used more and more, and as software and hardware are removed and added (especially added), the registry gets bigger and bigger and bigger, which makes using the computer slower and slower and slower (one of the problems is that when you remove a program, which may have thousands of entries in the registries, it's "uninstall" process probably does not remove all of it's registry entries). While there are "registry cleaners" that purport to "clean" the registry (and in some cases to defragment it as well), both their effectiveness and safety are variable and questionable; in the worst case, they remove critical entries and can damage or even destroy the computer (in some cases to the point that it no longer boots). Sometimes, you just get to a point where the best thing to do is start over clean, but the only way to do that is to reinstall everything (not just Windows, EVERYTHING) from scratch. Yes it happens. I'd even go so far as to say it's inevitable. But unless you are one of those people who installs WAY too much (too many things that you should know better than to install), it should take 2 to 3 years before you MAYBE get to a point where registry bloat is enough of an issue that you should consider reinstalling windows.

3. Corrupt files. This is similar to item one, virus' and malware, but it's not the result of a nefarious attack. Sometimes, a hardware failure will corrupt files or critical data structures (boot records, directories, FAT tables, MFT tables (the NTFS equivalent of directories and FAT tables), etc. It can happen, it shouldn't, but it can. The damage may be such that reinstalling windows is the best or only solution. THIS IS USUALLY CAUSED BY HARDWARE FAILURE (although it can be transient).

So those are the reasons why it really might make sense to reinstall windows. And, frankly, because of "register bloat", most users should expect that a "periodic" reinstallation of windows may be good or necessary. BUT, the "period", in the absence of malware infection or hardware failure, or people who compulsively install everything that they come across, should be 2-4 years (note, also ... this may be about the practical life of a typical comptuer due to the obsolescence that occurs as new comptuers become more and more capable).

A couple of comments: Reinstalling windows completely means reinstalling ALL of your other software (office, photoshop, multimedia tools, browsers, etc.). It also means you either backup your data first and restore it, or you lose it. If you have a lot of "stuff" on your computer, this will take hours and will probably take days. There are some strategies that you can use to minimize this:

1. KEEP YOU DATA IN A PARTITION OTHER THAN DRIVE C: This makes a lot of sense and is a good practice. But, unfortunately, it's surprisingly difficult. It means "moving" the "My Documents" folder from it's default location, and it means configuring ALL of your programs to place and look for their data in a partition on a drive other than C:. Software publishers (including Microsoft) do not make this easy, and even when it's not difficult, they don't tell you how to do it. And in some cases, the level of difficulty required to move a program's "default" data storage location reaches the point of manually editing the registry.

2. After you do a reinstallation, and have everything major more or less "right", MAKE AN IMAGE BACKUP. Then if you have to reinstall, the image backup may be hours or days faster than a piece by piece "bare metal" reinstallation of everything (restoring an image backup is usually a 20-40 minute task and it gets you back to where you were when you made the backup .... which should be shortly AFTER
you did a complete piece-by-piece reinstallation of Windows AND ALL OF YOUR OTHER SOFTWARE. The problem with this is that no only do most users not know either what it is or how to do it ... but it requires an image backup program that you will probably have to BUY. [Vista Ultimate has an image backup program in the OS, and in Windows 7 I believe it will be present in all versions].

3. CONSIDER USING "SYSTEM RESTORE". Very often, "system restore" can save your butt and avoid the need for the far more complex process of a full reinstallation of Windows. Another tool that most users don't know about and don't know how to use. But at least it's part of Windows, and it's free.

The only time I have had to do an full reinstall of XP was due to hard drive failure and replacement, and even after replacing the hard drive, I used a system back up/image to shorten the needed set up time from days to just a few hours.

Before one goes to this extreme one needs to try a feature called System Restore [similar to GoBack from Windows 98]

I had an unusual situation about a week ago when one of new programs I tested wiped out the icons on my desktop after I consulted a Computer expert. He suggested I do a system restore and then eliminate the guilty program ... well after the 3rd back attempt my system was working with all the icons on the screen.

So as an alternative route to go, here's is the procedure:

a] back up your data you need.
b] open the following:

1. Start
2. Programs
3. Accessories
4. System Tools
5. System Restore

When running the system restore go back in time to a point before the problem started. You may have to go back a couple of earlier dates to get the screen
'Normal' like it was.

After System restore is done. then get rid of the offending troublemaking programs. [In my case it was a Vision program to restore eye vision using Subliminal techniques].

and then run

a] Anti virus program [update that before running]
b] Anti Spyware program such as SPYBOT.
c] a defragger program such as Smart Defrag
d] a general hard drive crap cleaner

Using the Add/remove feature in Control Panel remove all unwanted programs... this might include elimination of several similar functioning programs [do not remove the setup program in case you want to use it again] ...

Go to your download manager folder and check for unfinished downloads and delete them.

Also Note when you download a movie or a program it often does NOT Go to your default download folder.

I recommend that you download the original setup or a zipped version of the setup program. Do a data check and get rid of extra copies of files that are just duplicates taking up space.

To clean up ebook PDF duplicates of the same titles:
a] Decide on a system of file and folder renaming:
A consistent naming after downloads for PDF extension files ...

For example you have several files from different sources by various sponsors:

Sponsor A has a title with hyphens for each word
Sponsor B has A title with author following
Sponsor C has first name last name title and publisher and so on

Do a further Cleanup of your audio and video files ... Some videos take up 100 megs and more.

David

Watz the watzman...Muwahahahahaaaa!


Sorry. Couldn't resist...

Good advice though.

a good software program to make an image backup?

thanks.

The best I have found and it works perfectly, is Macrium Reflect. Plus, it is free. You can make a boot CD so that when you need to recover from a disaster, just boot from the CD, plug in the external hard drive which has a saved image and restore the OS drive from the image on the external drive and you are back in business lickety-split. This will help you recover from a failed hard drive, virus or trojan malfeasance, or a massive personal f**k up. Just remember to occasionally do a fresh image backup, especially when you make major changes to your OS.

ACTUALLY, THERE IS INDEED A 'Free Edition' OF SUCH, TO BE FOUND ON 'Download.com'!
(IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT THERE COULD BE ANY OF US WHO WOULDN'T THINK TO SEARCH Download.com, OF ALL PLACES!)

Partioning and an Image Backup is the answer. Whatever tool, I use Acronis happily, imagine: On does a fresh install with the good drivers, most important software and updates. Do some cleaning CC Cleaner f.a. The machine runs still smoothly. That's one of the best moments to backup. Imagine a couple of month later: The system starts behaving annoing. Ons tries some things, dependent on situation and skills. Time goes by gazing at the windows on the screen. Then one says Enough! and starts his engine to fall back to situation smoothly running or whatever state of progress. It starts spinnin. within an hour evrething is **** and span again.

Any backup program that is not capable of creating a true image of your disk as a .VHD file, that can be remounted later at least as a virtual hard disk, for example in Virtual PC or in Windows Server, should be thrown away. Remember that Virtual PC is free. It will save your life if you ever need to reinstall your OS completely from an image, or intend to reinstall it completely from scratch and still being able to recover all the settings that are still in thr VHD file.
Beware with cheap backup programs (including the default backup program of Basic and Home versions of Windows... which does not preserve everything and is completely unable to create true image files of your disk, including its partition tables, MBR, boot records... partition tables and settings for geometry parameters and fixup modes).