How often should Windows be re-installed?

Its obvious that after some time every Windows system becomes so heavy that it requires some re-installtion for optimum performance. How often should this be done for Win98 or WinXP?

D

mmm......that's a first...i'm running windows xp for nearly 3-4 months continously and everything is honky-dory for now...besides don't really think it should become uhh.."heavy" if you defragment it and run utilities like norton's disk doctor and windoctor. but i guess if you have to, how frequent...would depend upon how u use your comp....like if you spend 7-8 hrs on the net each day and load it with cookies or just use it to listen to music and play games.....

It can totally be avoided .. why do you want to reinstall windows ??
Just
# keep cleaning your registry (there are hell lot of programs for that),
# keep cleaning prefetch (delete all files in the directory)
# keep defragmenting ( obvious suggestion )

Its possible to avoid reinstalling windows all the way !
Reinstalling windows is such a pain .. not the OS itself .. but then you have to reinstall ALL programs ( AV,Firewall,Media Applications, Codecs, etc ,etc) everything. And once you do that .. the system becomes as slow/fast as it earlier was.
Of everything you do .. the above listed things are most imp. .. keep doing them. No need to reinstall.

-----
alibi

D

Re-installing windows ? whats that?
Sorry but I dont feel comfortable with re-installing windows every now & then plus as alib_i has mentioned it can be totally avoided.
I'll add more ...

1.Keep it updated to the latest patches.
2.Keep it malware free
3.Keep your AV updated & scan periodically.

If apart from this re-installing windows is still a concern to you & you need the feel of a clean install then I suggest using a disk cloning program such as Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost.
Perform a clean install,install all the things you need & make a image of it.Store the image on a different partition or burn it on optical media such as CD/DVD.

Restore it whenever you feel a sluggish performance.Works in a jiffy.Ofcourse all the things that you add later after the image has been made will be lost.But I assume you store documents & important files in different partition.

P.S: The last time I did a re-install was when my RAID array had gone kaput.Other than that its been more than a year & still going strong.

Hmm ill give a suggestion. When you format, install all the necessary things (AV etc) make an image through Acronis TrueImage! Then the next time u feel like formatting, just restore the image! It just takes 10 mins!!! Try it! Its amazing!

Well i format (restore the image) at least 4-5 times in a month! I like to mess with my system a lot though! I've probably tested 80% of the software out there! Hehe.

Sticking to the question in discussion, I re-install windows every 15-20 days. Max would be 30 days before a reinstall.

After all it doesnt take much time to install a slip streamed XP setup when you have the setup files on your hdd itself. Besides i dont mind installing it all over again, kinda like it too. I frequently format and reinstall the XP on the C: drive and have a savior XP in spare always which is pretty clean and password protected, just in case something goes wrong somewhere.

The longest time that my WinXP lasted without a reinstallation was 6 monts.
After that i hv to reinstall it in every cpl of mnths

I do it frequently. Now cos of the BSNL unlimited d/l and u/l my disk is full so i need to get another one and clean the old one.

G

haven't installed it from March 2005

If i dont reinstall it often. Then I get all sorts of c rappy errors like kernel,mshtml,winet, so on...

I reinstall my windows XP, whenever I got something new to slipstream into its Setup using nLite :wink:

Like I reinstalled it when I got IE 7 BETA.

And whenever I installed too many s/w to check their functionality.

Usually my windows XP is reinstalled after 1 or 2 months regularly

i invariably end up screwing so have to reinstall every one month .I dunno but it happens atleast every month

Its been 8 months...
I'm happy with wot I hv rite now...
1.regular registry Cleaning and Registry Defragging..
2.Disk Defrag...
3.Cache Clean...
4.Disk Checker....

Yahooo!

I too have to reinstall my XP every month as i try out new softz n in the course keep screwing XP......

Well, I have been running a Win98SE system since last 2 years. But had to change MoBo, Processor, etc in between. The system is so slow and buggy that I have to restart 2-3 times to see desktop :roll: I removed and reinstalled all the drivers, but that didn't work. So a clean re-install seems the only alternative. Mandrake on the same system runs pretty smoothly. So hardware has no problem.

I have another system wherein I have a very typical problem. I am at my wit's end and can't solve it and I can't live with that problem as well. From the replies that I got from Deep, alibi_i and digen there, I can say that I am still far from solving the problem. If it doesn't get solved a re-install will be the only alternative on that system too.

I never reinstall, format and install thats the best thing actually coz if the problem is solveable by reinstall then I can solve it without reinstall (most of 'em). And I never format until I really $creW my windows.

S

I reinstall my system every month....

I haven't reinstalled XP since July 2004. I only had to do a reinstall when I had to replace my motherboard, but it was just a normal reinstall, not a fresh installation. All this because I use Firefox. Before that it was like everyone else, every month...

Some stats say that the Average Windows user reinstalls after 5 months while the Average Mac user reinstalls...never. Only reinstalls when there is an upgrade...

N

djmykey said:
I never reinstall, format and install thats the best thing actually coz if the problem is solveable by reinstall then I can solve it without reinstall (most of 'em). And I never format until I really $creW my windows.

Same here with me. My XP SP2 is now 10 months old - without any problems. Working just fine.

i reinstall my XP every month or a max. of two months.

i have been using the same xp for over 6 mnths now, and its as good as new; inspite of SO MANY installs/uninstalls/trials/etc. 6 mnths back, i messed up royally, hence had to reinstall.
:arrow:

tweak it to optimize it.
clear pc junk files
clean registry
compact registry
defrag hard disk.

for this i use ace utilities, tune-up utilities, system mechanic, cacheman, ms bootvis, driverheaven tunexp 1.5.

M

I generall reinstall it after a month