guiyoforward Posted November 16, 2006 Share Posted November 16, 2006 hi there, I know this isn't exactly the forum for windows issues, but I had an idea and want it to share it with you guys to see what you thought. I usually install all my software on a brand new machine, I make a ghost image of the shiny new Win install, partition the disk, call the new parition documents, save all my stuff there, and just re ghost the machine when it becomes too slow. Now, you always lose stuff on the way. A lot of winrot originates in drivers and programs you install, which leave their trace unless you uninstall them. So I thought about just having a few win installs in VMware, and install all the {censored} (special mp3 renamer, sony propietary sonud plug in, etc.) on the VMware machines, as a way to keep the main install clean. Does this make any sense? thanks! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe75 Posted November 16, 2006 Share Posted November 16, 2006 It will be slow Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/#findComment-235482 Share on other sites More sharing options...
guiyoforward Posted November 16, 2006 Author Share Posted November 16, 2006 Looks like someone else thought about this one. From Slashdot: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/21/2310219 Virtualize most of your apps (VMware, VirtualPC) ! (Score:1) by hlygrail (700685) on Tuesday November 22, @11:17AM (#14091217) One of the biggest killers in Windows performance is installing and uninstalling applications. It leads to registry bloat, stray files and directories, and disk fragmentation. You can be reactive and try to fix all that, but it's better to prevent it in the first place. I've been virtualizing many of my applications inside of VMware and it's helped tremendously. Applications that I don't need all the time, or apps that I only need to use one time, or apps that I'm not sure will do what I need -- they all get installed in a pristine Windows XP VM. If they work, they get reinstalled in my "working VM" and the test VM gets destroyed (thus, stays pristine). I used to do some of this with multiple PCs, but there's absolutely no need for that anymore, and it's more time-consuming re-imaging a piece of hardware back to its pristine state. For what it's worth, I have a P3/850 that's running XP that hasn't been reloaded in almost 4 years. It's starting to degrade due to the fact that I violated the above rule a few times, but is still perfectly usable for stuff like e-mail, quick Photoshop edits, instant messaging, word processing. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/#findComment-235484 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nowned Posted November 16, 2006 Share Posted November 16, 2006 Technically that works, but there is a better piece of software you should try out. It lets you run and install programs in seperate little areas that doesnt effect ur main install. I'm trying to find the link for you Found It it's a program called Sandboxie and i think its exactly what your looking for! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/#findComment-235487 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiaboliK Posted November 16, 2006 Share Posted November 16, 2006 my fave for the registry bloat and unistallation of programs i like {censored} cleaner. yes its called {censored} cleaner! goto ccleaner.com and download for yourself, its free. add a good anti-spyware and a disk defragmenter and your set. my installs i usually have ccleaner, blackice, kaspersky anti-virus, and diskeeper. keeps my machines running as fast as when it was first optimized. even fast on p3's (i like to slim down my xp installs with nLite ) *also if you would like to spend the hours of doing it, go thru your whole system deleting all the random folders and hotfix backups to free up hd space, theres alot. ive got hundreds of pages of what you can take out of xp and still run properly. like i said it takes hours and youve gotta be bold about what you take out. it took me 2 weeks to get it just the way i wanted it.* Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/#findComment-235551 Share on other sites More sharing options...
guiyoforward Posted November 16, 2006 Author Share Posted November 16, 2006 thanks for both links. but joe, given the speed of parallels with virtualization, I don't think it would be too slow on a Duo machine, would it? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/#findComment-235869 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korrupted Posted November 16, 2006 Share Posted November 16, 2006 It will be most of the speed of a native machine if you have a processor with VT-X(D, Core duo, Core 2, Xeon). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/33326-avoiding-winrot-with-vmwareparallels/#findComment-235872 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts