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How many times do you reinstall Windows?  

79 members have voted

  1. 1. How many times do you reinstall Windows PER YEAR?

    • 0
      13
    • 1-5
      30
    • 5-10
      12
    • 10-20
      7
    • 20+ (Yikes!)
      17


32 posts in this topic

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Simple poll. How many times do you reinstall Windows per year? I have a XP SP2 install on one of my computers thats been putting along for just over a year now (since I got the computer). Another one of my computers had an SP2 install till I upgraded to Vista. I know it says to reinstall Windows every 3 months or so but I don't see the need, just give it a nice swipe with CCleaner.

 

:)

Yeah, I dunno how to answer this exactly. I said "0" because I don't do it on a regular basis. However, with all the work I do with my computers, I generally end up reinstalling OS's a lot. So, I could have checked 1-5. However, I don't mean to, and if I can, I like to keep my computer rather functional. I agree with you ~pcwiz, a nice swipe with Ccleaner goes a long way.

OMFG This is quite hilarious because I'm reading this at the same time I'm thinking about my hard work on sunday if my MW won't get alive after appliying the recover-with-reinstall method (I actually don't know which is the real name for this process: run all setup normaly until the program says that there is already a MW installation and ask me if I want to recover)

You know is a pain to reinstall all the stuff over and over thanks to uncle Bill and his stable-like-a-rock OS.

On the other hand, I own Mac's too and the only reason that I ever had for reinstall the OS X is because it's better to do a fresh install instead of upgrade when a new version arrives.

 

XP RULES!!! (read: sarcasm)

who says it needs reinstalling once every 3 months?! that's a ridiculous number! I have never heard that before.

 

my Macbook is the only computer I have running XP, and its about to be replaced with Server 2008. not because it needs reinstalling, just because I want to install 2008, I suppose thats quite typical of a lot of users on this forum.

Reinstalling OSx86 doesn't count, because I have to do that all the time. For Windows it goes like this:

January 07- Vista x86

March 07- (For a reason not Vista's fault) Vista x86

June 07- Vista x64 (to try it out)

August 07- XP x86

December 07- Vista x86

 

I don't plan on reinstalling for a while.

Janruary 2006 - XP Pro x86

March 2008 - Vista Ultimate x86 (different drive)

 

My XP install is still singing and has an uptime of nearly 100% (honestly I never put the PC to sleep or on hibernate.)

 

I should get around to installing dedicated AntiVirus and Firewall but meh...

I reinstall different OS's alot lol. In a month i'd have to say I installed:

 

Windows XP: 3 times

Windows Vista: 4 times

Ubuntu: 2 times

openSuse: 2 times

Mac OS X Leopard: 14 times (did something, broke install, had to reinstall alot)

Aha, the dreaded WinRot!

 

Now that I know how to keep XP clean I've been using the same installation on my desktop for 850 days according to Roboform, which keeps track of how long since it was installed. The secret is running various tools to clean, repair and compact things and avoiding installing stuff you don't really want - or getting rid of apps with a heavy duty uninstaller if you haven't used them for a while. I often try new programs in a sandbox (Sandboxie) or a VMWare installation to see if they're any good before they get onto the live system.

 

I've also taken to building portable versions of apps using Thinstall on a clean VM, so some stuff never gets installed at all. This is worth looking at if you want to play with things. Running Word 2007 without any installation is just great!

 

Overall I must have installed XP at least fifty times on different systems (mainly other people's) and I've reinstalled Tiger once on my G5 because I screwed it up to the point where the underlying Unix was broken, and I've migrated both the G5 and the Powerbook to Leopard.

 

My recommendations for XP preservation programs:

 

JVPowerTools

Regitry Mechanic

Your Uninstaller!

Raxco Perfect Disk

 

I'll probably be reinstalling Windows on my desktop in the next couple of months. Not because it's broken, but because my desktop needs an upgrade of motherboard and processor. This overclocked (4GHz) Pentium D 960 isn't cutting it any more.

I'm going with the bored excuse too

 

I hate dual booting since I just like having all my HD space allocated to one OS, so I've become quite the joke of my roommates and friends as I change my main OS at least once a month, usually when something new and exciting pops up in the Windows/Mac/Linux world that I think will give me that 100% complete feeling I need. Hasn't happened yet though.

 

Right now Leopard is my main OS, but it's taking all my strength not to try something else, since I hate having to hack up the system just to make it stable (Only recognizes 2 sata ports w/ ahci, IDE drives crash my system, so my dvd-rw drives are now wire through USB) Part of me loves OS X, but I just feel like I'm compromising too much to run it.

 

So in short, I vote at least 12 times a year

 

EDIT: Well if you include installs in VMs since I do a lot of testing/benchmarking of VM software, it'd be well over 20+

My original XP install lasted about 7 years. It survived one motherboard upgrade. Usually, I have to reinstall when switching hardware. Unlike win9x, I've found XP to be rock solid.

 

I recently bought a Mac Pro and installed Vista x64 on it. As for boredom, I switch between OSX and Vista. I spend 2 or 3 days at a time in each OS, with me favoring Windows. Right now I'm in OSX. I have a Macbook Pro as well, but it tends to stay in Windows more often.

I reinstall different OS's alot lol. In a month i'd have to say I installed:

 

Windows XP: 3 times

Windows Vista: 4 times

Ubuntu: 2 times

openSuse: 2 times

Mac OS X Leopard: 14 times (did something, broke install, had to reinstall alot)

 

In the last month i have installed:

 

Vista 6 times

XP 0 times

Ubuntu 1 time

Leopard 31 times

 

I had BAD problem with getting Leo on my PC but now it's better than windows ever was. Faster, more stable everything. :censored2:

 

 

 

MacTamer

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