How often do you reinstall your OS?

Question

My computer has the same OS as when I bought it back in 2001, XP Home. It works like a charm but lately its been acting weirdly when trying to run windows update. Also, I have installed and uninstalled hundreds of programs over the years so the registry is a little cluttered.

Should I reinstall windows?

P.S. - Reinstalling all the stuff I have now will probably take about a month. I'm upgrading to XP Pro.

Answer 1

Every 4 months to keep the police from calling

LMAO

Answer 2

How are you upgrading? New hard drive? New System?

But to answer your question, formating the hard drive is something that should get done when it needs it. Why fix what ain't broke. A friend of mine does it once a year, I do not. I only format if it is really necessary, which is not often. Every few years maybe. But my friend is always trying the newest programs and constantly installing stuff. So, yeah he has his cluttered after a bit. I actually think he screws it up, then says oh it needed a good formatting. :-/

If you are upgrading, why not slave that drive and then install programs as needed. Some will work from the slave, many will not. Then you can format the old drive and have that as a back up, or for whatever, music etc.

Answer 3

Well, when I was new to computers I Used to do it every month

The clutter was so much that my system would respond as if it belonged to the prehistoric era

Some of my friends did it on Weekly basis !!

But then as I gradually gained insight into the workin of a computer, i started to free the clutter myself, so as to say keep my PC clean

I used defrag, registry cleaning, disk cleaning, disabling services, managing startup and stuff like that

I was surprised to notice, one day, that i had this OS installed for over 4 months now

So, the key is keep ur PC clean

Moreover y dont u try Norton Ghost or something like that
It creates or lets u create a reduced(half) sizez image of ur OS drive with all its drivers and programs installed.
When u feel that u need to format, just restore the image-it takes only 5 mins or so and ur system is just as u had made it that time workin perfectly with all its drivers and software installed

Answer 4

you will need to do what ever you decide to do fast... if you're going to move up to xp pro as from Jan 2008 MS are NOT supporting XP. so you will need to install xp pro and get all the update before then... they are forcing Vista onto everybody and that will include you!..... unless you think other wise...

Answer 5

if you have a good firewall and antivirus dont use the autoupdate, I used it once and it messed up my system

if your computer is acting slow I would say to format it

Answer 6

when ever my pc is F8#ked so about 10 times a year.