Windows System Maintenance Question

[MrFlibble]

I was talking to my friend recently, and when it came to computers, he mentioned that he has developed a "useful habit" of completely reinstalling Windows (XP I assume) approximately every six months, which he claimed to help avoid serious performance problems.

I have always thought reinstalling the OS is a last resort measure, while maintenance and performance issues can be handled via programs like Norton Utilities ???

[Andrew]

I format and reinstall windows xp once a year for the past 6 years.

It's nice to start out fresh. Like any OS it gets bogged down. And with the windows registry it gets a lot bigger over time with all the entries that do not go away when you uninstall software.

Also the software can get bogged down. Most notably for me is firefox. A clean install of firefox runs better than after I've been using same profile for past 12 months and have large bookmarks and settings and stuff.

It is not necessary, but if you notice stuff running slower than when you first got the PC, a format and reinstall can help. It is sometimes easier than using other software to try and clean things up, or attempting to optimize stuff.

EDIT:

Take for instance I installed my mp3 player video conversion software (which doesn't seem to convert anything), plus another video conversion software. After rebooting my computer windows crashed. It did not give a specific reason for crashing. It could be a virus or something to do with the software, but I have no idea. It'll take me a day or two to figure it out...

[gryphon]

It depends. Some of my computers have 3 year old installations. My laptop now is in it's second year. After the installation I install all the software I need, and that rarely changes for me. So it's just Windows updates and the software updates. No additional software.

A couple of Solaris machines I have are now running sins the stone age. They have up-times of over a year and I have to check when they have been installed.

Computer I use to test software on are reinstalled almost every month though.

[veK]

as gryphon already mentioned: it depends  ::)

I used to format my computer regularly until I got hold of nlite and tweaked my XP to the max (took me a few tries though to get the ideal configuration). now my system keeps running as fast as on the first day of the installation. I uninstall stuff I don't need from time to time, clean the registry and defrag the system hdd.

but there's truth in it that a (standard) windows installation gets slower over the months if you don't do some maintenance and reinstalling the system is quite a possible solution, particularly if you are not very familiar with some advanced clean up procedures.