Windows XP reinstall

[Artyom]

Well, before calling to The Guinness Book I decided to ask others what was their time record between XP reinstalls.
So my time is 10 months!:-)

[mhbrands]

I had absolutely no problems for over a year, but when I finally did have to do a restore, the 'behind the partition' copy of XP tried to format the wrong drive (a tiny 2gig spare drive)and could not install XP there...I ended up just buying a new computer and forgetting the whole thing.

[brian.mark]

I haven't reinstalled on any of my PC's in over 2 years. That's the oldest PC I have. About the only thing I have to do is replace fans in them every now and then.

Brian.

[Artyom]

Originally Posted by brian.mark

I haven't reinstalled on any of my PC's in over 2 years. That's the oldest PC I have. About the only thing I have to do is replace fans in them every now and then.

Brian.

You are lucky man Brian:-) I believe it's about how much other software you have installed on your PC. My software list includes like 25-30 items.

[brian.mark]

Originally Posted by Artyom

You are lucky man Brian:-) I believe it's about how much other software you have installed on your PC. My software list includes like 25-30 items.

PhotoShop, FireFox, Putty, Thunderbird, mySqlfront, AOL IM, ICQ, WinSCP, Easy DVD Creator, WinDVD and the Gmail notifier. That's all I really ever use, so I don't install much more than that.

Oh, I forgot about Visual Studio.

Brian.

[gothwalk]

I've had XP home edition on my work machine for three and a half years now - no reinstalls, no hassle. And bucketloads of software installed, uninstalled, and still there.

[Artyom]

Originally Posted by gothwalk

I've had XP home edition on my work machine for three and a half years now - no reinstalls, no hassle. And bucketloads of software installed, uninstalled, and still there.

Well, perhaps you never dealed with PGP 8.0, I use it for work (keeping all work programs and files there) and the reason which caused the latest reinstall was suddenly I mentioned that I could see PGP at tray anymore so I reinstalled it and after I logged on....Win XP didn't listen to the keyboard and mouse anymore:-)) despite it was OK with both and I could use the keyboard for BIOS settings checking...

[mktplace]

Artyom,
After I voted, I looked at the poll and it was 100% 12 months or more.

I am a power user, and install/uninstall software almost on a daily basis. My current machine is over 2 years young and has never had to reinstall XP Pro. The kids machine (full of games and all kinds of crap) running home edition is almost 4 years old with no reinstall.

Maybe you should look into PGP 8.0 as the culprit? I would suggest never reinstalling software until you have uninstalled it first - and if it is the same software that you want to uninstall and reinstall, I would highly recommend a reboot, as there may be residuals in the path, memory, etc. that caused the problems (not suggesting you always need to reboot between installs, I only reboot maybe once per month on my desktop machine)

Or maybe it asked for a reboot that was put off, or done after some other configuration change was made?

For all the Microsoft bashing that goes on, XP is as stable as a rock as far as I am concerned.

[KeithO]

I have only had to do a reinstall 1 time in the last 3 years and that was because my hard drive failed so I had to replace it.
I have Macromedia Studio, FireFox, and BitComet installed. Thats all I really use at home.

[MuNKyonline]

Criky! I have loads of stuff on my machine and I've never had to reinstall it since I installed XP Pro. You just have to be careful with what you delete and what you let get on your machine! Plus if you have shoddy hardware then that'll cause more problems than XP itself!

I've got Studio MX, AVG Anti-virus, Spybot, Adaware, Registry Mechanic, Microsoft Anti-Spyware, Itunes, Nero, DivX Player, MSN Messnger 7 and Messenger Plus, Firefox, Netscape, Thunderbird, Windows Media Player, WinDVD, Office XP, Google Earth, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark Express.... the list goes on.

XP is a reasonably stable o/s but it does like to do some really stupid things still. Some of it has been so dummyfied that it's actually annoying to use at times. But then again at least it's not like a Mac, u have a serious crash on a Mac, it's apparently far worse than in Windows!

[Artyom]

1. Windows XP (just kidding:-)))
2. Open office 2.0
3. FireFox
4. Thunderbird
5. ICQ
6. MSN messanger
7. Jabber IM
8. Yahoo IM
9. Total Commander
10. Photoshop
11. HTML Kit
12. Nero burner
13. Mozilla Sunbird calendar
14. PGP
15. ZoneAlarm Suite Pro
16. Winamp
17. BSPlayer
19. RealPlayer
20. Win media Player
21. Ad-Aware
22. FastStore Image viewer
23. GetRight
24. Notesholder
25. can't remember right now:-)

Yes, I can doubt that my hardware may cause this reinstalls, but so far no bad tracks on my harddrive and no problems with any devices drivers.

[Papadoc]

If you are having to reinstall that often, I'd find out what is causing your trouble, because something is wrong.

I run 4 computers, 3 of which are running XP, one on 2000 Pro. The oldest is 5 years old, two are 3 years, and one less than a year. No reinstalls on any of them ever and no plans to do so either. Between the 4 computers, I probably run 120 applications of various versions of a wide variety of programs. I've installed and uninstalled at least that many more. No problems.

Other than that, these are running like a dream and very snappy. XP needs a reboot about every 5 days, 2000 gets a reboot if the power goes out or about every 3 months whichever comes first.

There is one thing however, that has saved my hiney more than several times however, and that is I ALWAYS install GoBack on any machine the first time booting. Windows restore is garbage. GoBack gives you 20 times more options, does it quickly, no problems, and it's saved me on a few occasions when I accidently overwrote a file. I also run Iolo's System Mechanic once a month as well as Hijack This. Sometimes it's amazing what you can see creeping into your system.