You can reinstall the operating system without messing with any of the other files but that is of unpredictable value. The surest way to restore full performance and stability is to back everything up, reformat the drive, and reinstall and restore. I too however, think that is something that one should do only in desperate circumstances. The operating system I am working on now started out as a Windows 98 install and then I copied the entire drive over when I built a new computer. I upgraded to XP and everything works fine even though the data legacy on the drive is 8 years old.
I just run a whole suite of antivirus, adware, spyware, tuning, registry cleaning, and other utilities to keep things working right. I don’t think there is any one tool that will do everything even within one category (spyware removal). You just need to pick a whole toolset and use it.
Oh, my, yes, you’ll have to backup everything except the OS. That is only one reason to backup frequently. I use a external HDD (Maxtor) with a good program called Dantz Retrospect, but there are many others. The important thing is to develp a backup routine and stick to it.
A good backup program will let you burn a disaster restore CD, which can be a lifesaver in the event of a crash. It will not only reinstall your OS, but all the files and programs, and you’ll be reight back where you were.
The first backup you make will take a long time, but thereafter just do incremental ones which add any changed or new files or programs and won’t take long.
As pointed out in the other posts, it is essential to have two or more spyware programs and a good antivirus. They won’t be any help if you don’t dowload the latest definitions frequently, and run the scans as often as you can. Always do this before doing a backup.
Doing this and defrags monthly should keep your system unclogged. There was a warning about tinkering with the Registry, but I’ve used a very good program, Registry Healer, that does an excellent job of cleaning it. It makes a backup, so if anything goes wrong, you can restore it to where it was before. It also gives you the option of compressing the Registry after cleaning.
I’ve also found that when I uninstall a program, even though it is supposed to remove any references from the Registry, they seldom do. Therefore, after making a backup of the Registry, I do a Find for any mention of the program removed, and it is amazing how much you find an delete. WARNING Don’t mess around with the Registry unless you really know what you are doing, and back it up first!
These suggestions and all the others posted should obviate the need to ever reinstall the OS.
Nope, not on a Mac, not unless you expressly choose to reformat the drive before installing the OS.
Under MacOS 9 and earlier, you have 3 main options: you can install the OS into the existing System Folder (thus upgrading it if you’re running an older version), which keeps all your settings but replaces the crucial OS files; you can install the OS into a brand new System Folder, which preserves all the files in the old ones — the old folder gets renamed to "System Folder (old) — which means if you want to preserve any settings or preferences, you have to manually move them over from the old folder to the new one;, or, finally, you can erase the hard disk and install an (obviously) fresh new System Folder. Only the third options would erase user-created documents, your application software, and so on.
Under MacOS X, you have yet another option, called archive and install; it keeps your old operating system (renaming it) but it copies over all of the preferences and settings for you into the new system so you don’t have to do it manually.
Is separate software necessary for managing startup items in Win 2000/XP ? I’m on Win98 at home still – when I want to look at this stuff, I click on “Run” in the Start Menu, then type in “msconfig” to access the stock System Configuration Utility. On the Startup tab, I can check/uncheck programs to control whether or not they launch at startup.
Ding! That’s why your file accesses are slow. Windows isn’t very good about determining what’s “old” in this case, and compressed files are slower to open than uncompressed ones. It’s even worse if you have the “compress drive to save space” option turned on on the disk – this will make ALL file accesses slower.
I wouldn’t choose the “compress files” or compress disk options unless I had to (and with hard drives being cheap, you may never have to).