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Spring Cleaning For Your Hard Drive
Shutup Now writes "Spring cleaning for your hardrive. This article talks about some extremes for keeping your computer running well. You decide whether this stuff is necessary." More than once a year is a good idea, too.
spring cleaning the right way- time for a clean install! It was time for a new porn archive anyway...
_+_+__+_+_+_+_+_+_+++
when i moo u moo - just like that
... The power supply fan halts on the 6 oz. of dust blocking the blades.
Your hdd is filling up? Buy another one :) In my opinion spring cleaning is forced by hard drive failure, just make sure you've backed up any original data (savegames, work, probably 600 mb worth :)).
I don't take tech tips from the newspaper.
a new install every six months is the best way to make sure every thing keeps running well
The need for a "spring cleaning," IMO, is analogous to letting your sink pile up with dirty dishes. The messier things get, the more daunting (and unlikely to be completed) the cleaning task becomes. After years of gradually creating messes on my hard drive, I finally learned, through effort and discipline, to put my time and energy into "up-front cleaning." That is, I try to bring closure to everything I do before it fades into HD oblivion.
If I decide an app sucks, I eliminate it on the spot. I put everything related to a project into a single folder whenever possible and when the job is over, I take the time to archive it out to DVD or whatever. I delete all the "test files" ASAP (how many "finalfinal02_B.*'s do you have stashed away?). Delete all those old pr0n files regularly! Dump those log files!
It takes tremendous discipline to avoid it, but I've found all too often, that "spring cleanings" actually tend to be needed on an emergency basis when a new paying project needs space or when performance slows to a crawl.
Similarly, how many bachelor geeks have spent two hours doing dishes on an emergency basis before an important client or, god forbid, a member of the opposite sex is due to arrive.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
Now appearing on Slashdot! Coming soon, how to set the time on your VCR!
"How to make some room on your hard drive"? Is that what Slashdot writes about nowadays? - The editors must be on crack!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
eMule is my backup.
A full reinstall risks loss of data. One example is your email. Outlook express buries its data somewhere in c:\windows\application data\ . Most people don't back up the windows directory and risk losing their email when performing a complete reinstall. Windows 2000, and XP are stable enough that rebuilding the system every 6 months is no longer a best practice. The only good time to reinstall the OS is if there is something wrong with it. For example if you have downloaded some strange porn-viewer.exe that has fsked everything up a reinstall should be your last resort option.
And the author's techniques do not apply to Macs or Linux. Obviously the author is merely a journalist, and not a computer expert.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
I have 14GB in ~/, and I've still got another 20GB to go before I need to delete some useless files or get a new HD. But at the rate of increase, I may well have a new computer by then anyway.
Incidentally, of that 14GB, about 10MB is actually important, and that is backed up.
Quote: "When there's too much on your hard drive, you'll have a harder time finding things when you need them..." Was anyone else blinded by this flash of the obvious?
"It's one thing to talk about the poetry of machines. Quite another to listen to it for yourself."
Imagine cleaning a beowulf cluster of these ;)
As Linux From Scratch is rather hard to maintain anyway (rebuilding a library at the bottom often causes problems for stuff linked against it), it is common to "reLFS", that is build an entirely new LFS on another partition on your harddrive. One builds the very latest of everything, and then moves all config files and stuff over from the old system. When I move over my personal stuff, I tend to be veeeery strict with myself, and "leave behind" a lot of things (to die under the hand of mke2fs). That way, my system gets a total spring cleaning rather often, and the system is updated.
From the article - "Now start that word processor, try that Web browser: I bet you'll see that they start sooner and run faster, with fewer crashes. If only a carwash had as much effect on car performance." How do people manage to fill their computers with so much junk that their web browser crashes? It really boggles the mind.
The windows registry is one cause of this.. it's a huge unmanagable beast, with many ways to have things load and hook in to various operations.
On the other hand, using it as a business system or for a specialized task where you aren't constantly changing configurations, then you probably have more chance of a long-term install working properly. But I wold imagine most /.ers would fit in the former, here. I sure do.
Speak before you think
For me it comes down to a balance...
A pile of CDs ($2), several hours of an IT professional's time (mine) spent backing stuff up (3x$30-50/hr), the pain in the ass when you managed to miss something vs. that shiny new hard drive ($80).
On a straight time and cost equation, it's reached the point where it's now cheaper to buy a new drive and have a complete backup whenever I want one (plus a fully booting system I know at least semi-worked whenever I break my main one). Six months, or however much, later, if I'm sure I don't need that backup version, instead of a bunch of full CDRs, I've got an extra drive for a toy Linux box.
Then again, the geek factor of getting to fiddle with the minutae kicks in. (Although the extra drives for toy Linux boxes appeal)
If I'm short of time, buying a new drive ultimately works out cheaper. If I've not met my geekiness quota recently, fiddling's more fun.
deborphan will show which library packages are installed but not referenced by any apt-managed package. If you're reasonably sure you aren't building any unmanaged packages, you can just "dpkg -r `deborphan`" a couple times to remove any spurious libraries.
cruft will show all files not recognized by Debian. Capture to a file and filter it through a chain of a few grep -v statements for areas you know you want left alone. You'll get a list of files you can toss in pretty short order.
In Russia you do not clean the drive, Russian drives never need cleaning, only American drives are corrupt.
...More often than not, it's all those System Restore points that are using up gigabytes of space (unless you're uber and have that service disabled). Just about every time you update a driver, XP will make a restore point for you, even if you don't ask for one. Thankfully, you can make XP get rid of all but the most recent:
.DLLs and junk files" they sound like someone extolling the virtue of the Intel chip because it's more "compatible and stable" than an AMD chip. I.e., locked into stale notions of a computer's capabilities. I would recommend Norton's system cleaning utilites before I recommend a full wipe.
Go to My Computer, right-click on your XP drive/partition, click Properties, click the Disk Cleanup button to the bottom right of the pie chart, click the More Options tab, click the bottom "Clean up" button and click OK. I do that about once a week and free up at least 100MB each time.
The disk cleanup applet will take care of the majority of system cruft. I don't know why people wipe and reinstall so often, it's really not necessary. When people talk to me about "random
Mostly, the gradual system slowdown people experience as they add programs over time is due to excess baggage like startup programs and unneccesary services. Check your system tray, hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and check your services list. You don't need WinAmp Agent, Mozilla QuickStart, or anything that automatically starts up anyway when you click on a multimedia file.
And check out This excellent page for getting rid of half of the services you never use anyway.
And use BootVis. It will clean up your boot time. Maybe a lot.
rm $PORTAGE_TMPDIR/*
emerge -u world
hmm. did I forget anything?
This is something that serious ergs me as so many people believe it. The amount of available free space does not affect system performance or stability in anyway shape or form. Your system will run just as well with 10MB of free space verses 10GB of free space(*). The only time you should ever be affected is when trying to write more data than you have. Even writes are not faster with more disk space except in usual circumstances since writes are buffered by the operating system.
(*) These numbers are true on Unix but less true on Windows. Depending on your type of file system, you should have either 2*RAM free or 2*RAM rounded up to the nearest power of two available (for fat or ntfs respectively). For some stupid reason, swap space is stored in a regular file system by Windows (instead of in it's own partition on Unix) so it is possible to run out of memory more frequently if you have less disk space available in Windows (although keep in mind that running out of memory is not that same as slow performance).
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
You are right for novice users, but what about the typical slashdotter who fiddles with their settings and is constantly dragging around huge divx movies or iso's?
"You can probably get the same performance increase by reorganizing your files, and defragging the harddrive." What are you basing this HUGE assumption on?
My iBook running OS X had taken such a pounding for nearly a year and was lagging despite defrags and uninstalls. I reformatted and reinstalled and now my system is MUCH more responsive. The same goes for a couple of my office linux boxes and my home winXP computer. I agree that typical maintenance should be limited to defrag and uninstall, but yearly maintenance should definitely include a reformat.
they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies."
(A quote from your hero and mine, Linus Torvalds.)
... a zeroing. Zeroing is the best way to clean up a HDD. And it's crazy fun ;o)
You can't beat a fresh install every year - and now winows XP has the files & settings transfer wizard, you can simply run this to a few cd's, or another HDD without the root directory on and after you have wiped & reinstalled the OS, it will set up all your e-mail accounts, files, prOn etc... Very little hassle really - except the fact that windows will tie up your modem for the next week downloading updates again...
The Mac is still easier to use, a distinction it has kept for almost 20 years now.
To use? Maybe. It still does seem to keep some slight edges of being more well-thought out, in my opinion.
But I think it's not so much day-to-day use that's easier, it's administration. And that's what I think that many people forget... the kind of thing this article is talking about is, essentially, system administration, something that your average user sucks at. Make that easier, make it transparent, and you've made the easier to use machine.
Tweet, tweet.
If you know what you're doing (as in, not the type of thing that should be posted in an article for novices, although he did include a warning) doing a clean install can have a *much* greater performance advantage in windows--including windows xp. Heck, from what I observed with my computer, I'd do it every 3 months...although every 6 months is good enough for most heavy users and every year should be good enough for the rest of the population.
The trick is knowing what you want to backup, and making absolutely sure that you have it in places that you'd normally back up anyway. If possible, keep all data files in a separate partition so you can just format the one where windows and the installed programs are. I'd never back up the windows directory (that's where most of the trash that I want to get rid of is), but I changed the outlook directory to "E:\My Documents\mail" (yes, I changed the my documents directory to the "data" partition as well). If you don't have a separate partition, keep a checklist of every directory that you need to backup, and save everything that you would want to backup to those directories.
The only good time to reinstall the OS is if there is something wrong with it.
Not really, sometimes there's something wrong with your system and the best way to truly fix it is by doing the clean install thing. Try running adaware and see how much spyware is installed. Then there are viruses...I've never had problems with them, but a friend of mine recently ran a scan and found 9 viruses in his computer, and his only detectable symptom was the computer would lock up often.
Basically, what I'm trying to say with all this is that, if you're careful, you can safely do clean installs without risking the loss of any data at all, and the benefits are much greater than "reorganizing and defragging". And to those who will undoubtly respond...yes, I know, I've never had the need to do frequent clean installs with my linux partition either.
One final advice for all you novices who are going to take the risk and do this for the first time. Don't follow these instructions:
Then you turn your computer off, put the operating system CD into the drive and turn the computer back on.For god's sake...don't force your cdrom open when the computer is off. Just turn it on and plop the cd in there first thing, while in the bios screen :)
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Why isn't defragging recommended? Admittedly, most of us 'in the know' are aware frequent defragging helps keep the HD organized... But its not mentioned in the article (unless I missed it in my quick glance). But even so I would think that it is much more important than a full re-install. Is it just because we have so much HD space these days that defragging is not necessary?
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
CDs are no good for backup anymore--way too small. Get yourself an external USB2 drive for backup and just copy over everything, then put it away in a safe and secure place, far away from the computer.
Don't reinstall "just because". Yes, Windows XP installs still have problems with falling apart after a while, but less so than it used to be. Yes, applications on Windows still sometimes uninstall poorly (or not at all), but less so than it used to be. Generally, you are OK and disk drives are big enough that you can accumulate dead Windows bits with no ill effects much longer than you used to be able to.
Of course, with something like Debian Linux, there is no need to reinstall ever because both applications and the operating system are managed by the package manager and even broken things tend to correct themselves with the next update (or can be corrected manually without a full reinstall).
And whatever maintenance you perform, a little done frequently is better than a lot done all at once. Just like for dieting, exercise, and cleaning up the house.
Ah, sexism at its best. Believe it or not, a number of my lady friends(ie, bachelorettes), have -exactly- the same problem. Folks, it ain't just guys who procrastinate cleaning up- women are just better at the last minute frenzied pickup :-)
Please help metamoderate.
I'm just setting this up now, but what I've got in store for my mom's computer is this. a 120gb internal HD which uses some software (Ghost, Drive Image or something. I don't know exactly what to use yet and I'm open to suggestion. Solution has to be software though. No hardware RAID) to mirror her data to a 120GB external drive (USB 2.0). This way, in the event of a drive failure, she won't have to go through data recovery. Also, if she is planning on being away, she can store the external drive elsewhere or take it with her (in case of burglary or whatever).
All of this facilitates rebuilding Windows. Full re-installs do still count. The Registry still gets out of hand after numberous installs and upgrades, IMHO.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
All I really need for my spring cleaning is some Windex and an extra strong magnet. That should clean out my hard drive pretty quickly, no?
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
"Ah yes, the picking of the nose - a long practiced art started by arabs for digging sand out of their nasal cavities after those long caravans. The main trick to picking the nose is one simple rule: if it bleeds, you are picking it too much... or not enough."
Somebody should write a howto! This article is most intruiging!
Actually, no, it's teh sucks. Don't bother with it.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I opened up my hard drive casing and scoured the discs with a Brillo pad. Turns out that wasn't the best way to clean a HD. Next time I will read the article first.
Now, how many of you clean your keyboard the hard way, i.e. with a q-tip, trying to go between all the keys?
:) ) So go on, and clean your keyboards under the sink.
Cmon, unscrew your keyboard's upper molding and wash your keyboard under water, no soap. This is what I do and it works well. I have done it last week with my two Logitech iTouch keyboards. They look like new. Yeah, so water spills over the electronics. So what? As long as the keyboard is not plugged while washing it, and that you let it dry properly on a hot dry day (I let them dry 24 hours to be sure), they will continue to work.
Do not forget, water + electronics is not the problem, its water + electricity (off course, leaving your electronics for months under water, well, it might rust... Don't over do it.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
...and defragging the harddrive.
I use UFS2 you insensitive clod, I don't need to defrag my harddrive!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
There is an option to have OE store email in a saner location of your choosing, incase anyone is interested.
When I recieved the new laptop from work, I tore Windows 2000 apart into seperate bits and gave each their own partition (4 in total). (and I mean tear it apart at the "core", not just install programs to a different drive/partition) The system part, ie WINNT directory, stays defragged and clean, just like the Program Files directory. And it has proven itself seeing this thing runs 21 hours a day and I've messed with software a lot.
home
I've heard lots of people mention this, but it seems some keyboards don't survive. Washer beware.
One word sums up CowboiKneel's hygienic challenge: dingleberries
Reinstall my Microsoft based OS. Does that count?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
For a total rebuild, you make sure again you're fully backed up and know the tech-support numbers and Internet dial-up numbers you might need in a worst-case incident. Then you turn your computer off, put the operating system CD into the drive and turn the computer back on. Following the on-screen instructions, you wipe the hard drive clean and let the operating system reinstall itself from scratch. Choose not to automatically install all the "applications" software if you are given a choice, because you don't want extra programs that you won't ever use. Be picky.
Having worked for Gateway tech support in the past, if someone called telling us that they cant find their Norton, or don't know how to reinstall Word after formatting the drive because they read somewhere that it's a good idea, we were always supposed to tell them to reinstall and automatically install all the applications (why is that in quotes in the article?). Most people who do that and have trouble afterwards are just going to be reformatted anyway if calling tech support.
I see comments like these and wonder, generally, what is supposedly definitively Slashdot-worthy news. I mean, there's been about 25 Matrix articles in the last month, but not one article about Alan Ralsky being strung up by his testicles (all five of them to go along with his mutant penis after taking too many blue peckerpills, the fool.) Seriously, if it wasn't Slashdot worthy, it wouldn't get any replies, except those worded, "oops, wrong topic, i'm looking for matrix sequels threads."
As for spring cleaning of the hard drive, I'll probably plunk a few quid for a DVD burner and shuffle archival stuff (two copies of everything, y'know) off the drive. Nothing encourages cleaning more than upgrading your computer. Nothing makes it harder to clean than the stupid way Microsoft organizes your disk for you (i.e. why the fsck is my programming code default filing under My Documents?) I generally create directories at the root level and divided things accordingly. So much simpler, but a pain everytime some stupid app askes me which name I'd like to save something as under My Documents.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If you do not make any changes to your computer, then there is no need to do a complete reinstall of your OS. However for some people, reinstalling from scratch is the only and sure fire way to get stability and performance back from the machine.
This is the case with OS X as well. The speed increase after reinstalling OS X on my iBook 700 was absolutely amazing.
Oh and one more thing - if you plan to wipe out your HD and reinstall, might as well partition your harddrive so that you can put user files (docs, pics, etc) on a separate drive, making future reinstalls less painfull and easier to backup.
I mean, supposing Neo is on there somewhere!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Do I need to wait until september, or I can do this clean now, in autumn season?
- Unplug the power supply from the mains.
- Open the
cover to the computer case.
- Unscrew the 3 or 4
screws which mount the power supply to the case.
- Remove the screws securing the power supply lid
- Open power supply lid.
- Vacuum out the dust (don't forget the fan blades).
- Blow out the remaining dust with compressed air.
- Reverse steps 1 through 5.
Safety note: do not touch anything inside the power supply because the capacitorson the input side can hold a considerable charge at a couple hundred volts.
By the way, there is usually no need to disconnect the wires running to the motherboard and disk drives. The point of unmounting the supply from the case is so to make access easier. You can leave the wires connected. In fact if you can remove the power supply lid and access the supply without umounting it, all the better.
Circuts in the New York Times is allright. Most of everyting they talk about I have allready heard about but once in a while they will have an intresting webpage that I will like.
I'm not deleting the porn and you can't make me.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Even Gateway teaches its phone techs "FFR" is the last resort. Thius guy seems to think it's nothing more than a walk down the street. Don't use compression because "it's not worth the trouble?" So apparently it's just dandy to risk losing all your data because you're too lazy to make proper backups and because you're an idiot who FFR's a machine because a newspaper reporter told you to, but it's "too much trouble" to click a damn button in a dialog window? Yeah, that makes sense. Stick it on a CD instead? Uh huh - I want to dig out a CD every time I need to access the docs on the windows or java sdk. And your data will be ever so much safer stored on a CDR that gets shuffled around by your greasy mitts every day than it would be tucked away on that once-state-of-the-art hard drive.
If you're running out of space because your drive is full of shit you don't need regular "spring cleanings" - you need to learn proper data management. Install pgpdisk and learn to use 699MB "partitions:" you can make all the backups you want whenever you need, nothing will unexpectedly outgrow its allocated space, and those "projects" will be safe from prying eyes when your imaginary girlfriend drops by to use your PC.
If your computer is slow and you can't fix it with the more logical approach of defragging the damn thing then you may need an FFR - or you may just need to learn to stop surfing thumbnail galleries for porn and opening every moronic little gadget and "postcard" your AOL/MSN loser friends deliver to your inbox when your security settings are still at "allow any scriptkid to fuck up my PC at will."
The article is way beneath Slashdot. I feel like I just opened an issue of Broadcasting and found this month's cover article is a reprint of a "Hirsch-Houck Labs Report" from Stereo Review.
The guy is an idiot, and the article is full of bad advice.
Is this what they mean by "Journalist File system?"
Please "innovate" and "invent" the package manager! An incredible amount of trouble would be saved by it.
.msi files exists, and "works", but it's still very far from dpkg or rpm. Just the attempts of Office at configuring itself every time you start it from a new account show it.
Yeah, I know that the "Windows installer" with the
My wife's laptop running Win98 (and no Norton) could really use a reinstall, on the other hand. So go figure.
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...link.
Try doing full rez video captures to a fresh 20GB drive filled to 80% capacity; you'll be lucky to even grab a minute or two before dropping frames.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"I always worry that I'll want the file again soon, and backing it up to CD is too much bother right now."
I agree. Compact Discs: the modern floppy.
Backup across a network.
--Richard
If your water is soft (or you're using distilled or deionised water) then maybe. But I've seen the thin layer of minerals that hard tap water can leave on electronics. I wouldn't try it myself...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
I have a ghost image of my OS with all of the applications I like setup installed and my system configured the way I like it (made after a clean install and all apps reinstalled). I have two partitions, one for data, games, etc., and th other for my OS. Ghost file is stored on the data drive. When things get cluttered, I simply restore the ghost image. I get my system back to "like new" state, the way I like it, and the whole process takes at most 7 mins.
Okay poeple what about hidden IE5 content files?
On a typical win2kpro install they can take up 8 gigs of a 26 gig hd over 2 years of use..
to delete tranverse your douemnt and settings folder to your users folder..
look for local settings folder and enter it..
the temporay internet files folder then needs opened..
warning Content.IE5 folder is hidden in here..add the folder to your path url and hit enter
do not delete foledrs you see..
enter in each folder and do selct all and move to recycle bin
repeat until all those pesky folders in Content.IE5 are empty..
open recycle bin and do select all
right click on itmes and selct delte..
choose ok on confirm screen..
Now your done finally!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
no, this is not a good way to clean keyboards ... at least not properly.
To properly clean a modernish keyboard, you:
1) unscrew the screws on the bottom and remove the insides from the case. You can clean the case.
2) remove all the keys from the keyboard, and clean them.
3) remove and clean the silicone key mat. (this has the springy buttons on it.
4) remove the circutry and the clear plastic keyboard terminal layouts, but do not clean them unless you need to. If you clean them, dry them immediately with a hair drier to avoid corrosion.
5) clean anything that is left over and not electrical.
6) reassemble. Use silicon oil around the keys if desired.
It is time consuming, and may not be worth it for many, but it really cleans the keyboard well.
I seriously have upgraded to a new hard drive each time I ran low on space. I have 280 gigs now. I have so much shi--stuff! Alas, I am too lazy to burn CDs so I am in a never-ending cycle of data collection.
Laziness is the bane of all that is good and pure!
To infinity and beyoonnnnnnnd!
Many recent keyboards can actually be taken apart pretty easily, and allow you to completely separate the electronics from the dirty bits.
I have an MS Natural Keyboard, and the top face comes off nicely with the keycaps attached (all just plastic). I just throw it into the bathtub with some soap, and then let it dry by a window. Then if necessary, even the insides (clear plastic sheets with circuits printed on them and some rubber "springs") and bottom cover (if the tiny PCB is unscrewed and removed) can be cleaned without too much trouble.
Actually, I think that anyone that uses windows as a general-purpose PC...over a long period of time will eventually need to do a fresh install to get rid of everything.
Or you could just learn how to properly maintain the system.
The windows registry is one cause of this.. it's a huge unmanagable beast, with many ways to have things load and hook in to various operations
It is hardly unmanageable. There's about 4 or 5 keys that have values to load processes on machine/session startup, and the "hook" mechanism (shell operations defined in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT) isn't exactly rocket science. Are these operations that less skilled users will feel comfortable performing? Probably not, but they don't get warm and fuzzies reinstalling the OS and drivers either. As for more advanced users, these skills are not only easily acquired but necessary. Or I suppose one could just not bother learning about their tools and nuke and pave on a regular basis.
wtf happened to slashdot?
I AM BORED!
i hardly consider myself an ubergeek. what's the point of running a windows 101 article here?
/. relaxes and that's fine [maybe someone would care to submit a mouse terrarium; get a mold farm running in your clear mouse] but geez timothy, what's the hook for /. here? did you mean to add: "What mad skilz techniques do /.'ers have to getting clean and staying clean?"
yeah, it's sunday and
sorry man, but this is like a cnet hint. i'm missing your point.
I just take the old 'puter down to the local carwash and blast it inside and out.
I'm really not sure why people always say this... Up until a month and a half ago I was running my main computer on a Windows 9x install that hadn't been reformatted or reinstalled from scratch since sometime in 1997... It lasted through an upgrade from Windows 95 to 98SE and a switch in the computer the drive was in before finally dying just recently from a hard drive failure. It just takes a little bit of registry trimming every once and a while and it'll be happy.
When it comes to Windows, I do a clean re-install once a year, whether it needs it or not.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
If you going to partly take the keyboard apart, you might aswell go the whole way, and remove the electronics and membrane sheet. Most keyboards don't completely fall apart (IE, all the keys probably won't fall off). Then you can even use soap.
Wow, I wonder what sort of system this guy could be running. Crash more often -- am I the only one who expects my software to not crash, no matter what (although admittedly it has on two occasions the last year :P ) ?
Oh. Windows XP it says in the next paragraph...
Actually on XP, and probably Windows 2000, I believe outlook express puts its data in the "my documents" directory.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
If only a carwash had as much effect on car performance.
Carwash? If you put your computer through a shower, I bet that you'll have a lot worse performance than before you started. What you really should be comparing is a tuneup.
And if you're suggesting a reinstall of the OS, then you'll be comparing with a garage guy who's trying to rip you off with a sudden oil change, * fluid change, new set of tires, and, oh what the heck, a brand new engine.
why is this on slashdot? the article is for clueless newbie users.
I had a pc purchased in 1999 running with its original Win98SE install up until two months ago. It was working fine and the only reason I wiped it was because I gave it to someone and they wanted another OS on it. Whenever someone tells me that they do a fresh install every year or whatever I keep quiet to avoid getting into another boring lecture on why this is necessary.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Isn't your time worth something? Just buy a new keyboard.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
I do regular maintenance on my Windows XP machine, spyware removal (Which is minimal - anyone that is still accumulating spyware in this day and age is either clueless or lazy. There are plenty of preventative measures available for this problem, Mozilla and common sense for starters), limiting background programs, disk defragging, archiving, etc...I definitely like to keep things organized.
Even with this maintenance, after 75 or so application installs (this is on a 80GB drive, not even filling half of it), things tend to get sluggish. Why this happens is for many reasons, but it's clear, even with good maintenance habits, the OS will eventually slow to a crawl. As far I can remember (at least since 3.1) Windows has always been like this. Performance wise, there's a huge difference between a fresh system maintenance session and a fresh reinstall.
Eventually I got tired of reinstalling Windows every 6 months, so here's what I've been doing for past five years or so:
1) I found a good disk imaging software package (I like Power Quest's Drive Image) and perform a fresh install.
2) Apply all critical updates and service packs. Configure the (minimum) system services, system policies and so forth. Install any games, browsers or frequently used programs (I usually don't include this stuff. Updates happen so often, I usually end up upgrading or reinstalling the app anyway). Tweak it all out, do a disk defrag, clean up and defrag registry, then image it.
3) For speed and convenience, I use a second hard drive for imaging (note: A CDRW or second hard drive is needed for imaging. You can't write the image to your boot drive). With a CDRW, you might have to span disks if you want to include a lot of data on you image. With a DVDR/RW, you probably won't have to worry about spanning, but the imaging software must support DVD writing.
Using this method I can do a complete Windows reinstall and have all my main apps ready to go in about ten minutes. I use a second hard drive (80GB) for the image as well as for storing apps and backup data. Any critical data (as well as the OS image itself) is written to CDRW. I also installed a third hard drive on a separate IDE controller from the boot drive, and put the pagefile there. If you have a spare drive lying around, and you don't have a gig of ram installed, this is a nice speed tweak.
Yes, RAID could accomplish much of what I'm doing here, but still I prefer this method.
PS
Don't forget to visit MS and grab all the critical updates after you restore an image. If your image is more than a month or two old, there'll be a boatload of 'em.
I find the following technique works well for me:
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Do not forget, water + electronics is not the problem, its water + electricity (off course, leaving your electronics for months under water, well, it might rust... Don't over do it. :) ) So go on, and clean your keyboards under the sink.
As another poster said, watch out for hard water. My favorite way is to wash it with ethanol. Excellent solvent. And it dries quickly with no residue.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
"A CDRW or second hard drive is needed for imaging." Mistakenly omitted - usually a second partition on the boot drive can be used as well.
I remember the good ol' days of reinstalls every 6 months to keep my computer running...
Now I use Linux, and since I don't have the privs to install stuff to / (except when I su), I can't put junk in /, and so no cruft builds up in /. As a worst-case scenario (which I haven't had any motivation to resort to), I can just rename my home directory and make a new one with permissions 700 belonging to me, and presto! All cruft gone. Bring in files (i.e., .gaimrc, gconf data) as needed.
Speaking of which, here's where the real advantages of gconf over the Windows registry come in....
The author is completely wrong about the Red Hat Linux folks, his steps are not at all necessary.
You go 24 hours without your keyboards? Yeah. A lot of Slashdot will be following your advice...
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
I use an IBM series M, and dipping it in paint thinnner every three years is all the cleaning it needs ;)
Well duh, I use my spare keyboard off course. You do have a spare keyboard, don't you?
BTW, its not though going 24 hours without a keyboard. Lets say 21 hours is enough to dry. You clean your keyboard at 21h00 monday evening, after finishing off any work on your computer. Then, you clean the dishes, watch tv and go to bed. Next morning you go to work. It will be 18h00 when you come back home. Assemble your keyboard and voilà. You didn't miss it much.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
You've¦never¦eaten¦properly¦cooked¦food,¦by¦the¦so unds¦of¦it.
r ow ave¦and¦the¦oven.¦I'm¦a¦vegeterian,¦but¦I'm¦thinki ng¦of¦a¦lovely¦piece¦of¦brisket,¦crispy¦at¦the¦edg es¦where¦the¦oven¦has¦gently¦seared¦the¦surface¦of ¦the¦cut¦of¦meat¦without¦turning¦it¦to¦carbon.
t ur ns¦into¦a¦bland,¦limp,¦wet¦pizza-like¦substance¦wi th¦flavouring.
¦ to aster¦oven.¦Stir-fries¦should¦be¦cooked¦quickly¦-¦ briefly¦seared¦to¦heat¦and¦trap¦in¦the¦moisture.
Contrast¦the¦subtle¦textural¦nuances¦of¦the¦mic
You¦can't¦do¦that¦with¦a¦microwave,¦everything¦
Nor¦can¦you¦stir-fry¦in¦either¦a¦microwave¦or¦a
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Although XP is definitely more stable than Win9x, when it crashes, it *crashes*. My experience so far is that Win98 usually crashes fatally within 6 months (on top of the near daily crashes of course) and that XP generally runs alright (with the rare exceptions of rogue applications eating up huge amounts of memory and requiring a reboot or Windows doing that itself) for about a year, at which point you will most likely experience an irreversible BSOD of some kind. Up until now, I have never been able to recover an NT machine from a BSOD on startup and that's generally the point where I get out my boot disk, emergency backup hard drive and XP CD for my own little "spring cleaning". I know how to use the command line tools and the like, but none of it works. The fact is that NT degrades over time. They can build in all the "stability" they want, but in the end, it is still a huge vacuum cleaner sucking in all sorts of weird shit and slowly deteriorating over time, predistined to crash at some point in the future.
:-)
This is why I love Mac OS X.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Every now and then I'll back up my home directory, and any apps I really need, and then boot off of a CD or another hard drive so that I can run disk utility and zero all data on my boot drive. Afterwards, I either restore my backed up OS (I used to do this mostly on OS9; haven't tried it on OS X), or just reinstall the OS from scratch (I just did this last night with an iMac I'm selling).
The nice thing about zeroing all data, is that it's the poor man's defrag on a Mac - your data will be written close together when you reinstall it. It's especially good if you use your boot drive for A/V work - you'll end up with large chunks of contiguous space for huge files, instead of those huge files being fragmented.
A full reinstall risks loss of data. One example is your email.
This is one of my favorite parts about *nix. Just back up your home directory and you can have all of you user data/settings in place and ready to use.
Hell, it even works when changing operating systems. Last summer I went from Debian to Red Hat, and just pointed the new OS to my home directory (on another drive). All of my KDE settings, wallpapers, mozilla & evolution mail and settins were all right there in the clean OS install. Nothing to "customize" except for system settings/software.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
The last time I heard this advice was from a Jr. Tech at one of my companies, and it took only five minutes to show him why this was never necessary. (And I am talking about Win 3.0/Win 3.1 days even.)
With modern OSes, simply cleaning out startup items and removing crap software is basically all that ever needs to be done.
Even if someone thinks they need to do a 'refresh' of their OS, just doing an upgrade over their existing installation (Win2k and WinXP are especially good at this) will clean out 99.9% of any crap that has been added to the system. And this doesn't lose any settings or files.
It would have been smarter if the article would have told users where to find the startup items, how to do an upgrade over their current OS, how to remove crap software, or even a techie article that explains where to look for extraneous services and remove/disable them. Even giving them tools to clean their system would be a better article than this. And I am not an advocate for most system 'cleaning tools'.
Who gets these journalistic jobs and why are editors stupid enough to print them?
TheNetAvenger
File space on a hard drive is allocated on a per-cluster basis. If you have a 4K file on a hard drive with 4 K sized clusters, it will be fill up one single cluster. The OS will not - WILL NOT - split a 4 K file into 5 different pieces unless YOU physically split the file into 5 files.
Fragmentation is caused when a large file is split up and is stored non-contiguously on the hard drive.
Thus, maybe if you had a 20K file, and it was split into 5 clusters, and these 5 clusters were physically stored all over the hard drive, then you would get fragmentation.
But the situation that you described above simply does not occur.
Also, what does journaling have anything to do with fragmentation?
You are an idiot.
Microwave crisping bags actually DO work. You can brown meat and toast bread with them just fine.
;)
Steam rice and vegitables in pyrex or ceramic containers (nothing with a tight seal obviously).
Scrambled eggs cook completely and evenly, with no grease or fat, and come out amazingly fluffy. (cook one at a time, 1min 20sec each. I like to whip in a tablespoon of whole milk with mine)
Even bacon cooks OK if you can hang it, though admittedly it's not as good as a traditional frying pan. Extra fat drains off very well though.
Granted, you can't stir fry... or at least I've yet to figure out how... there must be a way! You can't bake stuff properly either. A toaster oven can handle most baking requirements for your average bachelor though.
BTW what's with all the pipes? Are you a plumber by day?
=Smidge=
Hard drives are not meant to be spun up occasionally, copied onto, and then stored for long periods of time. The physical motor will fail, and then you're up shit's creek.
Hard drives are not meant to be used for long term storage, this is the domain of tapes, ie. DLT tapes. They have a life of around 3 years, especially the "disposable"-type drives that the hard drive companies have been manufacturing over the past 5 years. They are deliberately building hard drives that are supposed to fail in a few years.
If you're going to be doing backups, you should backup onto a hard drive that is always on, so that you can monitor the health of your backup drive. If the backup drive starts going bad before your actual drive, then you can replace the drive with no-harm-no-foul.
The last thing you want is to suffer a hard drive crash, and then go to your backup hard drive in storage, and find out that it doesn't spin up.
Huh? Water + electronics/metal + air = rust == bad conductivity.
It's best to use rubbing alcohol since it won't cause rusting.
Also, you do realize you can pop off the keys instead of taking apart your entire keyboard.
It's way easier, lets you get inbetween where all the food, hair and nastiess get into, and allows you to clean off your sticky keys from too much one-handed pr0n gazing.
Learn to use Linux. Try a book.
/usr/sbin, I haven't had to do this in a while and don't feel like looking it up).
To reinstall lilo/grub when you've reinstalled windows you simply need a boot disk (you made one right?), mount your linux partition, and reinstall lilo/grub (I think it's in
Then you're good to go. Very simple. If you don't have a boot disk you could download 2 Disk X Windows distribution and run it from there. It's easy to find.
(With accent of french soldiers in Monty Python's Holy Grail) I fart on your keyboard.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
People clean keyboards? What, do you munch on greasy chips right over it or something?
fwiw, I'd just pop off the keys and clean under 'em that way.
btw, "of course" one f.
First off I don't take advice from some newspaper flunky. Second it never ceases to amaze me just how freaking stupid a lot of people are when it comes to computers.
They get spyware because they don't read freaking license agreements or EULA's, or get it because they are too dumb to tighten up browser security so your browser (often Internet Explorer) WONT auto download and install it for you like a good little bitch. If people would actually use software like Proxomitron and JD5000 (Add-in for Proxomitron), then you would not have problems with drive by spyware or other HTML/Java/Javascript/Exploits/Nasties while browsing the web. It's called UNIVERSEL WEB FILTER for a reason!!!.
Not to mention of course the biggest things like ACTUALLY VIRUS SCANNING everything that comes into your computer and doing system maintenance by de-fragmenting your hard drive or even getting something like Norton Utils 2002 or later to keep the system, registry, and hard drive(s) maintained properly.
Just this week I talked to two people I see online often in IRC. One was stupid enough to have 330 ITEMS OF SPYWARE detected in Ad-Aware and another is too dumb to actually tighten up his mIRC settings to avoid automatically downloading IRC viruses/worms.
I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for morons who can't keep virus scanners updated and virus scan everything that comes into the computer, cant keep up to date with software like AD-Aware 6 and Spybot: Search and Destroy, or actually uses Internet Explorer or other browsers with default settings on a windows box and wonders why the hell crap like Xupiter and viruses get through the holes in their browser(s).
And if you follow the "steps" laid out by that lame assed newspaper article, it's a big mess of crap for nothing when if you actually have a freaking clue how everything works on your computer (both software and hardware) then you will VERY RARELY if EVER need to re-install. I laugh at thee who re-installs a OS every 3 months or every year because of their stupidity. Sell your computer if you are too dumb to do the most basic of steps. *Rolls eyes*
Well you and me know that most journalists are dumber then your average rock anyway, including the one who wrote that article. :D
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Yeah you must remember to oil those springs regularly or they may get rusty and creak and groan :D
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
Um... no.
I know several Linux/UNIX sys admin types (self included) who use Linux on their home PC and work PC as the primary OS. To the best of my knowledge, none of us would do this. Kruft (left over programs and parts of programs) really isn't a big issue on Linux.
Before I replaced it with a new one, my home PC had Red Hat v6.1 then v6.2, v7.1, v7.2 and finally v7.3 installed as upgrades. All of these versions were installed with the upgrade option NOT as clean installs. At all times, everything kept working and nearly all settings migrated to the new version without extra work on my part. Through all of this there was never a need for "spring cleaning" to fix things or speed them up.
Request to author: Please at least check with some experienced Linux users before claiming to know how Linux should be maintained.
Wow...will you be surprised at the increase in performance when you do a clean install.
:)
Had you used win2k/xp, I wouldn't have said that, but as an 'expert amateur' using dos/win95/98/2k and xp, (regcleaning, spy-ware busting, occaisonal virusscanning et all) I can say with confidence that win9x sucks the big one compared to the newer kernels.
Do yourself a favour...get win2k/xp...hell, even linux is better than a win9x OS
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
"emerge --clean world" is your friend. :-)
Also, for what it's worth, keeping organized and clean is second nature to me, since I'm obsessive-compulsive. Hell, I even act as a "consultant" for my friends and neighbors in cleaning and organizing their rooms. If any of you out there would care for such assistance, email me! :-)
I have to ship my Compaq laptop in for repair about every six months for the same problem every time... they always blitz and reimage the hard drive for me, so I never have to spring clean.
It does suck; however, to have to re-install everything twice every year...
OS X, Solaris, Windows (insert version here), DOS...
I wonder.
Linux and *BSD are extremely stable. Try getting 2-3 years of up time out of a Windows server.
You do get what you pay for when the person administering a machine has no experience. Either learn or don't, I don't care.
I use Windows, OS X/9, Solaris, Linux, BSD and DOS (this OS won't die). I'll rank them for you.
Best for stability: Linux / BSD / Solaris
Better than average: OS X (10.2, improved a lot)
Average: DOS / OS X (10.1) / OS 9.x
Below Average: OS X (10.0)
Poor: Windows
My guess is that there is a direct correlation between the experience of the user and the stability of the system they use.
Calling it an End User Error would probably be taken as a typical elitist computer attitude. However, I expect people to put forth effort in things they try to do. This is why most people don't succeed in our society, they won't RTFM and try to better themselves.
Oh well, no wonder it's so easy to succeed. When your competing against people who refuse to learn to use the tool they are bitching about "not working", you cannot help but succeed. Taking up for those too lazy to learn. How sweet of you.
HARD DRIVE cleans YOU!
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
The thing I've seen most people forget is they tend to gloss over how long it took them to learn the first computer OS they worked with.
//e (as was my second since the first was stolen!). I then learned to use DOS, then Windows 3.1, then Windows 95, then Windows NT, then Linux (Slackware), then Solaris, you get the picture.
Once people know how to use a computer a certain way, they don't want to relearn. I had no choice since my first computer was an Apple
The linux documentation project is the best. Plus just do google searches for your problems. Linux is more difficult to install than windows (newer versions, 95 is a nightmare). However, it becomes quickly easier to use (kind of like OS X).
Steffen Gerlach's Scanner (see also his excellent Borland Delphi-based Civilization clone) and SequoiaView were invaluable back when my hard-drive was a puny 20 giger. I highly recommend you all get them and try them out.
P.S. Be sure to turn on the colour mode in SequoiaView.;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
I Cant Understand why people that call themselves geek can give this kind of advice ,98 SE , 2000
my windows machine (which now is a PIII 550) runs a copy of windows that was originaly dos 4 with windows 3.0
and was upgraded from this to 3.1 , 3.11, windows 95 beta, 95 , 95 OSR2 , 98
always upgrade never a clean install
and it works like a charm
never goes down and has a decent uptime (comparable to any windows machine)
i really dont get why people profess that it cant be done
it shure can you just have to undestand your system and know how to maintain it
like all geeks are suposed to know (or at least like to brag about knowing it)
so please stop giving this kind of advice
it has never been true if you know what you're doing
He forgot the defrag! How can anyone call there computer clean without:
1. Spybot (and/or ad-aware)
2. reboot
3. Uninstall all unused crap/windows stuff
4. reboot
5. Check for new drivers/uninstall old drivers
6. reboot
7. Run windows silly "clean-disk" util
8. manually delete windows/temp directory
9. clear Mozilla or Firebird cache
10. delete all old useless penis enlarger spam
11. reboot
12. run a DLL scanner/remover
13. reboot
14. run regcleaner, followed by MS's regclean
15. reboot
16. full scandisk (w/ surface scan)
17. clear reboot (disable win swap, and all startups, and SCREEN SAVER!)
18. defrag
19. Goto taco bell, see a movie.
20. done.
Or the simple route, "shutdown to DOS prompt"
"format c:", "Y"
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
It's for a distribution to decide.
/Volumes which makes life a hell of a lot easier. I mean grandma doesn't need to go look in /var/logs to see if someone has accessed her system.
If one company could make an install and OS that was anywhere near as easy to use as OS X for x86 hardware, they would rule.
Simply put it's not an easy thing to accomplish. Look at all the things you'd need to do. Drivers, GUI, Apps, etc...
Maybe if the company that did this also had a select HCL that was reasonable. The best thing about OS X is the standard OS 9 user couldn't tell you where the hell the / is. Apple mounts all drives under
Plus linux isn't one thing. It's many. Think of all the different ways to do the same thing. Hell I love linux because I can ssh to my servers and do everything without rebooting and no GUI necessary (terminal services, yuck). The OS X Server tools are really nice but the nitty gritty is still in the text files.
I guess it's a pipe dream but it's doubtful that linux will ever become the OS of switchers. If this SCO suit has one positive maybe IBM will drop AIX development and create their own solid Linux distro. That I would buy.
Man, Slashdot readers sure show their ignorance when it comes to maintaing Windows systems.
This is at least the 20th post that I've seen which states "all you need to do is clean out your 'startup items' and remove excess software you don't use".
Ok, so: who can list all of the places an application/service can start from within Windows? (hint: it's more than programs\startup, win.ini, and the 3 or 4 registry keys you may have heard about - and I bet most people don't even realize this much). Ok, so you've nailed all of that. Now, it's time to remove the excess applications - what's that? All uninstallers don't behave nicely? You're finding DLLs from applications you removed that are still in \system32? How can it be??? I asked Windows to uninstall it!!!!
Yes, it's not as bad as Windows 95 these days. However, the registry just keeps getting worse. Extra and conflicing libraries are still a huge hassle on Windows-based systems. And unless you're intending on auditing, line for line, every registry entry you have (mine's a few megs of binary data, have fun), and checking every single file you have, making sure it's the appropriate version (did I mention you can't check source for most applications, so you really never know what DLL should be there?)....
"It runs ok for me" and "as long as your system runs, it's fine" is NOT sufficient, and anyone who tries these lines should be ashamed of themselves.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
damn if each and every one of the major linux distros comes loaded with at least 50% more software on it than I'll ever need.
How about just a clean linux base easy to install which needs 200mb of disk?
mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles
Woah, I had no idea. I will miss those siren sounds though every time i clean my computer.
For Linux user this article is a crap.
Why TF should I remove all the stuff from my harddrive ?
I just review the list of packages and
search for large files.
When the time comes for new OS version
I usually just use standard tools to upgrade.
Clean reinstall is Windows-wolrd thing..
Use a registry scrubber (once again I point folk to toniarts.com and EasyCleaner), and with rare exceptions (which can usually be rooted out by hand) the problem goes away.
And yes, a system set in stone helps, but even one that's used for checking out the program of the week can be stable indefinitely, given basic maintenance. Hell, my "test everything that comes along" box runs WinME of all things, and with just ordinary care, after all that abuse is still 100% stable (ZERO crashes in over two years now).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
My own records -- original installations, ZERO reinstalls, still fast and stable:
WFWG 3.11: 7 years*+ (retired at age 7, at the time with over 2 years 100% crash-free)
Win95: 4.5 yrs*+, 7 yrs, 7.5 yrs (3 machines in use)
Win98: 2.5 yrs*+
WinME: 2.5 yrs+ (over 2 yrs 100% crash-free)
WinXP: 1 yr
* These three work(ed) their asses off and run 24/7 for weeks at a time.
+ and these are loaded to the gills with all sorts of software.
As to your wife's Win98, does it get defragged and tempfiles cleaned *weekly*?? Have you used a registry cleaner on it? Checked it for spyware? Even a neglected system can be brought back to life with such easy steps. About the only things that can't be cured are random deletia (such as killing directories rather than using the proper uninstaller) and the mess made by installing IE5.5 or later (5.0 is the last performance-safe version).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Ya know the old biblical story about having to make bricks without straw?? Our water here is so hard, we can make bricks without mud!!
Think I'm exaggerating?? You didn't see the two pounds of calcium-salt crystals I just dredged out of the bottom of the swamp cooler. And that's just one year's worth.
As to cleaning my keyboard, I find plastic twisty ties work well.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"I keep all my data files in one folder, with lots of subfolders for different types of information. Which means backup is simply a matter of slipping a blank CD into the CD-writing drive and copying that one folder to the CD."
Wow, he has only 700MB worth of data... Even if I exclude all my Programms and Free-/Share-/Etc.-ware-installers I still have around 50GB of "pure" data... I guess it's no wonder I didn't back-up in a long time...
The only good time to reinstall the OS is if there is something wrong with it.
If there is something wrong with it, why reinstall it when you could just install something that works?
Beep beep.
I try to reinstall my Gentoo box every week. That way
I know my programs are always up to date, optimized for
my particular arch, and my cpu-utilization tops out at a
perfect 100%.
I feel I should plug this program, since it's relevant to the topic. It's called SuperCleaner, and can be found here: http://www.southbaypc.com/SuperCleaner/. It does a rather nice job cleaning up random garbage files on your system, however you have to pay to register it, for anybody that might be turned off by that sort of thing. It only cost me a few dollars to register it back in the day, however the price tag has gone up a lot to $32.99.
Are there any OpenSource/Freeware alternatives to this program, that anybody can suggest?
SuPz.orG
Except that I would have to buy a lot of new RAM in that case.
Do yourself a favour...get win2k/xp...hell, even linux is better than a win9x OS :)
My other boxes are running Debian... Win9x crashes once a day, avg., Debian when the power goes out.
Cheers
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Essentially, if you just get passingly familiar with browsing the registry, you can save yourself a lot of headaches in the long run. If anything is a problem, it's not that the registry is unmanagable, but that that regedit.exe is such a crude tool for browsing the database: really you ought to be able to use something with global find & replace, etc, but regedit doesn't provide anything like that. A better alternative is Lavasoft's RegHance, which makes working with the registry a bit easier -- and while you're at it, Lavasoft's AdAware for cleaning out spyware regularly.
In any case though, if you just get a rough feel for how things are organized, then you realize that there are only a handful of places where broken software can pull the system performance down. Just keeping the registry key for launching software on boot time well pruned gets you 80% of the way there, and pruning IE's reg tree of parasites (as AdAware can do for you automagically) gets you to 95% there most of the time.
Hearing people say that a regular reinstall is a better idea than registry maintainence is like hearing people advocate regular engine rebuilds on your car when a periodic oil change would have been much cheaper & much less painful -- it's a weird combination of naivete, ignorance, and cargo cultism that has never really made sense, and is only worse now that Win2k & WinXP are really pretty mature operating systems that don't need to be handled in such a hamfisted way anymore. Please join the 21st century & quit reinstalling your OS -- you'll be glad you did :-)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Enby in Waltham
DOS came on a single floppy. Good luck with that.
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
"...their relatively *new* computer..."
:)
Well, maybe we are related to our computers by this time of night
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Sorry, I've got to call bs on this one. Please explain the timeframes of these installs, your hard drive space can't possibly be sufficient to hold win2k if it was from the era of win3.1!
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Sorry
if i havent made this clear
the HD have been upgraded a number of times
as the partition simply copied over to the new hd and expanded
the New HD is a 36GB Cheetah that didnt exist in the time of win3.1
Makes perfect sense, sorry!
Flappinbooger isn't my real name