Format every x year(s)/months vs. good maintenance techniques

[SlakiV]

I do Both, Clean and reinstall. I clean most of the time and reinstall some of the time when I fell like I can't clean anymore, especially when the computer gets really draggy and stuff.
But most of the time after I reinstall everything, it's back to almost before I reformated except it runs a little better.

Lets see, I go into the registry, delete unwanted, scan it with some spyware registry cleaner, then uninstall it, and remove it completely, gone, poof, natta. Scandisk, Defrag you know the rest.
gotta be clean, organize, messy but simple.

[ShadowKing]

I agree with Renee.

I keep a close eye on what I install on my desktop, so things stay pretty clean there...

However my wife and kids use it too, and I end up upgrading or making major changes every 1-2 years, so that ends up being a reinstall.

For my servers, however, I don't make many changes at all on them, and when I do, it is very controlled, so I never need to format/reinstall...

[Solkanar]

I am definately a fan of reformatting over trying to clean it up. I reformat every so often, not regularly but whenever a pc gets screwed up or a new OS comes out. When a new OS comes out I pick the pc with in the worst shape software wise and put it on that to try. On the flip side my boss is a die hard fan of scandisk, regclean, and defrag. The LAN admin and I break his stones all the time because he's been a programmer for 20 years and knows very little about pc's. He tries to make people think he's a tech. He's still very micromanaging though and makes us do these maintenence things before doing other fixes that the LAN admin and I think would be more effective. There is nothing like a nice clean format. I would compare it to getting new carpet on your floor instead of trying to shampoo the rug after you've just raised a child for a few years who likes to throw food.

[Kenny P.]

Hmmm...

An interesting topic indeed!

I keep a Ghost image of the base OS load for all of my machines. When I muck things up, it's only a few hours until the machine is back to where it is.

Most of my data is stored on my NT 4.0 server and that gets backed up to tape weekly, so I try to minimize the potential damage from having a machine go south on me!

I scandisk/defrag on the first of each month, update AV sigs weekly and manually scan all files w/hueristics bi-weekly.

I have been lucky (knock on wood {my head}) and have not had a machine crap out on me in years...

Kenny P.

[savagegerbil]

Regclean? Whats that??? :-p

Format, ghost reload, and copy from backups. Downtime = 30 minutes

[SoJo]

For me it depends on time. I takes me less time to backup my data files and favorites and reformat the systems then to sit there and uninstall, regclean and then defrag.

I do this about every six months.

My two cents

[format c:]

I format and reinstall every few monthsor when I change mother boards
I have two physical drives so I may ghose my OS over to the secondary drive just in case I wreck my OS really good, I may do a reinstall after I figure out which drivers work best for me so my registry is clean
I use Speed disk to defrag, I also clean out the temp folder and the temp internet folder

[Gabriel]

once every 6 months or so
Of course i Have a Ghost Image with os and some application so the pill is not so bad.
I backup my personal Data Every week into Zip Drive so I really have something like 3 hours of work.

[LaSERCHiPs]

I will only format if need be
It has been 3 years...Never removed any program off the drive...When it starts to slow down I just upgrade...Expensive but I stay current...
I have only once defrag the drive...Machine works excellent...I like to clean the reg manually So I know what's going on with windows...

[KINGofBLEH]

I do a lot of software testing and integration on most of my machines. Therefore I intentionally do things to my machines that corrupt the OS, forcing me to reformat at least one machine a month. I use Ghost 7 to make the process easier and quicker.

[Mayhem]

I generaly only reformat when doing a comlete system rebuild. (New proc., MB) for minor upgrades I leave it alone, good basic maint is all you need. about a year ago I upgraded from an Abit BE6r2 to an Abit BX-133 RAID didn't get around to new drives and setting up the RAID fro a couple months. And since th Raid controller was the only major difference in the boards I didn't bother with a format and reinstall. All totall it went prob'ly 18 mo without a format, and the drive never showed that it was even 1% fragmented. Still running perfectly when I set up the RAID, and I have no doubt that it would be today. Good maintainance is just common sense. If you never change the oil in your car you will be overhauling it fairly frequently.

[gxavier]

I do a clean reformat whenever I have 'TIME'. If I have a good 3-4 day weekend and just nothing to do, ill probably reformat (unless i did it a few weeks ago). Im a big fan of reformatting, and I always back things that are non-downloadable to my mac. The mac never dies and never needs a reformat, so its great. Yes I have a mac. Bite me if you think macs suck.