5 ms·

Ok, I'll bite ... why are you reinstalling and reconfiguring windows on a regular, yearly basis?

by ray_v 7mo ago

alternatetwo 7mo ago
Seriously. My current Windows installs are >15 years old upgraded all the way back from Vista …
- qingcharles 7mo ago
  How is that even still working? I've used Windows as my primary desktop for ~35 years and I do my absolute best to housekeep, but I still need to reinstall about once a year or so. I'm militant about installing almost nothing on my primary PC and putting all the janky apps on another PC via RDP too.
  - ray_v 7mo ago
    Didn't someone film or document a in-place upgrade process from dos all the way up to a modern version of Windows? edit: oh, here it is! https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-upgrade-ms-dos-6-22-windows-8-really-want-stuff-watch/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-upgrade-ms-dos-6-22-window...
  - jodrellblank 7mo ago
    The computer I'm writing this on, the earliest things showing in Control Panel were installed in February 2012. It's not a rarely used clean machine, it's a daily use home computer/plaything with a lot of stuff installed/removed over the years from application suites to dev environments and esolangs, to editors, viewers, inspectors, emulators, hypervisors, browsers, chat and streaming clients, game stores, networking tools. Why wouldn't it still work?
    - justin66 7mo ago
      > Why wouldn't it still work? The obvious reason is that Microsoft decided Windows 11 would not install on CPUs dating back beyond about 2017.
      - jodrellblank 7mo ago
        That's not a reason for why I didn't need to wipe and fresh install Windows in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, which was what qingcharles was claiming he had to do.
        deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
  - codethief 7mo ago
    If you need to reinstall Windows so frequently, have you considered giving Linux a shot? I switched 16 years ago and haven't looked back. Until recently, I used Ubuntu and I think I had to reinstall twice in 15 years, one of which was when I got a new laptop. Last year I switched to NixOS and while my impression is that it's going to be much more stable even than Ubuntu, installation also only takes me 5 minutes. That is, 5 min until my system is in exactly the state I want, including installed software, window manager config, keyboard shortcuts, desktop wallpaper, GUI theme, etc.
  - TiredOfLife 7mo ago
    My desktop running windows 11 started life as windows 7. Has been used on different hardware both amd and intel. Has been cloned multiple times. And the only problem was a recent windows update that beefed security so i couldn't access shared files on an older clone running on another hardware because of using same sid
  - alternatetwo 7mo ago
    I'm not sure what you think happens if random programs are lying around - they affect nothing except waste a miniscule amount of space. I cleaned up the context menu once, probably the autostart once upon a time, search indexer is off and use Everything instead, antivirus is off ... Of course I'm still on Windows 10 and will be for the foreseeable future.
- ffsm8 7mo ago
  Mine was from websites 7 days I think. Randomly stopped booting a month ago (bsod after updates). Switched to cachyos - I've spoken with at least 5 people who have had the same bsod after updates situation in the last 6 months. If windows at least embraced proper update techniques like with immutable Linux - and enough polish to make the random bsod loop after updates impossible to accur without hardware damage id likely go back for my gaming rig at least - but right now, it feels like garbage ngl
  - lostmsu 7mo ago
    > Mine was from websites 7 days I think. Randomly stopped booting a month ago (bsod after updates). This happened to mine too. I suspect this might be the real cause for the blog post in question.
theandrewbailey 7mo ago
Didn't most people stop doing that when they moved to XP?
- lloydatkinson 7mo ago
  No
0cf8612b2e1e 7mo ago
I also reinstall fresh Linux every year or two. Forces you to confront all of the cruft that can accumulate.
Neywiny 7mo ago
Honestly I should. Registry and stuff gets cluttered. Programs don't uninstall cleanly, or they change settings I can't find. On one machine I somehow set it up as a wifi print server or something and for the life of me couldn't find a way to turn it off. But it's such a hassle to setup a computer.
- eviks 7mo ago
  What are the practical issues with "cluttered" registry? But also, you can use special apps to track installations and do advanced uninstallations for ~clean uninstalls. Likewise, you could even spend time tracking settings. So yes, still a hassle, but nothing comparable to setting/reinstalling everything from scratch, that's just pure waste
  - Neywiny 7mo ago
    Maybe I shouldn't have said cluttered. More like programs mess with things and don't always put them back. There are a lot of Microsoft support forum posts that had to reinstall Windows to fix weird issues that only started after the install
  - p_ing 7mo ago
    There are no practical issues with a "cluttered" registry. It's a database. Databases deal just fine with extra rows in tables.
- 7bit 7mo ago
  Cluttered registry does not impact performance. Unclean uninstalled programs also don't impact performance. Unless it really isn't uninstalled and still runs in the background, but that can easily be fixed by a person competent enough to reinstall Windows once a year. Settings you don't find, will still be not found after reinstalling Windows. But to each their own...
  - Neywiny 7mo ago
    In my case it's not about performance, it's about usability and disk space. And again, that time I somehow started a WiFi access point and couldn't find anything online to turn it off. That laptop also at some point had the new folder option get removed from the right click menu. I had to copy/paste one. There are a lot of weird things that can happen over the years.
7jjjjjjj 7mo ago
Not the person your were talking to but at work the Windows machines have a bunch of MDM garbage on them that screws up the OS and requires reimaging every few months. For that reason I have a Powershell script to automatically set up a machine.

Ok, I'll bite ... why are you reinstalling and reconfiguring windows on a regular, yearly basis?

by ray_v 7mo ago

Ok, I'll bite ... why are you reinstalling and reconfiguring windows on a regular, yearly basis?

alternatetwo 7mo ago

Seriously. My current Windows installs are >15 years old upgraded all the way back from Vista …

qingcharles 7mo ago
How is that even still working? I've used Windows as my primary desktop for ~35 years and I do my absolute best to housekeep, but I still need to reinstall about once a year or so. I'm militant about installing almost nothing on my primary PC and putting all the janky apps on another PC via RDP too.
- ray_v 7mo ago
  Didn't someone film or document a in-place upgrade process from dos all the way up to a modern version of Windows? edit: oh, here it is! https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-upgrade-ms-dos-6-22-windows-8-really-want-stuff-watch/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-upgrade-ms-dos-6-22-window...
- jodrellblank 7mo ago
  The computer I'm writing this on, the earliest things showing in Control Panel were installed in February 2012. It's not a rarely used clean machine, it's a daily use home computer/plaything with a lot of stuff installed/removed over the years from application suites to dev environments and esolangs, to editors, viewers, inspectors, emulators, hypervisors, browsers, chat and streaming clients, game stores, networking tools. Why wouldn't it still work?
  - justin66 7mo ago
    > Why wouldn't it still work? The obvious reason is that Microsoft decided Windows 11 would not install on CPUs dating back beyond about 2017.
    - jodrellblank 7mo ago
      That's not a reason for why I didn't need to wipe and fresh install Windows in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, which was what qingcharles was claiming he had to do.
      - deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
- codethief 7mo ago
  If you need to reinstall Windows so frequently, have you considered giving Linux a shot? I switched 16 years ago and haven't looked back. Until recently, I used Ubuntu and I think I had to reinstall twice in 15 years, one of which was when I got a new laptop. Last year I switched to NixOS and while my impression is that it's going to be much more stable even than Ubuntu, installation also only takes me 5 minutes. That is, 5 min until my system is in exactly the state I want, including installed software, window manager config, keyboard shortcuts, desktop wallpaper, GUI theme, etc.
- TiredOfLife 7mo ago
  My desktop running windows 11 started life as windows 7. Has been used on different hardware both amd and intel. Has been cloned multiple times. And the only problem was a recent windows update that beefed security so i couldn't access shared files on an older clone running on another hardware because of using same sid
- alternatetwo 7mo ago
  I'm not sure what you think happens if random programs are lying around - they affect nothing except waste a miniscule amount of space. I cleaned up the context menu once, probably the autostart once upon a time, search indexer is off and use Everything instead, antivirus is off ... Of course I'm still on Windows 10 and will be for the foreseeable future.
ffsm8 7mo ago
Mine was from websites 7 days I think. Randomly stopped booting a month ago (bsod after updates). Switched to cachyos - I've spoken with at least 5 people who have had the same bsod after updates situation in the last 6 months. If windows at least embraced proper update techniques like with immutable Linux - and enough polish to make the random bsod loop after updates impossible to accur without hardware damage id likely go back for my gaming rig at least - but right now, it feels like garbage ngl
- lostmsu 7mo ago
  > Mine was from websites 7 days I think. Randomly stopped booting a month ago (bsod after updates). This happened to mine too. I suspect this might be the real cause for the blog post in question.

theandrewbailey 7mo ago

Didn't most people stop doing that when they moved to XP?

lloydatkinson 7mo ago
No

0cf8612b2e1e 7mo ago

I also reinstall fresh Linux every year or two. Forces you to confront all of the cruft that can accumulate.

Neywiny 7mo ago

Honestly I should. Registry and stuff gets cluttered. Programs don't uninstall cleanly, or they change settings I can't find. On one machine I somehow set it up as a wifi print server or something and for the life of me couldn't find a way to turn it off. But it's such a hassle to setup a computer.

eviks 7mo ago
What are the practical issues with "cluttered" registry? But also, you can use special apps to track installations and do advanced uninstallations for ~clean uninstalls. Likewise, you could even spend time tracking settings. So yes, still a hassle, but nothing comparable to setting/reinstalling everything from scratch, that's just pure waste
- Neywiny 7mo ago
  Maybe I shouldn't have said cluttered. More like programs mess with things and don't always put them back. There are a lot of Microsoft support forum posts that had to reinstall Windows to fix weird issues that only started after the install
- p_ing 7mo ago
  There are no practical issues with a "cluttered" registry. It's a database. Databases deal just fine with extra rows in tables.
7bit 7mo ago
Cluttered registry does not impact performance. Unclean uninstalled programs also don't impact performance. Unless it really isn't uninstalled and still runs in the background, but that can easily be fixed by a person competent enough to reinstall Windows once a year. Settings you don't find, will still be not found after reinstalling Windows. But to each their own...
- Neywiny 7mo ago
  In my case it's not about performance, it's about usability and disk space. And again, that time I somehow started a WiFi access point and couldn't find anything online to turn it off. That laptop also at some point had the new folder option get removed from the right click menu. I had to copy/paste one. There are a lot of weird things that can happen over the years.

7jjjjjjj 7mo ago

Not the person your were talking to but at work the Windows machines have a bunch of MDM garbage on them that screws up the OS and requires reimaging every few months. For that reason I have a Powershell script to automatically set up a machine.