Just re-installed my OS (using windows XP-pro).

As most of you'll no doubt know, a fresh system runs a lot more smoothly than an old one (with lots of applications installed / uninstalled etc).

I'd like to keep my system running smoothly for as long as possible really. What kind of things should I do to prevent it slowing down.

So far I have.

1) Avoid installing / un-installing junk (un-needed) applications (I have a seperate PC for testing applications on).

2) Regular de-frag.

3) Regular scans for spyware etc.

Have I missed anything on the regular maintanence front?

I'd also like to take things a little further, and I'm wondering if there are any OS services I can safely shut down?

Cheers,
Jamie.

Originally posted by Jamie



I'd also like to take things a little further, and I'm wondering if there are any OS services I can safely shut down?

Cheers,
Jamie.
Here (http://web.archive.org/web/20041128084144/www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm) is a great guide from Blackviper on what services do what and what is safe to disable etc :wink:

I know someone that does a re-install every 5-6 weeks! :o

Originally posted by vidster
Here (http://web.archive.org/web/20041128084144/www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm) is a great guide from Blackviper on what services do what and what is safe to disable etc :wink:

I know someone that does a re-install every 5-6 weeks! :o

Thanks mate.

The re-install every 5-6 weeks sounds good.

I guess if you have a good (fast and secure) way of backing up essential data and re-installing your OS and applications, then it's a good thing.

I imagine it's a bit time consuming though!

Maybe every 3 months would be more like it.

My advice is don't go on porn or warez sites and don't use any sharing peer to peer applications. And don't open any e-mails from people you don't recognise as personal friends who are due to send you an e-mail.


If you do these simple things you PC will run great for years.
Oh and Sheffield Forum is fine too, use that all the time.

Install the OS, and any essential software you need every day (office, PSP, firefox, thunderbird etc), and get everything set up just how you like it. Then use Ghost to make an image of your system on a seperate drive. When things start getting bogged down and its time for a reinstall, restore the old ghost image. Saves loads of time reinstalling applications etc on a fresh windows install.

Originally posted by slh73
Install the OS, and any essential software you need every day (office, PSP, firefox, thunderbird etc), and get everything set up just how you like it. Then use Ghost to make an image of your system on a seperate drive. When things start getting bogged down and its time for a reinstall, restore the old ghost image. Saves loads of time reinstalling applications etc on a fresh windows install.

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

I've used up about 6.5 GB (including OS, and applications) on my C: drive. Will Norton Ghost back that up to a file? (on another parition on the same physical drive).

My work machine with a clean install (2000 Pro, Office, Photoshop, CorelDraw, couple of others) is about 2.5-3GB, ghost took it down to 1.5GB.

Ghost saves the image as a .gho file, you then use the boot floppy to re-image your machine. You may have problems if you have SATA hard drives though...

Restoring from hard drive image (not including booting from floppy) took around 5 minutes.

Q1) Will it save a backup to multiple DVDs? (i.e. Span several DVD's if the backup size is bigger than 4.7gb).

Q2) If I have a .gho image file (of my C: drive) on the secondary partition (D:) of my primary HD (format NTFS), can I easly restore this just booting from floppy? (or would the NTFS file system cause problems).

Thanks.

Q1) As far as I'm aware, yes, although I've never tried it I understand it's not too taxing.

Q2) Yes, as long as you have a newer version NTFS is not a problem at all...

Hard drive restoring is obviously a lot faster...

Originally posted by slh73
Then use Ghost to make an image of your system on a seperate drive. When things start getting bogged down and its time for a reinstall, restore the old ghost image. Saves loads of time reinstalling applications etc on a fresh windows install.

Totally agree. And Norton Ghost is on special offer for £29.95 at the minute.

When you have to re-install, a five minute re-install from a ghost image rather than a cold instalation from an XP disc followed by hours of driver and virus and software installs and updates, it's worth every penny.

Ghost also backs up to CD, DVD, other hard drives, as well as other computers connected by network cables.

System Mechanic is a good little program that cleans your registry and does general good stuff. worth downloading.

I'd recommend installing Microsoft Antispyware

Thanks for the info steev.

This site: http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_1.htm

Looks very interesting, and suggestes that the latest version of Ghost (v9.0), isn't Ghost at all, it's Drive Image (*shock*).

Check it out HERE (http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_90.htm).

I've got copies of Ghost & Drive Image. I think Mr. Norton bought DriveImage?

The programs (or at least versions I have) are not the same...

Symantec own Norton now, and have bought a million other companies focussed on PC recovery and maintence (Anyone remember Quaterdeck CleanSweep? That used to be a great util for keeping the system tuned, they Symantec bought it, and ripped out all the good bits, and made it a pile of crap)

Norton Ghost is one of the few things they havent cocked up (yet). I used a really old copy (ghost 5.1) for imaging machines at work.

Joel

Originally posted by Joelc
Norton Ghost is one of the few things they havent cocked up (yet). I used a really old copy (ghost 5.1) for imaging machines at work.

Oh yes they have!

As described in Jamie's previous post, Symantec Ghost v9/2005 behaves more like later versions of Driveimage than 'Classic' Ghost. It runs from within Windows rather than DOS, and to load images you must start the machine from a bootable CD rather than a floppy disk.

If an earlier version of Ghost works well for you, then my advice is to stick with it!

Symantec recently merged / bought Veritas...I dread to see what BackupExec 11 will look and perform like :(

Version 9 is bad enough ;)