Comments on: Scott has WinRot, or “How to Rebuild Windows Faster”

By: Dan F

Dan F — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

bingo! that is some of the best advice i’ve read in a long time. Good job.

By: Tom Slaughter

Tom Slaughter — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This information is good.

I find myself rebuilding Windows 2000 about once a year. I never know whether it’s due to problems I’ve created myself or maybe there are inherent weaknesses in W2K. I’m pretty good about keeping my system clean & backup nightly to a 2nd hard disk files I must not lose. I can rebuild system & apps in 1 long day & then tweak it over the next few days.

I was hoping to find a shortcut to having to re-install all apps but am probably out of luck for being able to copy files over instead of re-loading the apps.

By: Neil M

Neil M — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

LOL, I’ve been reloading my machines once a year on a regular basis. Didnt know it was called windows rot but i could tell over time it would slow down, and I dont do installs/unin during the year. Normaly takes me a day to get all theings set up (I do graphics). My Linux machine is solid no matter how many years its running but am only using win2k sinc some programs are not available to Linux.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s see, I’ve had my machine running Win XP for nigh on 3 years now and when I first bought it I thought “Wow! This runs like a dream! I was wrong to criticise Microsoft without trying their new OS!” and I attributed most of the speed to a 2.4Ghz CPU (when my previous dinosaur had a 100Mhz processor overclocked to 200Mhz). 3 years of running Windows without a format really takes its toll. It restarts at random times, sometimes just freezes for no apparant reason, it now takes longer than ever to load FireFox and Thunderbird (as a little side topic, I visited the Microsoft site and before I knew it IE was my default browser again and Outlook, which I never bothered to configure properly and crashes when it tries to start now, my default email client - THAT is criminal!!). As a general rule, every second time I restart my computer it reboots mid way through. Three times now my file system nearly got nuked by a heavy crash. This is just a pathetic excuse for an operating system, I now have 10 free Ubuntu Linux CDs getting posted to me, and on the next release I’m going to ask for 100 so I can distribute them to the general public en masse. I have ONE good thing to say about Windows though, although I’ve never tried it in another OS, it seems relatively easy to set up a simple home network. That is the ONLY praise I give it and it is rather grudgingly given. Simply put, if the rumours are true about Longhorn needing a subscription fee, regardless of whether it uses a registry or not I will NEVER use it. If the rumours aren’t true then I will at least see if it uses a registry. If it does then I will go to all the trouble of learning to hack JUST for the simple pleasure of defacing the Microsoft website with a little thing called “the truth”

By: StevenRoy

StevenRoy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

For some reason, I’ve never had a problem with WinRot, despite having used (and still using) Windows 95, 98, and XP. There was really only one instance where I had to reinstall Windows on a computer, and that was due to a version of Norton SystemWorks that apparently wasn’t fully compatible with Windows 95.

I suspect that most of these cases of WinRot are actually due to poor online security. Anti-virus and Anti-Adware programs are a necessity, as are all the updates from the http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ site.

Random lockups and startup problems can also be caused by an underpowered power supply. I’ve seen this more often than you might think!

Now, that said, I do have a Linux CD (SuSE) that I intend to try out on a computer later. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

By: Slalomsk8er

Slalomsk8er — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

To get a stable, secure and hopefully not rotting XP:

1. Do not unistall apps if ever possible
2. Run XPAntiSpy (http://kickme.to/XPAntiSpy)
3. Install a Antivirus program (http://www.free-av.com/)
4. Install a Antiadware program (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/)
5. Enable the built in Firewall (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/learnmore/icf.mspx) do not use Norton Internet Security (I do support for family, friends and small business and a lot of network problems I tracked down to this app)
6. Do not use Internet Explorer if possible (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)
7. Do not use Outlook or Outlook Express (http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/)
8. Defragment your HDDs once a month

I hope I forgot nothing
Doh, there are hidden (not the normal hidden) files in XP that can eat space for nothing you will ever need, look at http://www.microsuck.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml to get the info. This info was the last bit I needed to switch all my work to Linux.

By: Omari Norman

Omari Norman — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Have you thought about using a drive imaging program to take a snapshot of a cleanly installed Windows partition? An expensive proprietary one is Acronis TrueImage, but there are GPL programs that are probably better that you could run from KNOPPIX. Then restoring the system would be really easy. (I’ve thought about doing this, but haven’t done it yet…)

By: iopred

iopred — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

As the guy above me said, when you do your first install, make a drive image of c:, that is how I do my reinstalls.

I do them on a whim now, as they take about 5 minutes. I have a similar setup, keeping any data off c:.

I make 2 images, one with drivers and one without. The one minus drivers is for when rot has set in, and I use the driverless one whenever I add new hardware (as old hardware drivers cause rot also).

By: Hans Flink

Hans Flink — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Nice howto!
I use the ‘D: is for data’ solution, and it easyfies things alot. Changing the location of the ‘My’ folders is as easy as rightclicking My Documents and setting the path to D: in properties.

By: sparkane

sparkane — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Another nod from the Omari Norman and iopred corner. In my misspent youth I used up entire weekends playing with partitions, and collateral damage, of course, was having to reinstall Win98 all the time. I’d say I did it a couple times a month for a while. I quickly came up with a partition configuration similar to Jim’s except I kept the apps on yet another partition - so I had system C:, apps D:, personal data E:. On Win98 that actually saved some time, since you didn’t have to install all the apps - at least some would just work. but on Win2k it doesn’t work this way so much. One thing I liked about win98, if it only had had protected memory.. oh well..

I have to say, IMO, the only real way to keep a system stable - and I would think, ANY system, though I’m not as experienced with Linux as with Windows - is to leave it the hell alone. My parents are still using Win98, and it’s very stable. Why? No one messes with it, especially me! When relatives or others ask me now to recommend a machine to upgrade, I ask them, Are you having an intractable problem with the current machine? Often they say no, they would just like something sexier. And I say not to bother. I think Windows is easily fucked with, on the one hand because users typically run it as Admin (including experienced ones), and on the other, because it is used so much and users expect to use their single computer for anything, which means they are naturally going to change its configuration whenever they see a new use for it. (As opposed to someone like me, who has several cheap boxen, each for a specific purpose.)

This is just a guess, but my own experience with Win2k though is that if you leave it alone, it’ll stay okay. Our dialup machine here at home is Win2k, always on, no AV, no firewall, just fully patched, AND running with a non-admin account. Granted, it’s harder to hack a dialup box and still kind of useless even if you do, but the only thing we’ve picked up over the net was exploiting a bug in MS’ code - firewalls didn’t stop it. If I had an always-on net connection, I’d have a firewall of some kind - but then I’d also probably be using linux for that