[Phaeocise]

I do it very often like once a few months.

[HT2791]

maybe 2-3 times a year
mostly because my comp can get messed up

[marrymehyori]

Never. Or rather, only after a catastrophic hard drive failure where I have to install a new hard drive. Which is for me perhaps only about once every 3 years or so.

If you are just careful about what you install, what websites you visit, use AVG or Avast, AdAware, Spybot, have a firewall and a router, etc. etc. you should rarely, if ever, experience serious performance degradation.

Also helps to defrag your hard drive periodically, but not as much as it used to. Still good to do once or twice a year.

[tommy96814]

just do a fresh install, install your favorite stuffs clone the disk. load the disk image each time then no need all the hassle.

[dot1q]

just do a fresh install, install your favorite stuffs clone the disk. load the disk image each time then no need all the hassle.

My problem with that approach was that I noticed my system changes considerably within a couple of months and updating the image was more of a hastle than actually reinstalling the OS and installing what is "current" (in case of failure).

I guess I consider myself to be tech savvy and a power user, so the only times I really needed to reload an OS is when I change motherboards. I don't think I've ever come across low level operating system issues requiring an OS reload.

[angelqian]

less often than I should? It's been like... 3 years. Haven't used my anti-virus in like... 2... haha.

[apparition]

i never format or reinstall windows. i just troubleshoot the prob instead. it would take too long to reinstall everything .

[onewhite lie]

Everytime it gets too laggy& catches a virus.

I however am very lazy -_____- I don't want to destroy my things D:

[awdark]

I need to format mine soon... I experiment too much on mine and it just doesn't run well anymore. plus I install too many random things when soompiers ask how to use certain programs. Yeah, I have taken to using a virtual machine now but it still has this annoying lag that bugs me a little.

And usually I format yearly... or a little more than a year. Not really worth dealing with certain issues like the ones I have now.

[Angie]

I've only done it once since I got a new computer at the beginning of last year. I need to do it again because my computer is fvcking up :[ But I don't want all my files to leave me and I have a ton!

[marrymehyori]

I've only done it once since I got a new computer at the beginning of last year. I need to do it again because my computer is fvcking up :[ But I don't want all my files to leave me and I have a ton!

An alternative might be to install a new hard drive as the master drive and boot from it, while setting the old drive to slave so you can still access all the files on it.

[Mikey]

i format about.. every 6 months

[Storytime]

Too often. It's time to get a new one

[Irysinon]

I rarely do it now. I just use anti-virus or anti-spyware and sometimes the registry cleaner to clean the trash off. My comp is already a piece of crap with a messed up registry anyway. No need for me to reinstall it when the floppy drive is gone, the keyboard is sometimes immobilized and buttons are missing from my add/remove programs list.

[Godotology]

maybe once a year. generally speaking, Deep Freeze saves me alot of hassles on a number of situations where I would've had to reinstall due to some kind of software problem

[DEEM]

I recently reformatted, and it was my first time in 2 years. I'm pretty good with maintaining my computer so I haven't really suffered from much performance decrease over the past 2 years. I just felt like I needed a new start considering that my hard drive was jammed up with massive amounts of programs that I don't use any more and my registry was getting pretty messed. But prior to the past 2 years, I generally reformat once a year.

[DKYang]

Only when I have to. Like current hard drive with the OS somehow dies or something like that. Other than that, everything still works the same.

[marrymehyori]

I'm really quite curious as to what people are doing with their PCs that they find it necessary to reinstall windows frequently (more than once every 2 or 3 years, or even just more than once per hard drive). I cannot fathom it. I've been using computers for, gosh, maybe 25 years, and the ONLY problem of consequence I ever had in all that time was once I downloaded some freeware (not warez) from a site in Russia. The virus infection from that was so bad even reformatting didn't fix the drive, I had to actually throw the drive away. Other than that, I've never had any problems that required reinstalling or reformatting or any such thing.

Some thoughts based on my own experience :

1) Use a router/hub/switch. These days a viable router is quite cheap - under $50.

2) Use a firewall. Many routers come with firewalls built-in, and in the worst case scenario there is the firewall built into the latest incarnations of Windows, although I don't recommend it unless you really understand how firewalls work as it WILL need tweaking which is not something the uninitiated should attempt.

3) Use an anti-virus program, like AVG or Avast. Norton is a piece of crap, avoid it.

4) Run Ad-Aware and SpyBot periodically, anywhere from once per week to once per month depending on how much you use your PC and for what.

5) Do NOT use IE. You've got Firefox, Opera, Safari or any of a number of other options you could try, all of which work at least as good as IE, often better.

6) Do NOT use Outlook. I would recommend using web based email for all your email needs. That pushes the hazard of worms, trojans and other exploits onto someone else's computer (the server hosting your email), not yours.

7) Don't download any email attachments from anybody you don't know. If you do get an attachment from someone you know, if you aren't expecting them to have sent you anything, verify with them FIRST that it is legit before you try opening it.

8) Don't install warez. Not only is it illegal, it may very well be or contain malware, spyware or other Bad Things.

9) Don't visit any site hosted in Russia (e.g. with a .ru domain). Ever. For any reason at all. No ifs, ands or buts. The previously related experience isn't the only bad one I've had with Russian sites - every time I've been to a Russian site it was bad news.

10) Don't ever click on a flash ad. Especially those "cute" little games like the ads on myspace. I don't care how trustworthy you think the site is, it isn't. If you're lucky nothing bad will come of it, but under no circumstances will anything good ever come of it.

11) Don't ever respond to spam. Indeed, just delete spam without opening it first. Don't even read it for entertainment value, just delete it straight out.

12) Don't feed trolls.

13) Don't install any extensions for your browser. This is a tough one for many people to swallow, but it can cause some serious browser performance degradation and other problems. I won't even install Google toolbar myself, or Yahoo toolbar. I tried that ONCE and it caused me quite a bit of headache. I have no idea how people can tolerate these things.

14) Stop obsessing over the need to customize your software - themes for Windows, skins for winamp, etc. Your computer is a tool, not a fashion statement. At a minimum these customizations can seriously degrade performance. If the customization comes from a third party, it may even be malicious, or just be incompatible with certain other things, which can non-obvious problems. Just accept the default appearances for your software and get on with your life. It's O.K. (On the other hand, case modding is accpetable but only if you know a few things about hardware...)


I would hazard to guess that a good 99% of problems people experience with their computers come from not doing the above things. If you want a trouble free computer you don't need to be a computer guru, pretty much everybody should be able to implement the above advice without too much difficulty. May require some adjustments to how you use and think about your computer, but that's just mental - that's a matter of changing you, not the computer.

[xjleex]

I don't reinstall my computer at all, I just ghost my Hard Drive Image after installing everything I need in the beginning that reghost it like once every month.

[aznscrewball]

Only once. Because my stupid friend game me that stupid MSN virus that was going around a year ago.