Fresh Install just for the fun of it

I had some spare time yesterday and after a full image backup I decided to re-install Win7 32bit. So many dread doing this and I can understand if you have Terabytes of programs and data to recover but data is the easy part is you backup regularly.

It took me 2 hours and that was to install Win7 and get back to normal. The updates for both Win7, Office and hardware were lots.
(FYI, I do have a fast ISP connection)


After Win7, MS Security Essentials and Office I then installed Media Center, Foxit, Ccleaner, Malwarebytes. Oh I forgot to mention that I also keep a copy of my desktop folder that has all my links to my data and stuff. That saves alot of time.
After this was completed I just copied my data folder from backup HD to C: and did a little tweakings. That was it.

I then made a full image of the new HD just for safety sake.
It was fun but I need to make sure I had my ducks in a row just in case I ever had a failure and had to do it under stressfull times.


1 SPECIAL NOTE that wasted some time.
When I did the initial install on C: Win7 installed a boot directory and made my backup drive an Active Partition instead of just a Primary Partition.
I resolved this by unplugging the HD and reinstalling Win7 on C:
After the install I had to go in and change the backup drive back as well as get rid of the boot directory and bootlog it created.
Actually the solution was to backup the whole backup drive to another location and reformat then reinstall my backup stuff on it.

I know Win7 didn't create a 10Meg partition on C: so it may have thought E: drive was a nice place to try it.

Anyhow. It is all done and it wasn't as hard as I suspected. Now how many remember the time it took for WinXP or Vista?
This was a piece of cake compared to them.

Have a great day!

If think with the formatting and installing, XP would take 3/4 of an hour and vista was half hour. 7 is the same. But it can take a couple of days, whatever os i install, to install all my programs. Gotta work in between and most of the time i do fresh installs during the week, that way i have the weekend to play my games and do whatever.

Yes, that is a nice thing to do time to time.

It's a good idea to periodically renew your system by reinstalling your OS(es) as it helps to keep your system running optimally. I usually do this on an annual basis, and in fact I'm contemplating doing this in the near future.

Most of my stuff takes very little time, it's all the customization thats a pain, installing a theme and the icons, ugh. I'd rather just get it all setup and take a system image from a couple days in and just use that if I need to start fresh.

Yes I normaly re-install or upgrade my OS about once a year, this time (Feb) I upgraded to w7 64bit and took an image straight away, then after installing all my usual software I took another image so I can always go back to either very easily and quickly

I have a server at home that stores anything that is important. And I keep a separate drive on my local computer for downloads and such.

Therefore, I can usually format and reinstall at a moments notice. Takes about 1-2 hours total to get everything back in place. I don't really use that many programs and the ones that I do use are pretty much all free and small and quick installs. So, I usually just install a handful to get my machine back to usable and only install the others as I get to a point where I need them.

Love Windows 7 said:

Yes, that is a nice thing to do time to time.

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Thanks for moving my little message here. I guess this would be the place but I just thought it was general information.



Yes my systems have always ran smoothly after a clean new install. I used to do it in WinXP as well as Vista. One of these days MS will be able to get rid o fth eleft over garbage without running multiple additional programs.

I recently been playing with an Apple computer OS. That sure is easy to remove and add programs. Don't like it. In most cases just drag the directory and dump.
Not much outside the program directories.

Clean reinstall once a year gets the kinks out.

Nowadays it's actually better than getting a new computer, since new computers are loaded with dreaded bloatware so are hamstrung from the start.

The only thing I'd add is to use state-of-the-art free Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers last to order the HD after all of those Updates, after CCleaning. Ignore the ad for optimizing your PC which appears on results page. Get free Registry defrag download here: http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-...78033.html?part=dl-6267754&subj=dl&tag=button

Then I run them monthly or however often needed to make them zip across in about 2-5 minutes, no more.

Nowadays it's actually better than getting a new computer, since new computers are loaded with dreaded bloatware so are hamstrung from the start.

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It's just terrible that this has to be the case - my HP laptop was largely unencumbered with such bloatware. Be good to get people's thoughts actually, at some point, on which manufacturers are the worst culprits. I read here recently that Dell was a worst case in point?

manhunter2826 said:

Nowadays it's actually better than getting a new computer, since new computers are loaded with dreaded bloatware so are hamstrung from the start.

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It's just terrible that this has to be the case - my HP laptop was largely unencumbered with such bloatware. Be good to get people's thoughts actually, at some point, on which manufacturers are the worst culprits. I read here recently that Dell was a worst case in point?

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My experience with Dell's is that they are not that bad at all. I've found the couple of HP's that I have helped friends with had far more bloatware then the Dell's that I have used had.

Either way, with a little time in add/remove programs...it's pretty easy to remove stuff. With a little more time and an install disk, just do it yourself.

manhunter2826 said:

Nowadays it's actually better than getting a new computer, since new computers are loaded with dreaded bloatware so are hamstrung from the start.

Click to expand...

It's just terrible that this has to be the case - my HP laptop was largely unencumbered with such bloatware. Be good to get people's thoughts actually, at some point, on which manufacturers are the worst culprits. I read here recently that Dell was a worst case in point?

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Here is a great program to remove bloatware from any OEM installed system.
It is called " PC Decrapifier "
LINK
It checks and finds all the software on your computer and you select all the bloatware and it removes all of it in one full swoop.

Check it out.

Thanks for all the feedback, thus far. Strange, my HP was relatively clean - perhaps it's also dependent on model numbers and that there is no consistency here? I was quite surprised to hear on the forum that Asus was another culprit. But I agree, it's not a huge headache; there were add-ons with my HP which I simply removed.

The exception on bloatware installs is for business computers, proving the point that the manufacturers are making their profit margins off of lower-cost boxes on the sponsor's bloatware.

Decrapifier and Revo Uninstaller (an essential tool) in Advanced Mode are valuable help with bloatware removal however not a substitute for a clean reinstall - anually, if you want continuous, instantaneous performance Win7 is designed to provide.

notsograymatter said:

Most of my stuff takes very little time, it's all the customization thats a pain, installing a theme and the icons, ugh. I'd rather just get it all setup and take a system image from a couple days in and just use that if I need to start fresh.

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I also customize my system. I have a little black book with the item as well as an idea how I did it.
I have my sleep mode setup a specific way and it chnages about 5 different things so I just write it down and help me a great deal.
Writing things down become more of a necessity
Especially if you are as old as I.

Saving a Win7 Backup Image as soon as things are setup and running exactly as you want is also a great way to save settings. You never have to reinstall again, either.

From what I've seen, Toshiba is bad for bloatware at least on their laptops. They do seem to make good machines though.

I make a full backup after my 1st install and then one a week after that... Only keeping the 1st ever and the 4th week to my latest... Works great for me as the 1st is done to DVDs and all others to a USB drive... GL

gregrocker said:

saving a win7 backup image as soon as things are setup and running exactly as you want is also a great way to save settings. You never have to reinstall again, either.

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a big yes..