Should you re-install Windows every year?

[Rockfella]

It depends from person to person i guess, however making a huge system partition and then worrying about data is a big no no.

 

[heroofhyrule]

With your drivers, files, and program installers organised. It's a 2 hour investment every 6 months. And Having a clean image with no updates or programs installed helps.

Like electrotune1200 said, it's a 2 hour investment only twice a year if you reinstall every 6 months; a 2 hour investment every year if you reinstall every year. I don't see a problem with doing that as it really can't hurt. However, you will need to reinstall all drivers, updates, and programs. Just make sure you perform a backup of everything in your home folder.

 

[Orbital Shark]

Personally, I re-install every 3-4 months to keep my system at is't absolute best. Re-installing all my apps isn't an issue as I don't have mountains of them and all my personal data is on an external drive anyway

 

[Rockfella]

Its good you have all data in an external drive however if you install the OS in a small partition of lets say 30 Gbs and make second or multiple partitions of whatever sizes you want you won't loose the data stored in that folders no matter how many times you format ONLY the system partition usually "C" and install OS. I am a "basic home user" using mine as a HTPC so my system partition is only 15Gbs and i've been using windows 7 since the beta came out. No issues. Backing up data on an external drive is not absolutely important however back-ups are always good and you get portability for your data as well

Personally, I re-install every 3-4 months to keep my system at is't absolute best. Re-installing all my apps isn't an issue as I don't have mountains of them and all my personal data is on an external drive anyway

 

[Tepid]

Its good you have all data in an external drive however if you install the OS in a small partition of lets say 30 Gbs and make second or multiple partitions of whatever sizes you want you won't loose the data stored in that folders no matter how many times you format ONLY the system partition usually "C" and install OS. I am a "basic home user" using mine as a HTPC so my system partition is only 15Gbs and i've been using windows 7 since the beta came out. No issues. Backing up data on an external drive is not absolutely important however back-ups are always good and you get portability for your data as well

Personally, I re-install every 3-4 months to keep my system at is't absolute best. Re-installing all my apps isn't an issue as I don't have mountains of them and all my personal data is on an external drive anyway

Not a bad idea, but not an entirely good one either.
Your thoughts are old school and no longer necessary on modern PC's if built properly.
The only exception is laptops and netbooks, and those you absolutely should have an offline backup.
This is the problem with massive single drives in any system.
The OS drive does not need to be 1TB. But should be a single drive by itself.
The only addition partitions ont eh OS drive should be scratch/temp space.

1.) If the drive dies, say goodbye to your data

2.) If you screw up and do the wrong thing during a format, Bye Bye

3.) If you decide you want to change partition sizes, there is a high potential for corruption across the disk, and well,, asta.

Yes, you MIGHT be able to recover the data using soemthing like TestDisk or Recuva
But why take the chance, or have to go through the hassle.

I have 4 drives
2 are mirrored (2 x 500GB) <-- has save me once already
1 is the OS (250G)
1 is scratch drive (250GB)

I actually do need to purchase a large external drive and make a full off line back up
Everyone should.

2 groups of people exist,,, Those who have lost data and those who will lose data
Better to be safe than sorry.

And lastly, I no longer reinstall every 6 months or year as before.
7 is quite stable, unless you really mess with it, or install/uninstall a bunch of garbage.

 

[Orbital Shark]

Its good you have all data in an external drive however if you install the OS in a small partition of lets say 30 Gbs and make second or multiple partitions of whatever sizes you want you won't loose the data stored in that folders no matter how many times you format ONLY the system partition usually "C" and install OS. I am a "basic home user" using mine as a HTPC so my system partition is only 15Gbs and i've been using windows 7 since the beta came out. No issues. Backing up data on an external drive is not absolutely important however back-ups are always good and you get portability for your data as well

Truth is I don't get issues, I just like to keep my system 100% clean. Even if you install something then uninstall it, it leaves remnants in folder & the registry and I just can't be asked to go through it all

Backing up to external media has become a vital part of most people's day-to-day PC chores. It's the safest way to safeguard your data if you suddenly have your main PC HDD fail. If that were to happen you'd loose ALL the partitions on your entire machine not just the one in use at the time.

On a seperate note, using an uninstaller is not an option either. As a power user I see no need to install 3rd party software just to remove applications that I could do myself, if I could be bothered

 

[gregrocker]

PS I wouldn't be able to re-build the system I have since there are way too many tweaks and setings to re-do

Maybe I should re-install the registry?

How much tweaking does Windows 7 really need?

My drivers for example took ages to find and install for example

This could be your problem. This is not XP. Win7 is driver-complete with few or none missing after install and then updating via optional Windows updates.

Only replace drivers given by the installer or optional updates if there are confirmed performance reasons for doing so.

We frequently have users who fall back on XP ways and change out the given drivers who then have to clean reinstall to overcome the problems.

Further, Win7 needs no tweaking beyond normal system settings. As beta testers learned (sometimes the hard way) over the past two years, tweaking Win7 with the XPired performance and service tweaks will always come back to bite you!

Tips for getting a purrfect clean reinstall - use the ones which apply: http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/125874-re-install-windows-7-a.html#post1086729