So I figure that today is the day that I clean up my desktop computer (I'm on my laptop at the moment).

It's been OVER two years since I've done my last clean up. Normally, my install doesn't make it past the one year mark before getting the swift overhaul.

I've got it pretty much down to a short evening's work by organizing my partitions in a fashion similar to you linux folk. (one for the OS, one/more for data, swap drive? What is this swap you speak of?)

Aside:

Warning: Spoilers inside!

Bonus Tip: Putting your pagefile.sys on a different physical harrddrive than your OS speeds things up

EDIT: But DON'T JUST MOVE IT, OMG. You have to go to your system properties! (Extra Bonus Tip: sysdm.cpl)

Anyhow, does anyone else share my clean-freakish ways?

PS: I know I could just keep things running in tip-top shape by being careful... but I've done that for TWO years. Windows XP wasn't known for it's amazing registry practices you know. Stuff gets left behind somehow.

PPS: Getting kinda' emotional, though. This install made it through 1.5, 2.0 AND 3.0 of Firefox. God speed little buddy.

 

CCleaners a nice tool
I don't format much unless there's a problem or something, and those seem to occur about every 6 months

Then again, I only formatted like 6 months ago because of SP3

 

Yay, I'm not alone!

 

Harsh words... from an ex-jaywalker! I didn't want to bring up your past, but you forced me into a corner there.

 

I format when I feel like it for a clean up, happens rarely

 

BoneMonkey was the greatest there was.

 

And, much like Polkaroo, I just missed him

EDIT: There must be a merge post button around here... anyone?

 

6 months is the maximum time Windows should have between clean formats.

As far as the pagefile is concerned, anyone running XP on a system with a decent amount of RAM (2GB+) doesn't need it. It will only take up space and occasionally force things into swap that don't need to be.

 

1.5GB is probably enough not to need the page file, but it wouldn't hurt to grab another 1GB stick (considering RAM is so dirt cheap right now).

Drivers generally aren't updated all that often, and reinstalling updated version generally takes only a few minutes.

More than makes up for the time required to reinstall and reconfigure everything as you would if you hadn't imaged it.

 

Getting rid of the page file completely is just a plain bad idea. Some apps will require some form of pagefile, even if you have 4 gigs of ram. It will also hamper performance to some degree.

That been said, I generally reinstall windows every 6-12 months, or if it's beginning to feel very sluggish, which could be at any random time.