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Will my windows hold out this long..

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Sjaak

Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2004
Location
The Netherlands
My XP pro SP1 installation is now 7 months old. Over the past few years i've had to reinstall it about every 4 - 6 months, due to failed overclocking, me messing with software etc. Gonna try to see if it can hold out another 7 months untill my next upgrade.

I've had enough of seeing the setup bar...i refuse to reinstall before summer!
 
Why not sp2? You not legit? I can go a loooong time on an XP Home sp2 install. I know what my hardware will OC to already, so theres not much 'failing' to it :p
 
Just image the drive and then you can be back in action in no time. I only reinstall my OS about once maybe twice a year. That is from me wanting something to do, and I do it out of habit. It only takes me like 20 minutes. Reload the OS, move the saves over to the OS partition and I am back ready to go.

I use the low level utility that is supplied by the maker of my MB. It is HPA technology. All I do after the POST is hit F9 pick an action and off it goes.
 
yeah, i've gone 2 years. The only reason I formatted was a complete hardware change, or i'd still be using it. If you exercise some care, an xp install can go for an indefinate period of time. The Win9x days are over.
 
It is infact legit but so far i've refused to upgrade to SP2..heard too much problems and i have it on my laptop and i dont like it except for the wireless functionality.

I don't have enough space to make an image...my total drive space is about 800gb with games and programs shattered all over so if i lose windows i have to reinstall them all.

*starts praying* ;p
 
Well, I've been running mine since july last year. I only reinstall on mobo change.
I do see some slight degrading performance over time but nothing that is noticeable, only us freaks notice it.
I've got only 80GB drive and no cash to get a new one so a format isn't an options for me really and as it seems my trusty old drive is slowly dieing.
 
Sjaak said:
It is infact legit but so far i've refused to upgrade to SP2..heard too much problems and i have it on my laptop and i dont like it except for the wireless functionality.

I don't have enough space to make an image...my total drive space is about 800gb with games and programs shattered all over so if i lose windows i have to reinstall them all.

*starts praying* ;p

If you have games and programs on other drives/partitions then your os, you can make a back up of the reg. Then format update drivers, then just update the reg. No need to reinstall.

Before you format you may want to run a reg cleanup program.
 
I would do a SP2. I've been running it since release, and it has never, ever caused a single problem with anything. I have also only heared of very few problems by others. I don't know where you got this informaiton, but SP2 will fix more problems than it causes.

Also, with 800GB of space, I would get some partitions happening. I usually go for a 10gb partitions for windows, and all tightly integrated apps (virus scan, etc.). Then I have a large partitions for auxillary programs (winamp, compression programs, text editors, and so forth - pretty much anything), games, my documents, and media. That way, you can nuke your windows partitions and not worry.
 
I have. There's 4 200GB drives, two in raid.

Raid:
- 20GB: windows
- 200 GB: games
- Rest: applications and personal files, music

The two separate drives are for video's and backups of the raid. I might consider SP2 again, not sure yet.
 
the problems with SP2 have long since been taken care of. problems are virtually unheard of now.

sp2 all the way.
 
I might be wrong, but doesn't SP2 help protect the computer at Windows boot, and SP1 does not. I think I read there is some feature that was included. That is the reason it slowed the boot time by that little bit.
 
Got a computer with XP Pro and SP2 on it. Its been running for nearly 2.5years now on the install. Not a single problem with it. Abit its running a little slower now due to time and programs installed/uninstalled and slower drives but I've never had a single issue with SP2.
 
any problem you come across now days ..there are usually an answer too.

sp2 should in my eyes be installed. bugs have been fixed, security is a bit better and as long as you take care of it than it will be ok...

run all your tools on a regular ...
 
SP2 has come a long way. When it first came out it was very buggy and horrible. I still wouldnt recomend sp2 for older hardware though, like an old k6-2 or cleeron or something of that nature. I also wouldnt install sp2 after haveing windows installed for a year. I only install on first install before I do anything else and it works pretty well. With a picky way of isntalling everything in the right order and taking care of windows XP and 2000 will last for a rather long time.
 
brakezone said:
I actually liked SP2 from when it was first released

Not the only one. Like I said before I've had zero issues from it. Weather fresh install, slipstreamed, upgrade from SP1.
 
Th0r said:
Wait wait.. you mean 1.5 years at the maxium, right? Because thats how long SP2 has been out for, not 2.5... :-\

But the XP was installed for 1 year prior to SP2 release.
 
You know after refelcting some of the times I really messed up windows, where I was actually forced to reinstall.

I come to the idea that when I was "tweaking" windows heavily, and browsing obscure homegrown programs. Gave me the most issues down the road.

Also using cracks will sometimes cause issues after some time. Since the main exe is modified and may cause undesirable results that are not appearent at first.

If you believe it is a commercially developed programs ruining a good install. They have some apps that will monitor what is put in so when you take them out, it will remove every file(keys and .dll's) that went in. The last one I tried was Mcafee, but that was years ago. It was ok, but sometimes would crash. I think that was WinMe doing what it did best though.
 
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