How Long Has Your XP/Vista/Win 7 Install Lasted Before Re-Install?

Ben333 said:

So doublejack, do they have the same case they had prior to 1992? I'm thinking ATX wasn't around back then. I'd be interested in an outline of the upgrades. Were they upgrades or would you say the whole system was basicly replaced a couple times? I think that's neat though if they have 18 year old files on their computer running vista.

I run XP installs as long as I can, I think I've got a few months on every one I have going now. Had one going on five years on my old thinkpad but I screwed that up and it won't boot now Still have a copy of 2000 Pro on there that works fine though.

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LOL, no they definitely don't have the same case. I believe they've had four cases over the years. The original case was an AT style desktop, and you're correct that ATX didn't exist back then. The case was made of steel and weighed a ton. Inside the original case was a 486DX 33MHz. I think it had a whopping 4mb of ram, although it might have started off with 2mb. They were 30-pin SIMM modules.

Some of their hardware changes were true upgrades. There are three times I can recall upgrading just the CPU. I also added memory, changed video cards, and installed a larger HD at various points without doing an entire overhaul. The basic outline is:

486DX 33MHz baseline
upgrade to 486DX4 100MHz (oc'd to 120MHz, AMD chip)
overhaul to a Pentium 90MHz based system w/ 72-pin memory
upgrade to a Pentium 233MHz
overhaul to a Duron 600MHz (oc'd to 900MHz) - fist ATX case & PSU
upgrade to AthlonXP 2GHz w/ Ti4600 - done in 2002 and this was by far the longest used configuration
overhaul to C2D E4300

So that's 7 processors, probably 10 video card upgrades, and many other changes over the years. I'm pretty sure none of the original parts are still in use, although I believe I still have a few of them - and a couple (floppy drive and cable for example) could still be utilized.

If I didn't partition my hard drives and reimaged the OS partition frequently, I would go crazy.

I don't recall the last time I lasted more than a few weeks with the same install.

As soon as a problem appears, I nuke my OS and reimage it because it's faster to do that than to diagnose a problem

Current computer has been on XP since it was built 1.75 years ago.
Previous computer (Opty 165, 7600GT, 2GB RAM) that went to parents also on XP since it was built 3.75 years ago.
Older parent's HP (P4 @ 2.8, FX 5200, 512 RAM been on the same XP install since I nuked it ~5 years ago.

Iv had this same copy of Vista since August. I like Vista much more then XP, doesnt bloat down and sink as quickily. In XP you could see the PC slowing down over the weeks.

I probably re-format every few months or so. I just bored and like changing things up a bit

c627627 said:

If I didn't partition my hard drives and reimaged the OS partition frequently, I would go crazy.

I don't recall the last time I lasted more than a few weeks with the same install.

As soon as a problem appears, I nuke my OS and reimage it because it's faster to do that than to diagnose a problem

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That's exactly what I do

The only time i've ever reinstalled win 7 is when i new major build come out... backing up and moving things to drive M to install the final version of 7... i can it lasting a year easy... that's the most i get before i really screw something up though... that's what i get for poking around in the registry where i shouldn't be

c627627 said:

If I didn't partition my hard drives and reimaged the OS partition frequently, I would go crazy.

I don't recall the last time I lasted more than a few weeks with the same install.

As soon as a problem appears, I nuke my OS and reimage it because it's faster to do that than to diagnose a problem

Click to expand...

Lol, i used to that, but got tired of waiting through the installs... i just use system restore now