Does Windows rot over time?

[shawy14]

"Windows is simply poorly designed and is not suitably designed for long-term consistent uptime and long-term efficient use."

Couldnt of wrote a better description of windows myself, I am now wondering why I continue using this operating system which gives me a constant headache!

 

[nightelph]

I am still very much impressed with Vista.

AFter years of using XP and dealing with it is flakiness it is nice to see a system that gets faster over time. Yes boot time takes long the more applications I install and use, but general desktop browsing it lickity split quick.

I usually reformat XP about once a month due to hardware changes, and poor performance.

Windows 7 RC client runs very well. RTM however does not at least in 2D benchmarks it was 10% slower for me, than RC. Going to have to run more tests, but for now, will keep Vista for 24/7 setup and run XP for benching.

For me, after using Vista for two weeks, XP just seemed broken.

 

[MonkeyMhz]

For me, after using Vista for two weeks, XP just seemed broken.

I agree.

However Vista startup time does increase, but 2 mins. Wtf are you doing. My laptop has had vista for about a year and its cluttered up because I havent backed up any stuff and its a big mess and it still only boots up to desktop and ready to use in about 30ish seconds.

 

[Mpegger]

I've had this install of XP since I built this PC nearly 2 years ago. Even with the number of programs I've installed/uninstalled, I can still have uptimes measured in weeks, but for power conservation, I regularly put the system into sleep mode. I rarely actually reboot/shutdown the system unless a program I install requires it.

As far as whether its slower then when I first installed, well for startup I can say yes. I have a bunch of programs that run at startup, as well as sit idle in the taskbar notification area. Does it run slower in normal everyday use? More then likely yes, but I really can't tell the difference because of how long I've been using it, and the games don't show any difference either, even if the system hasn't been rebooted in weeks.

 

[airflow]

I've often suspected the inevitable hard-drive crunching slow-down has to do with ram, virtual memory, and fragmentation. Not to do with tweaking necessarily. Winrot seems to happen on any system, no matter how little its been tweaked. I'd also say its accelerated by internet use.

add another option that says:
-microsoft deliberately designed it so that it rots because.........<insert reason>.....

 

[DaveHCYJ]

In my experience the rot comes from Win9x programs or other 3rd party programs with poor uninstalls/bloated installs.

It also seems like XP is more prone to rot than Vista. Its also nice that vista schedules things like disk defrag for you, so that you never need to think about it.

 

[QuietIce]

You can always use Windows Scheduler to make that happen - it's not hard to set up ...

 

[Larcen]

Voted "Failure due to other third party software."

What I usually do is Install windows, get all of my drivers installed, tweak it a little to remove services that I "Do Not" need running", install my games / CPU / GPU intensive programs, and then install VMWare and run a virtual machine for all of my stupid surfing, instant messaging, anything else that doesnt involve photoshopish type programs or gaming and my system seems to stay solid. The internets corrupts all that touches it. And cheap software also.

Edit: I also believe that there is a slight memory leak in the OS that gradually makes the system slow down after time of not being rebooted.

 

[KTE]

For me, it's a combination of these two every single time on many systems a month and yes, I am fed up of it:

Failure due to other third party software
Happens after failed overclocking attempt(s)

I should qualify my experience.

For the first, it's always a) just installing many applications even if you remove them b) driver installs/reinstalls (apps like AMD Catalyst) and, c) major application installs/reinstalls (like Sysmark, Winbench, Red and Iridas suites). For the second, it's unintentional system crashes like BSoDs or direct risky system tweaking (hardware and software) which causes crashes. With my latest reinstall, 23s boot for 6 weeks back up to 2m10s boot once such events have taken place (and nothing does reverse this degrading but a reinstall) whilst the HDD subsystem is the same performance as at the install and I don't have anything but the AV starting up.

 

[Voidn]

With virii and malware out I would say:

Failure due to other third party software.
Failure due to messing with the page file and/or aggressive registry/other tweaks.

Over time you install/uninstall more and more random apps and they rarely fully uninstall. Bloatware is common. And windows isn't that fast to begin with. Toying with the registry can be very powerful and very dangerous. Like when you want to kill all reference to that crappy app the didn't uninstall properly. You go monkeying around and maybe kill the wrong keys. A few years ago I woke up one morning and windows wouldn't load. Then I "remembered" being drunk and "cleaning" up the registry. Whoops .

 

[pinkles]

I dont know why that happens!!!

lol, but it is irritating I really notice it about 3 months in (on a fresh install) windws starts to really slow down, its rediculous!

the only reason I still use windows is because I do NOT have the patience for figuring how to install drivers, programs, and freekin apps on linux... example- I still can't get flash player to work in firefox in damn small linux!

 

[pinkles]

I dont know why that happens!!!

lol, but it is irritating I really notice it about 3 months in (on a fresh install) windws starts to really slow down, its rediculous!

the only reason I still use windows is because I do NOT have the patience for figuring how to install drivers, programs, and freekin apps on linux... example- I still can't get flash player to work in firefox in damn small linux!

 

[Methal]

well yeah if you never use it, it doesn't rot.

There is a saying that goes like this:

To mess up windows you have to work on it.
to mess up Linux you really have to work at it.

 

[95blackz26]

i get everything set up and installed the way i always do then image it with acronis true image.
reloading windows takes minutes not hours and everything is setup the way i want it.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

I dont know why that happens!!!

lol, but it is irritating I really notice it about 3 months in (on a fresh install) windws starts to really slow down, its rediculous!

the only reason I still use windows is because I do NOT have the patience for figuring how to install drivers, programs, and freekin apps on linux... example- I still can't get flash player to work in firefox in damn small linux!

You might be interested in giving Mint a try:

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

...it's even more "out-of-the-box" friendly than Ubuntu.

 

[GeneralMac]

I didnt vote on this because my 1st choice wasnt there...Windows is a collection agency it collects so much garbage over time that its a cluttering mess. Not to mention software garbage collection....and those who wish to attach even more garbage to yur puter.
On average From win 95 to vista I have wiped my C:/ drive once a year......and not to mention those times when I got to curious...
so if "sanitation" was up there I'd of voted..lol

 

[vixro]

Install new software. Delete software. Install more software. Delete more software. Install new drivers. Uninstall drivers. Clean drivers. Registry tweak. Install new software. Delete software. New files. New files. Delete more files. Defrag. Cancel defrag in the middle of defrag. More files. New software. New hardware. Install more peripherals. New system tray items. More sidebar stuff. New drivers. Revert back to old drivers.


If you want the real reason the OS slows down, it's because it's being used. Through this process of use the computer is never upkept perfectly. There will always be things leftover after uninstalls and reinstalls of software and hardware. Until the system can actually be perfectly maintained from a software staindpoint, only clean reinstalls will fix it.


Now it has gotten better. You may notice the slowdown on Vista is a hell of a lot less than on XP. I've had the same Vista install since SP1 (and recently, an upgrade to SP2) and the computer still runs at about 95% of its original clean OS speed (with software installed).

XP on the other hand, took only 3-6 months before it was sluggish again. Slow loading times of software and such. I have not tried Win7 yet.

 

[Trypt]

Instability? Rot? Hardly!

I don't know if anyone still reads this thread.. but..

I have been using Vista 64U, as in my sig, for just about 2 years now.

My computer is on 24/7, connected to two other computers via LAN, with constant communications and transfers between them.

My computer is constantly connected to torrents and ftp sites, sending/receiving data, 24/7, on average over 10GB a day, sometimes up to 50GB in a single day.

My computer is also used as an entertainment system, I watch on average 3 hours of divx/dvd a day, as I don't watch TV at all, this is my only form of visual entertainment.

My computer is also my main window to the web, so I use it for hours every day surfing the web. I throttle my torrents uplink to 90% while I surf so that it doesn't interfere.

I also play games occasionally, perhaps 10 hours a week.

My computer is by no means minimalist. While I constantly check for spyware and unwanted processes, I run Google desktop, Objectdock64, O&O automatic defrag, utorrent, MSN, Skype, Daemon Tools, as well as all drivers for my peripherals at all times.

All this activity, and I only reset my computer once a week, sometimes I forget and it goes for weeks at a time. I reset not because the system is unstable but only because I want to give it a breather.

So, I am not sure where all this talk about instability is coming from, not only does my OS not "rot" over time, it doesn't even slow down after being on and constantly used for weeks at a time.

My point! If Win7 improves on Vista64, I can only imagine the ultra stability, even tho it is very hard considering the incredible stability of Vista as it is. XP, as much of a fan as I am, never came close to Vista in this matter.

 

[Zonnza]

IMO - It's not the Registry per se that's the problem. It's all the garbage that piles up in the registry from program updates/upgrades and poor uninstall routines ...

I believe this is the main issue a lot of people experience. All the extra stuff in the registry that isnt taken care of.

I been running my WIndows XP 32bit OS for almost 3+ years, well just a bit over 3 years.

And I been doing maintainence on my computer regularly; from cleaning up extra stuff laying here and there to manually going thru parts of the registery.

I NEVER needed to defrag my computer since I thought I was doing a good job maintaining it. Then my rl brother one day showed me a program called jkdefrag/mydefrag and I decided to defrag my computer, for the first time EVER using this program. For him, it made his computer run much more smoothly (but he never did manual maintainence on his PC). When I ran the defrag, my computer started to give me problems. But this may not be cause of the defrag exactly... A few programs stoped starting up when my computer booted up so I tryed to fix it and came to no luck.

Recently my GFX card (after a while of small crashes from running at high temps 90+ C) is starting to give in. It's a 8800GTS ... but no fear. After doing everything I could to fix any issues I had, nothing seemed to get fixed, only worse. So I decided to stop trying to fix it and went with my plans to build a new i7 rig about 1-3 months earlier then intended.

I just wish this computer would have held out another 1-2 months (for the win7 release, got my student discount). Im still currently on it but it's still really buggy. And once I get my 295GTX from newegg (they sent me a 260 instead so I had to RMA), ill be ready to swap over to my new rig assuming I won't need to RMA anything else x.x
My new rig is almost finished being built... just need that damn gfx card, then transfer my sound card from this current system, then format my main drive on this comp and transfer my 2ndary drive with all my music... after that transfer my main drive to that comp and ill be set. 2x 320gig HD for music and movies. And then my 2x 60gb raid0 SSDs for OS and programs and games.


Overall, my windows xp on my current machine is been going strong for a bit over 3 years without need of an install throught my normal maintainence. I'm no IT expert, but working on my bachlers in computer engineering.

 

[JDawggS316]

I've found that about every 6 months (sometimes longer) I've had to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows.

Seeing as I am a semi-power user who tweaks things here and edits things there I'm fairly certain it's user-promted errors over time.

I don't even do any overclocking and I find I still need to reinstall Windows every-once-in-a-while.