XP Reload - the checklist
 

if any of you have ended up reloading windows more than most, you have most likely developed a kind of checklist to help you remember everything you need to do. Some people will reload windows and then just install the programs and tweaks they need as they see fit. I used to do this, until I found my productivity was much higher if I did it all at once.

And so enter my XP Reload Worksheet project. I decided to write up a document that I could hold onto so I can remember what I did the last time, and use it to improve the next time. It also serves the checklist function.

I'm looking for feedback to improve this thing. its already on revision number 3. At version 2 I did a reload for real and truly tested it. It is now fairly accurate I feel. What other things do you guys do when reloading your computer?

Dude...I'd tell you but I didn't understand half of that. Aside from the programs being used, I was pretty lost. Maybe ask Mike (drdingo21) or Stefan to look it over.

Well I figure anyone can have a look.

And yeah, you make a point I didn't think of: its not a complete how-to, but more of a checklist for people who pretty much already know the how-to!

But generally, if you've ever done a reinstallation before, you know the drill. You start with any repartitioning you are going to do, if any. from there its reinstallation time, which is pretty straight forward. after reinstall, then you get to play the driver dance. I go a step further in my list and apply a bunch of tweaks right after the reload. then its the program reinstallation.

Looking at it again, for simplification I suppose I could make it more linear. The current order is the way I plan it out, and isnt very linear. I'll try a version that is step 1 through X instead.

im about due to reformat. but i rarely use my computer anymore so i dont even care that it runs like crap

before I did my last reload, I decided to see if I could fix mine enough to where it wont run like crap. I got it much improved using CCleaner and going through the registry, but there were so many other things I would have had to fix that a reload would have been a better use of my time. Plus the standard Windows XP Barnacles are almost impossible to deal with anyway, and the feel of a fresh reload is always good.

(at this point, I'm sure someone will chime in with comments saying how they never have to reload, because of X, Y, and Z. Go right ahead)

i have been going on 3 years on the single install of XP. i just run regcleaner and ccleaner, but for some reason ccleaner likes to destroy the internet explorer-ms office registry entries.

also i found out that dklite does a lot better job at managing the hdd.

My first hdd is partitoned so it holds the os and programs, then the files are moved to a secondary partition, just so i don't need to get myself chase them afterwards.

One thing i never remeber to do is find out the drivers my computer uses so i don't have to chase them after the reinstall

yeah, diskeeper does an infinitely better job than the built-in defrag utility. I particularly like the screen saver defragmentation mode.

Yeah, i've noticed the same things with regcleaner...after using it certain windows functions wouldn't work reliably anymore, like ctrl-c, ctrl-v. also I noticed that the path to system32 was destroyed, so I couldnt run ping or ipconfig from command line. i had to go all the way to c:\windows\system32 for it to finally work. weird. thats why i stopped using regmech.

Finding your drivers is fairly easy if you know exactly what motherboard you have. But some hardware won't detect the proper way. Like my audio chipset shows up as a mysterious "PCI Device" that will not autodetect when I install the UAA drivers (like the motherboard site says to). I have to go into device manager and manually point it to the new drivers.

I do the same shit with printers...HP printers mostly. Why they think we need 70Mb drivers is beyond me, so I just extract the drivers to a temp directory, and let windows grab what it needs. The last thing I want is HP Director on my machine to cause all sorts of mayhem. With some drivers you dont have a choice...HP has made everything so dependant on each other so that nothing will work if you dont go through the install procedure...bastards!

My dad is also going on about 3 years without a reinstall. I think that how long you can go without one is determined by how much you eff around with the system. Since I do a bunch of shit all the time, I'm generally ready every year or less. Oh well!

This is a really great document. I'll keep it for the next time I reload a computer.

BTW - have you developed one for Vista yet?

nothing for vista as of yet. I did successfully get vista working under vmware, but it is so slow its hardly usable. I'm not interested in dual booting vista and xp just yet, going to wait for a service pack and/or a game worth having vista for (but not paying for it).

I usually do a search for XP Tweaks when I reload. There is a decent page out there that gives you a really good idea of what should and shouldn't be loaded.. They also have different extremes.. Basic for the regular user and Hardcore gamer tweaks.

are you talking about the www.eldergeek.com ?

No, I think it's tweakhound.com if I remember correctly.

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

I think that is the original services list you are talking about. this same list has floated around the internet for awhile, as a PDF and a word doc.

this is another good site to read through, but I think this guys' approach to some things are not completely correct: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html

just an update, my last reload (based on the worksheet v3) is giving me mixed results. This is due to the software I chose to load. For my next reload, I am going to install ONLY Alcohol 120% and Daemon Tools. I think I have some serious driver problems as a result of all those disk emulation applications. I notice problems burning disks in nero, as well as dvd shrink failing and hard locking my machine. just a heads up, in case anyone is doing the same thing.

I haven't reloaded my computer