"Reinstall windows"

[MecaKane]

That's what you always say, and now I gotta do it.
But HOW!
And
a) Will all my mom's emails and settings in outlook express be wiped?
b) How long would it take?
c) I added a new video card and ram since XP home was installed, and I heard about if you add hardware it thinks you're trying to install it to a different computer, and make you buy a new key or something. True?
d) anything else I should know? :O
:love:

[Necronopticous]

Depending on your computer skills, it might be better to get someone else to do this for you. Installing an operating system, even an easy one like Windows is sort of difficult unless you know what you're doing. Expect it to take a couple hours depending on the size of your hard drive it will take awhile to format.

[Dr Unne]

1) Yes. See if Outlook has an option to export your settings / emails, and then later when you reinstall Outlook you can import them.
2) XP installs pretty fast compared to older versions. 1-2 hours would be my guess, if you know what you're doing.
3) Could be true. You'll see, won't you? (Thank Microsoft.)
4) I think that with XP, all you do is boot with the CD in the drive. XP should give you options pertaining to your partitions. You want to delete the partition where Windows is installed. That might be the only partition you have. Windows may offer to try to Recover or Repair your previous installation. Don't let it. You want full deletion.

Backup everything you need. You will lose everything. Look through your whole HD for files you think you might need. It's easy to forget something.

When you have a new install of Windows, it's probably not going to have the service packs installed, depending on how old your CD is. That means that you ARE going to get any Blaster-style worms that are looking for hosts, unless you have a hardware firewall. I would advise you to download SP1 at the very least and maybe SP2 as well, in stand-alone .exe format, if available, and burn it to a CD. When you install Windows, don't set up your networking at all. Install the service pack, then set up your internet connection once that's done with.

[Necronopticous]

I think that with XP, all you do is boot with the CD in the drive
If it doesn't work enter your BIOS and set the CD-ROM drive to boot before your hard drive.

[Yamaneko]

1. See Unne.
2. I have an AthlonXP, 1024mb of RAM, and a 7200RPM HD, and I install Windows in 20 minutes. I think those computer specs are pretty common nowadays.
3. I don't think so. I've added new hardware to my computer and nothing's changed about the CD key I use.
4. See Unne.

[MecaKane]

Wait wait wait wait
You HAVE to format to uninstall and reinstall windows? Oh <img src=http://forums.eyesonff.com/images/smilies/lovesmile.gif><img src=http://forums.eyesonff.com/images/smilies/lovesmile.gif><img src=http://forums.eyesonff.com/images/smilies/lovesmile.gif><img src=http://forums.eyesonff.com/images/smilies/lovesmile.gif> me. D:

[escobert]

I've never had to reformat to reinstall windows but, I've never done it with XP only ME.

[crono_logical]

d) It's not recommended to not format, since you leave behind the mess from the previous installation then, which means it's likely not going to fix whatever you're trying to fix by reinstalling. In any case, it's only the Windows partition you need to format, not the entire disk. If your entire disk only consists of the Windows partition though, then you better have a way of backing up everything you can't otherwise recover like Unne mentioned :p

b) As for how long it takes, half an hour on a decent system is normal for Windows alone, but then you have to remember you're going to need to reinstall all the other programs you use too, which will take much longer, plus Windows patches too.

c) This is why I dislike activation :p I suppose it's acceptable for normal average PCs users that don't know what they're doing half the time though :p

[Baloki]

Backing up e-mail from outlook express, the quick and easy way:

Goto C:\ > Documents and Settings > {Name of the profile with the e-mails on} > Local Settings > Application Data > Identities > (What ever the sub folder is called) > Microsoft > Outlook Express

Then back up everything in that folder and remember to put them back in the same folder on your new installation :D

[NM]

If you have a brand name PC, Dell, Sony, etc. You should have some CD's to restore the computer back to it's factory setting's. If so you don't need to worry about setting up windows manually as the recovery cd's will set your PC back to how it was the first time you turned it on. With all device drivers and software installed.

If your PC is home made obviously you'll have to do everything yourself. Windows, device drivers, updates, software etc, etc. If you do have to do everything manually, don't just install things left right and centre. Install one thing at a time and if something needs to reboot the system for the love of God let it reboot. Windows XP may be more idiot proof than previous version's but it's still a cruel bastard if you do something wrong.

If your doing things manually i'd advise installing things in this order.

Windows (Shocker :D )
Device Drivers
- Motherboard Drivers
- Display Drivers
- Sound Drivers
- Modem Drivers
- Network Card Drivers
Windows Updates
-SP1a
-SP2
Anti-Virus/Firewall
Additional Devices eg. Printer.
Software

When it comes to activating you shouldn't have a problem. I've had 5 different systems and XP has always activated fine without any problems.

Re-installing Windows really isn't that hard. Even if you do mess it up you can just start again.

[crono_logical]

Windows Updates
-SP1a
-SP2
Service packs are cumulative. If you intend to install SP2, you don't need to install anything older than it unless you have no problem with wasting bandwidth and installation time. I personally would avoid SP2 anyway (plus I've written my own script to install only the 40 or so patches I specifically want in one go), but that's up to you.

[escobert]

yeah I made it so it wouldnt ever install sp2 or try to.

[Rostum]

May I ask what specificaly is wrong with SP2? I haven't installed it yet.

[Shoeberto]

A security center that constantly nags you and the fact that it hates dynamic IPs to the point where it refuses to connect to anything at some points.

[crono_logical]

<ul><li />Annoying Security Center treating users like absolute idiots.
<li />Installing it reverts all carefully tweaked customisations (like disabled firewall or other system services) to their defaults because MS think's they're safe for the average dummy user.
<li />Crippled TCP/IP stack and operating mode, making more advanced networking tasks impossible due to slow speeds, or just plain impossible.
<li />Needs an extra 1 GB disk space on top of your current installation. Bit of a bloaty waste if I'm gonna go disable all the new pointless stuff it's added for the benefits of the not so tech-savvy users but are useless to me.
<li />I'm not going to risk having endless network connectivity problems I've heard others get. I suppose this is more a risk than a solid fact that makes SP2 bad.</ul>
I'm sure I'll think of more :p I wouldn't put anything past SP1a on my machines for now, with the exception of certain critical security patches.

[Dr Unne]

If you have SP2 at least your system is broken in a specific way that MS is aware of, so that it can continue to "fix" your problems in the future. If you jump ship you're pretty much screwed, when BlasterWorm2.0 comes out and MS says "This patch requires SP2, or your computer will implode". I run stock XP Pro with plain old SP1 and no other patches, but I only use Windows once a month when I need to use Office because CompanyX won't take resumes in any other format. If I really used Windows I'd get SP2.

[Peegee]

Having windows (a 2 GiB, for me anyway) installation just to have .doc documents seems a bit bloated. Surely Linux has some sort of .doc saveable program, even if you have to run an emulator?

[Endless]

vmware + ms xp + ms office. You don't even need to have a windows partition anymore (unless you play games on windows).

[Shoeberto]

Uh...OpenOffice?

[Dr Unne]

I've had experiences where a document looked very different in OO.o than in MS Office. It's not something I want to take a chance with. I also used to use my XP partition to play some games, and I may again in the future. A few GB isn't a big deal.

There's no way I'm paying for vmware or for crossover office, and I'm not pirating them. I got XP and Office free from my college. I'd rather not give any money at all to anything dealing with MS.