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Why Rebuild

  • 20-03-2008 8:35pm
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,205 ✭✭✭


    Hello all,

    Ok, so I had to get my IT dept at work to "rebuild" my computer today.

    It'd been running very slow over the past while.

    The IT guy took my computer away and a few hours later it was fixed and back working.

    He said that the hard drive had become full of "crap"

    I save all my docs and things on a networked share folder.

    I have installed no software on the computer - It only has Windows XP and Office on it.

    My question is this: How does the hard drive get full of rubbbish if I never save stuff on it?


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,568 ✭✭✭ethernet


    I suppose lots of temporary files clogged up the machine. Also, if you had a roaming profile and had lots of stuff on your desktop, that would slow down your login time. No excuse not to be even more productive now :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,205 ✭✭✭barneysplash


    ethernet wrote: »
    temporary files roaming profile


    What are these?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,584 ✭✭✭✭Creamy Goodness


    say for example you unzip a archive, the files are stored temporily in a temp folder and then placed where you wanted to unzip the files sometimes these tempory files do not get removed.

    same for web browsing, all images etc. are downloaded to the pc so that if you go back to the site later on and there isn't a new version of the image etc. it will use the one stored on your hard drive that it downloaded eariler to save time and bandwidth.

    also windows tends to slow down the longer it is from a full reinstall (rebuild) if regular health checks aren't run. it's good to rebuild a windows machine often.

    i do vista machines every 6 months, XP/2k machines every 12 months and unix machines never had too, drive fails before i need too :D.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,205 ✭✭✭barneysplash


    Great reply Cremo, concise and well explained.

    What sort of regular health check can I run to avoid my pc from slowing up again?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,874 ✭✭✭✭PogMoThoin


    Use disk cleanup, its in System tools in accessories in the start menu.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 448 ✭✭ve


    Myself and a colleague in work strongly believe if you were to just start up, leave it on and shutdown a windows machine once a day for a few months, it would gradually reduce itself to a crawl at the hands of it's own maintenance subsystems.

    Linux does not do this.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,227 ✭✭✭gamer


    download free ccleaner prog, deletes all temporary,scrap,files from windows pc, gets rid of gigabytes of useless files .


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,067 ✭✭✭L31mr0d


    the IT guy is just laymanizing what he did for you. Basically, all he did was reformat the drive and reinstall the OS. I see this a lot in my line of work that people who use windows don't put any preventative procedures in place to stop a PC slowing down, they just let it get slow, then when it gets to the point that its unbearable they just wipe everthing and start again. I guess it matchs the throwaway society we live in.

    For example, when I started at my job, 4 new identical DELL PC's arrived. 1 went to support, 2 went to developers and 1 went to me. I've had to perform maintenance on all of the other 3 PC's since, due to slow down but haven't suffered from it once on my PC. Why? I have an automatic disk, pagefile, mft and registry defrag in place.

    So as I performed maintenance on the other PC's I set up this automatic defrag schedule on them also and they all haven't had an issue since.

    It's bad practice and inefficient to just wipe and reinstall an OS every few months. I personally will only use it as a last resort. Putting in automatic preventative measures will mean a pc can be left in use and require little maintenance for its life until its upgraded.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,541 ✭✭✭irlrobins


    L31mr0d wrote: »
    I have an automatic disk, pagefile, mft and registry defrag in place.
    Might be useful to other users if you posted a step by step guide on how to do this.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,067 ✭✭✭L31mr0d


    irlrobins wrote: »
    Might be useful to other users if you posted a step by step guide on how to do this.

    well it requires the user to purchase software (diskeeper). When most people are given the option of installing an OS and either:

    A: Wasting their time to reinstall the OS every few months
    B: Spending money to purchase software to remove the need to reinstall an OS

    Most people will choose option A. Of course there are free options but they usually aren't automated and are seldom as good as the paid for solution.

    Plus I think people have fooled themselves into believing that nothing but a complete reinstall of the OS will give them back their previous performance when their system was new. My understanding of this is that a new OS is free from any software or services so appears snappier when restarting and opening folders, but as the user installs their needed software and moves over all their files the system will slow down, but to a degree that isn't instantly noticable. So the user only remembers the difference between their new OS and their now, bloated and fragmented OS.


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