Rant about reinstalling Windows

SimonTALM

Linford Christie
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The time came on Friday when I decided that it was time to replace my Laptop's Hard Drive and reinstall windows as the old 80GB drive was constantly getting full.

It was nice and simple to physically replace the 80GB with my nice new 160GB drive (and suprisingly cheap - about £40). And also quite simple to reinstall Vista (apart from the stupid rules about not being able to use the upgrade version for a new install which means that you have to install it twice :cuckoo:).

It's a bitter sweet moment when you start up in record time but realise that you have to run the updates before going to install all your programs.

I wouldn't mind if I could just set it off and go to bed but it's the neediness of the process that irritates me most. Windows Update is the worst of it with it needing multiple reboots and checks to bring your system upto date and that needs to be done before you can start reinstalling the other programs. Firewall / Antivirus, Office (plus extras, Visio, Expression Web, Project with their own installers), Photoshop, Lightroom, Nero etc. But it's not just that they all need installing, rebooting and updating it's thta fact that each one requires me to enter 4 zillion random letters and numbers to allow you to install it that annoys me most. I know it supposed to stop piracy but it doesn't, all it does it irritate :bang:

Plus as I've got a PDA Phone that will require syncing and set up and that's a whole new set of pains

Any way gotta a go - i've got another set of random numbers and letters to enter :'(
 
Think I'd have just used some disc imaging software and restored the backup to the new drive.

Understand your pain though :) It's also when you find out all those things you need passwords and logins for that you had forgotten about.
 
Windows is rubbish, thats a given. But I feel your pain, I have had to reinstall many many PC's with Windows.. Record time was about 16 minutes...

If you still have your 80GB drive I would recommend investing in an external HDD caddy for it, you could even get one of the media caddies which then plugs straight into a tv and you can watch movies or listen to music through it, makes life a lot easier if you do that kind of thing.
 
i bought a 160 gig external hardrive recently, for 45 pounds
 
make yourself a disk image now! with somit like norton ghost! then in a few months time wont take you as long!
 
:bonk: Tell me about it, had to do TWO computers simultaneously on Saturday, I can only be thankful they were the office computers so the amount of software to be reinstalled afterwards was quite minimal as most stuff we now use is online.
 
either make an image of your HDD just after installation or make a slipstream disc which allows you to keep your install image upto date with new updates etc..
 
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