Thinking of reinstalling Windows, but first...

[hellfire021]

i'm thinking of reinstalling windows because latly my comp has been acting weird. programs would act up, got files that have nothing in them, my program list has things i never saw before. but i was just curisou if doing this would hurt me more then help. like registering it again....if i have to. when i got my comp windows was already on it. and also if it would be smart to unplug my internet before hand (hate to ruin my cable)........just curious on your guys input

[bcrew1375]

Re-installing Windows probably wouldn't have much of an effect. Depends on what the problem is really. I'd run an Adware Scanner like Ad-Aware, run an Antivirus program, and run a memory testing program like memtest86.

[LazerTag]

I reformat and reinstall Windows about every 6 months roughly. Sometimes between those I do a Windows repair too when the system is acting "quirky" and I can't sort out the issue. The second stage repair is nice as it generally will solve plenty of registry and permission issues without the need of full blown reinstall or setup. With windows XP you are required to reactivate after the setup. Also it maintains all your installed programs as well. And of course it's not full proof every time, but worth a shot when your at wits end and thinking about the full install. I've done it about 12 times myself so far on various systems and only 1 time, recently too, did it fail and I had to reinstall completely. Again for me not a huge deal, but I would have planned more time for that maintenance had I known it was a possibility. Make sure to have a decent backup no matter what you opt to do.

Here is some linkage recently provided to me by a friend for a good step by step if your not familiar with the windows XP second stage repair. Feel free to read my recent "horror story" though in that same thread. Again nothing is full proof, but I'll still use this method when the need arises.

http://forums.sofposse.com/index.php?showtopic=22187

[Doomulation]

Tweak XP can backup your activation so you don't need to reactivate windows again after install. I think it might be handy.

[ckrhylove]

I just did a reformat with a version of windows I found on bit torrent called "TinyXP". It is impressive. They strip out all the crappy bits of MS code (IE, WMP, etc.), and put a tiny temp browser for you so you can go to mozilla and get firefox.

It runs really, really well. Of course it's totally illegal, but morally I feel superior when using it.