[thelist] Windows '98 Instability

[Philippe Jadin]

<tip type="windows health" author="Philippe Jadin">
Windows 95 - 98 is absolutelly awfull in the way it autodestruct itself in a
few month. There is hardly nothing to do but reinstalling every 2 months.

Of course I have another solution :

Once your system is up and running with all your apps, copy your whole
"windows" directory under for example "goodwin".

Install wathever crap you want, you won't need to deinstall them.

Once a month, start in msdos mode and type something like :

ren windows oldwin
copy goodwin windows

In approximativelly 1 minute, you'll have a totally clean windows install.

I do this for two years now, and it never failled. I deinstall software by
deleting their folder in the "program files" directory. (and yes, it works,
because I recopy the fresh windows with my original apps already installed)

Nice and crazy isn't it ;-)

Note that really good softwares (adobe, 3dstudiomax...) even don't need to
be reinstalled in the eventuallity of a brand new windows installation.
Those are the ones I use most.

Note that you can do something cleaner using ghost, but why worry with this
if it works?
</tip>


> Even though it's a plenty powerful machine, lately I end up re-booting 2-3
> times a day because the system resources run so low it can't function.
>
> I know I read an article explaining this and what you can do, short of
> upgrading, to help alleviate the problems, a while back - but of course
> can't find anything on it now!