How often do you reformat your PC?

I always install new OS for each new platform or major upgrade (for example new motherboard with same CPU etc).

I do keep applications on a separate drive though. I've love a Win10 without cortana or app store though

 

No reason to, nothing that a little reg tidy up with ccleaner cant fix.

 

If I download movies/music, I run it through file bot after everything is finished on that run.

If I download a program then it's deleted as soon as it's not required any more.

Cortana can eat a dick and has been completely nuked on my pc, whats an app store?

 

Every 6 months or so. I love the feeling of a completely fresh system.

 

3 years and over a dozen systems ongoing. Haven't had the need to format and restart my main OS, have migrated it over to new SSD's etc.

 

Never. The lappy I use every day still running OK after the initial setup in July, 2009. I do save and delete files and my docs when she gets full

 

Used to be every year, now not for 5+ years. Things are a lot more reliable these days and you can use a VM to install stuff you won't need more than once. That being said, I am sure there is probably a lot of shit floating around on my machine I am not aware of.

 

Its just simply not necessary now that we have SSD's.

If you are trialling a lot of software then trial them in a VM and snapshot it and roll it back to a previous point occasionally.

If you are downloading other media then Usenet should be doing this on your NAS and not your main PC

 

Every time I change a motherboard (since digital licensing) or platform (since win 7) or every time I build a new machine. Otherwise, never, on my own machines.

 

Far too often personally, but mainly because I can't make up my mind which O/S I wanna run and change hardware ~monthly. lol

Certainly not like the old win9x days where it was a necessity to keep things running smooth on the rather under powered hardware of the time.
Windows registry is such a messy idea... dumping everything in one big mess, rather than just reading specific config files as they are needed (and easily removed when no longer required) ala linux.
But unless you're chopping and changing programs daily (in which case you really should be testing on a vm) it's not really a major issue anymore.

Now days once things are set up, you shouldn't ever have to think about reformatting for any reason other than maybe a major virus.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-explained/

 

Only when I build a new PC. Current installation is about 2.5yrs old now, never had any issues with it.

Looking to build from scratch again soon so that will most likely be the next time.

 

i've done it in the past..(you mean a windows reinstall??) but only because of corruption/infection. thse days the virus / malware protection seems better, plus i'm careful with creating restore points, and backups, i have 2 system images. so it's like murphy's law i reckon, because i'm prepared for the meltdown i dont seem to need it.

when i had my laptop , never had a problem (6 years - ahh but now im thinking there were a couple of times i got some nasty malware) and prior to that yeah i had my share of crap happen. definitely restore points saved me more than once with the lappy. it could probably do with a clean install, but i cbf. laptop is retired.

also in the past the system gets messy if u install and uninstall lots of stupid bloatware.

 

Every couple of years. But I keep my OS drive pretty tidy, and install all my games onto separate SSDs, and all my files onto a big storage drive.

 

Never, I use Linux so no reason unless I change architecture like X86/AMD to ARM, even then I could get buy with a kernel change. I do however re-install my laptop every now and then (18 months) when I get the urge to redo my .dotfile and rebuild my dev environment (docker) because I've fubar'd some environment variables and can't be ass fixing it, and decide WM xyz is the new sexiness. But my desktop is standard Xubuntu which started 14.04 LTS -> 16.04 LTS -> 18.04 LTS and has survived without a format, version upgrades are pretty close to a new OS install but in place.

 

on my last build i don't think i ever formatted, i even cloned the hdd install and moved it to a ssd then ran a windows 10 upgrade version. maybe i did format it when i swapped mobos but usually that isn't a problem anymore either. i formatted my laptop once because it kept crashing. it seems weird to format your pc all the time unless you're having issues and if you're having issues all the time you're doing something wrong.

 

I use Acronis True Image to make an image of Windows straight after installing it & making sure everything is running perfectly. After that I make Acronis images periodically which are saved on multiple drives (including external drives) in case my computer becomes infected by a virus or ransomeware. This makes the need to format unnecessary.

One of my computers has been running Windows XP without a format for around 15 years.

My current main computer has only been running for 5 years without a format. It's running Windows 7 and when I want to switch to Windows 10 after Windows 7 is no longer supported I'll restore the last Acronis Image I made of Windows 10 when I upgraded to Windows 10 for free before going back to Windows 7. Using imaging this way beats formatting & spending hours installing all of my programs and getting everything up to date!

 

such a good find! had to google around, very interesting.. if I ever move from w8.1, I'm definitely going for this!

https://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-explained/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/comments/8pfnun/how_to_download_and_install_windows_10_ltsb/

https://the-eye.eu/public/MSDN/Windows 10/

 

Win10 LTSB version 1507 (10240) doesn't work with nvidia Pascal 10xx cards/drivers, so if you're using a Maxwell 980Ti or are with team red then it's fine. Othwerwise you'll need Win10 LTSB version 1511 (10586) or newer for 10xx series cards.

I've had a lot of haters try to give me shit over the years for sticking with Win7... if it ain't broke, don't fix it

 

Windows 7 SP1 X64 does everything I need.