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Last Login: 8/21/2008 8:43:27 PM
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| | I am talking about from registry cleaners - defrags? I want my computer like new but I dunno what all to have without putting junk on my labtop? |
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Lead Forum Moderator
Group: Vista Forum Moderator
Last Login: Today @ 2:47:44 PM
Posts: 2,089, Visits: 2,000 |
| When you say you want to keep it "like new", it's not clear what you're asking.
Things that "change" over time include:
1) Windows Updates
2) Driver updates
3) Application updates/upgrades
4) IE Favorites
5) Firefox bookmarks
6) Personal info (online accounts, website logins, email history)
7) Music/Pictures/Videos added to the system
8) Application settings/configuration changes
To keep a machine absolutely "like new" would mean the ability to restore the machine to its initial state just after original OS configuration -- without ANY of the above changes being incorporated. The only reliable way to do that is to image the OS partition just after the original config is done and save that image offline (DVD or external drive) such that it can be restored later.
If you're asking about being able to restore your system only incorporating SOME of the changes noted above, but not others, there is no simple way to do that -- because you'd have to figure out a way to save an image of your system with only some of the changes included. That is a very difficult thing to do because these eight different kinds of changes are done all over the place, not just in a few locations.
An alternative, which I use, is to do an image backup before any major changes -- including Windows Updates, so that if something goes wrong afterwards, you can restore the system to the state it was in before the updates. Do NOT rely on System Restore to do this -- I have first-hand experience that such a reliance is a mistake.
Also, would recommend using a third-party app to do the image backups and restores. I personally use Acronis True Image -- but there are other products that do the same thing.
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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