OT-ish: XP reinstall tools and tips

Solocinema wrote on 4/10/2004, 6:03 AM
Hi-

I'm getting ready to nuke my current install of XP and start from scratch. Performance stinks overall, and so capture is almost impossible. I'm figuring this'll take a full day of work. I'd rather get a root canal, but that won't solve my video capture problems.

I'd love to hear any tools or tricks anybody knows for getting my apps and settings back quickly after a totally clean reinstall. I do have a second drive installed, so there's room to move stuff temporarily. But it looks like I just have to reinstall apps the old-fashioned way, one-by-one.

bd

Comments

BrianStanding wrote on 4/10/2004, 6:35 AM
If you're reinstalling because of system problems, it seems to me you WANT to reinstall the software, too, otherwise you run the risk of replicating the problem on the new system. I've done this a couple of times now, and here's my strategy.

1. I have all the latest downloaded software updates, hardware drivers, etc. in a separate directory on a non-boot partition. This speeds up resinstallation, since you don't need to keep swapping CDs. By the way, the Vegas and other Sony/SoFo downloadable updates (i.e., 4.0e) are complete packages and do not need the base version installed.

2. Run the "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" on your current installation before nuking your boot drive. Tell the wizard that this is your old computer and pick a hard drive folder on a separate partition to store the settings. After you get WinXP reinstalled, you can run the Wizard again ("New Computer") to reset your settings.

3. Run Windows Update after reinstalling WinXP to download all the latest security fixes and critical updates. This may take some time, especially if you have a pre-SP-1 release.

4. I try to get a "vanilla" default installation of WinXP, with all updates and the latest hardware drivers, running before installing application software.

5. Once you get things up and running, check out www.videoguys.com for system tweaks for XP for non-linear editing. You might want to set up two hardware profiles: one for the default XP installation, and one specifically for NLE. You can disable services you don't need for a particular hardware profile in the Services Properties dialog.

Even so, you're still looking at least a one or two day project. Fortunately, a lot of this you can let run unattended.

Good luck.
Jameson_Prod wrote on 4/10/2004, 5:52 PM
GlennChan wrote on 4/10/2004, 7:59 PM
Jameson you should probably start a new thread instead of hijacking this one.

But to try to answer your question, maybe your problems are because your power supply isn't up to stuff. On startup the power supply is strained a lot since hard drives take extra power than normal to start up. You can check this by running the Asus Probe utility and seeing if voltages are within 5% of what they're supposed to be (except for CPU vcore). Or you can try disconnecting some of your drives. The Asus utility makes my Windows weird so I'd system restore before installing it. You can try stressing your system with CPUBurn + Prime95 torture running at the same time. It'll show if you have any hardware problems with the CPU (and RAM to a smaller extent).

A poor power supply wouldn't explain why your drives are slow though. I'd also check if they're all using DMA mode and not PIO. I don't think your drives are in PIO mode though, your render times would suck if you have DV source material.

Jameson_Prod wrote on 4/11/2004, 6:18 AM
I didn't mean to infringe on anyone's topic..........
johnmeyer wrote on 4/11/2004, 8:53 PM
Reinstalling the O/S is pretty drastic. It took me several months to get my system tweaked just like I want it, and I would DIE if I had to go back and to it all again.

First, go to this site:

Ad-Aware

and download their "Ad-Aware" program. They have several versions, but the basic one is free. After you install it, download the latest definitions. Then, have it scan and remove offending programs from your system. I am amazed at the junk I have removed on people's systems recently. These programs are "spyware," and while not technically viruses, they are pretty close. Unfortunately, the Norton/MacAfee programs don't detect and delete them. These programs suck cycles, hog memory and can definitely cause problems.

Second, click Start -> Run, and then type MSCONFIG. Go to the startup tab. Then, go to this site:

Task List Programs

and figure out what programs don't need to be running. I have only one program that loads at startup (my monitor calibration program). All the others have been disabled.

You can also click on the Services tab and, using the same site linked above, do the same thing. Be aware that disabling services is a little trickier.

If you really want to get into this, check out this site:

Black Viper

This guy just made PC Mag's best 100 sites of the year. Most of the tweaks are aimed at hard-core gamers, but a few of them are useful for video editors as well.

Finally, when you finally get your system humming again (even if you end up reinstalling the O/S), for goodness sakes, invest in a good backup program that can do am "image" backup and restore (like Ghost, or DriveBackup). If you ever have to re-install, you can do it instead from the backup discs, and you can immediately return to the way the system was operating when you had everything perfectly tweaked.
Solocinema wrote on 4/12/2004, 8:33 AM
Thanks, all!

A lot of good tips here, plenty that I'll use.

I know a reinstall is fairly drastic, but I think the problem stems from the fact that I was beta-testing MS Office 2003 last year, which throws all kinds of nutty stuff around the drive and the registry. Before that, it ran like a champ. Everybody knows betas are trouble, so this chore isn't unexpected. In fact, you're really supposed to install each beta rev over a fresh Windows install. LOL!

Anyway, I've just been putting it off so long that it's getting unavoidable. (Naturally, I kept good backups so I'm OK for that.)

Oddly, I've noticed that since I started using Mozilla most of the time for browsing rather than IE, overall performance is quite a bit better (although not what it could be). No big surprise there, either.

-bd