How often so you reformat/restore your system/s?

[Sumo Jo]

I can't believe people are arguing with Nek and Caboose on this issue. It's as if people are trying to deny common sense.

[LooseCaboose]

That won't be necessary, you've already made it completely clear what kind of tool uses your computer

Sorry if that came across as offensive, it wasn't meant to be. Its an old joke my brother and I use when we have trouble communicating an idea to someone: "Sigh, I'll draw you a diagram". On the odd occasion that diagrams have been drawn, the are usually hiliarious and completely fail to clear up the problem ;-)

[stylin]

I can't believe people are arguing with Nek and Caboose on this issue. It's as if people are trying to deny common sense.

?

LooseCaboose is saying that the user is totally responsible for his/her machine.

While this is (obviously) true, I'm saying that there are more factors than just what programs you install off the internet that affect system performance. In other words, there are things the user does not have direct control over. I enumerated some of these things a few posts up.

Seems sensible enough to me, but I've often been told I lack common sense. =/

[seph]

Ugh, does anybody even read what I write? I said that we will assume that hardware faults (disk errors) are non-existant because that is not a fault of the operating system. I also said the spyware and viruses only get installed because the user does something to allow it to happen.

Don't bother...people don't wanna learn, they don't wanna be educated, they just wanna sit in their bubble of ignorance and blame others for their own stupidity. This is the same thing that causes all of these problems in the first place. It's quite sad, really...

Loose and Nek, take advice from me:

Do not attempt to educate the ignorant. Take me for example.. I never attempt to help them lately. And also look at my stress level in the past three years. As you can see from pie chart A, my stress level has descreased amazingly by 94%. And bar graph 2 shows a complete decline (to 0) of people I have tried to help.

In conclusion: do like me... don't talk to these fecking retards

[LooseCaboose]

LooseCaboose is saying that the user is totally responsible for his/her machine

I said that operating systems do not just degenerate over time by just sitting there. An operating system does not spend its idle time fragmenting the filesystems and finding ways to make the system boot slower.

I'm saying that there are more factors than just what programs you install off the internet that affect system performance. In other words, there are things the user does not have direct control over. I enumerated some of these things a few posts up.

Yes, there are other factors. But the impact of these factors isn't nearly large enough for you to notice huge slow downs, or necessitate a reinstallation (ie the point of this thread).

You mentioned filesystem and memory fragmentation as two factors that are uncontrollable by the user which can cause slow-downs. I showed you that filesystem fragmentation is able to be controlled by the user (defrag) and doesn't impact the system nearly as much as you would think it might. Im still at a loss as to what you think memory fragmentation is.

Many companies run both workstation and server machines without upgrades or reinstalls for years (look at how many NT4 boxes still exist in the corporate world) because the are strictly maintained with a set selection of software and well protected on the internet.

[Kevin_theprogrammer]

I said that operating systems do not just degenerate over time by just sitting there. An operating system does not spend its idle time fragmenting the filesystems and finding ways to make the system boot slower.

That is true. The OS would have nothing to do with a problem due to the user(such as installing certain apps that run in the background), a hardware malfunction(such as the 'click of death'), etc.

Yes, there are other factors. But the impact of these factors isn't nearly large enough for you to notice huge slow downs, or necessitate a reinstallation (ie the point of this thread).

Reinstalling can help fix what you screwed up. I had a messed up version of windows me, which performed fairly slow, then I installed a full linux installation, which made my computer even slower, then I reinstalled ME, which made my computer was fast enough to do actual tasks.

You mentioned filesystem and memory fragmentation as two factors that are uncontrollable by the user which can cause slow-downs. I showed you that filesystem fragmentation is able to be controlled by the user (defrag) and doesn't impact the system nearly as much as you would think it might. Im still at a loss as to what you think memory fragmentation is.

You also have the option of installing a less fragment prone file system such as ext3 or HPFS.
What I think he means by memory frgmentation is that after quitting a background application, there is a memory hole that the OS does not detect.

Many companies run both workstation and server machines without upgrades or reinstalls for years (look at how many NT4 boxes still exist in the corporate world) because the are strictly maintained with a set selection of software and well protected on the internet.

Those are mainframe. They are meant to run for highly extended periods of time that you could never do in your normal PC. A microcomputer was meant to run for a few minutes to a couple days. They do not upgrade their mainframes because there is no pourpose to. They just need to store vast amounts of information that can be accessed at a fingertip. They could just use OS/2 for that, and not pay for any more needless upgrades.

[whitetiger0990]

I can draw you a diagram if you like ;-)

I'll take one! Just for the heck of it. =p

That won't be necessary, you've already made it completely clear what kind of tool uses your computer! :roll:

Ugh, this always seems to happen. Some ignorant newbie comes in (take that offensively if you want) and makes himself looks like an idiot. and then.. instead of giving in to what probably everyone is saying.. he goes on and insults people that deserve a lot of respect.




weee...

[DrV]

I do the ol' Windows reformat/reinstall rigamarole as little as I possibly can. My box usually doesn't need it, because I run a decently modern version of Windows (XP), consistently update Windows (whenever there is any patch available), keep a recently-updated antivirus package running and, in general, don't do stupid things, like running random binaries from untrusted sources or installing obvious vectors for "bad stuff" like P2P filesharing apps (BearShare, Kazaa, and the like).

Usually (for me) the only time the need arises to reinstall the operating system is when hardware-related or driver-related problems occur (hard disk corruption or installation of a wrong or poorly-written driver).

[LooseCaboose]

Reinstalling can help fix what you screwed up.

So we agree, its the users fault and not the operating system. You don't render an operating system unusable just through normal day to day use.

What I think he means by memory frgmentation is that after quitting a background application, there is a memory hole that the OS does not detect.

The operating system manages all of the memory. All tasks and processes have their own virtual memory space which is mapped by the operating system onto the physical memory space. A hole in physical memory isn't a problem because it is Random Access Memory, it takes the same amount of time to grab information from anywhere. The physical memory is also cached, which greatly helps speed up memory accesses.

It is possible for an application developer to write software that eats up large amount of memory unecessarily (ie mallocing and not freeing) because the developer was lazy or malicious (malware). Again, this is not the fault of the operating system, and will not adversely affect performance unless the application is actually running.

I had a messed up version of windows me, which performed fairly slow, then I installed a full linux installation, which made my computer even slower, then I reinstalled ME, which made my computer was fast enough to do actual tasks

Well, Windows ME is messed up to begin with ;-) Are you talking about installing a version of user mode Linux or a native install on a separate partition. In the latter case I seriously doubt it affected the performance of your Windows install, as it would be completely independant of it.

Those are mainframe. They are meant to run for highly extended periods of time that you could never do in your normal PC. A microcomputer was meant to run for a few minutes to a couple days.

They are not mainframe machines, even moderately large businesses use standard PC hardware as server machines. I own two older server boxes, one is a Motorola Powerstack and the other is a HP Netserver Pro. Both were designed to run as server machines with Windows NT and have very similar hardware to standard desktop machines.

I attended a seminar given by one of the researchers from Google, where he talked about the server systems they use. The have several thousand machines which are mostly Pentium 2s. To save space and simplfy cooling, many of them are not even in cases, but mounted on corkboards and placed in large racks. You can read about it here.

The desktop pcs used in companies and universities are just standard machines also. I only ever need to reboot my machine at uni when they make changes or have problems with the servers, otherwise I leave it running all the time. A friend who runs a local IT support business also does the same with all of her standard Windows PCs, some which have been running for months now.

[Kevin_theprogrammer]

Well, Windows ME is messed up to begin with Are you talking about installing a version of user mode Linux or a native install on a separate partition. In the latter case I seriously doubt it affected the performance of your Windows install, as it would be completely independant of it.

Windows ME was the fastest OS I had on that PC. I completely deleted Windows for linux because I heard about how 'good' it is. I did not like it, reformatted the drive to FAT, and reinstalled windows. Windows worked much faster than before...