Windows doesn't degrade anymore. at least vista / win7 don't. xp does, though.

If it degrades, it's because of other apps.

For fixing any hdd related issues, get a new one, at best, get an ssd. at best, the intel ssd. I've switched to ssd and it was amazing, then to the intel and it was amazing again.

I never reinstalled any of my os' any time. Never had the need, they never slowed down over the years. no need for partitions, sometimes a defragmentation, and else just careful using and it's all fine. the onoly thing i've notices: when ever i have some adobe software outside of reader and flash player on my machines, they degrade in performance, stability, etc. horrible.. :) happily i'm not the artist, so i don't need them very often :)

Quote: Original post by mich4elp
I finally did a reinstall on one of my computers. The speed difference was unbelievable.
How many times in 3 years have you reinstalled?
I have an 8 year old computer, and have never done a fresh OS install. O_O

To answer your question, I did this once a year.

Quote: Original post by davepermen
For fixing any hdd related issues, get a new one, at best, get an ssd. at best, the intel ssd. I've switched to ssd and it was amazing, then to the intel and it was amazing again.

I found this article about Windows 7 + SDD's. Check it out . Unfortunately they are still too expensive for the 256GB capacity I'd want. The fun part is that the prices are still coming down.. so only a matter of time before I can afford this.

Quote: Original post by davepermen
For fixing any hdd related issues, get a new one, at best, get an ssd. at best, the intel ssd. I've switched to ssd and it was amazing, then to the intel and it was amazing again.

I'll second this; I decided to install Win7 on my OCZ Vertex SSD saturday... my god, it's like night and day difference even when compared to Vista x64 from new on a 10,000rpm drive!

Things just... work, that much smoother it's sweet [grin]

And Win7 being as awesome as it is also helps, I admit I was a bit 'hmmmm..' about the new task bar setup but having used it for even a short while I must admit I'm sold. As I'm in transition atm swapping back to Vista isn't as shiney as it once was, and I imagine XP at work tomorrow is going to suck harder than ever [wink]

For me, it's the little touches, like the high light following the mouse as you move over the task bar items, or the way you get a green bar which fills up the IE icon as you download something, or how it smoothly changes between the preview windows as you mouse over the task bar. None of it feels forced, or clunky, or slow... just... smooth.

Quote: Original post by Instigator
I found this article about Windows 7 + SDD's. Check it out . Unfortunately they are still too expensive for the 256GB capacity I'd want. The fun part is that the prices are still coming down.. so only a matter of time before I can afford this.

You said something about a 2.5" drive so I'm guessing you're on a laptop. If you weren't I would say getting 256GB wouldn't be absolutely necessary as you could just get a smaller one and put the OS and your most used applications on it. That would go along way to improving said situation as well.

That being said is still expensive at any size and I personally haven't tried it. I sure would if I could.

Quote: Original post by davepermen
Windows doesn't degrade anymore. at least vista / win7 don't. xp does, though.

This is a good point. If you're on XP, switch to Vista or try out the Windows 7 RC (it'll only be usable until March next year, though, at which point you'll have to update to the full release).

It's also worth pointing out that a slow HDD is much less noticible on Vista/Win7 compared to XP. Vista/Win7 do aggressive prefetching and caching. I remember waiting ~10+ seconds for my old XP install to show my Start Menu because it was constantly hitting the disk. Thankfully Vista and above are much better about this.

Quote: Original post by phantom

Quote: Original post by davepermen
For fixing any hdd related issues, get a new one, at best, get an ssd. at best, the intel ssd. I've switched to ssd and it was amazing, then to the intel and it was amazing again.

I'll second this; I decided to install Win7 on my OCZ Vertex SSD saturday... my god, it's like night and day difference even when compared to Vista x64 from new on a 10,000rpm drive!

Things just... work, that much smoother it's sweet [grin]

And Win7 being as awesome as it is also helps, I admit I was a bit 'hmmmm..' about the new task bar setup but having used it for even a short while I must admit I'm sold. As I'm in transition atm swapping back to Vista isn't as shiney as it once was, and I imagine XP at work tomorrow is going to suck harder than ever [wink]

For me, it's the little touches, like the high light following the mouse as you move over the task bar items, or the way you get a green bar which fills up the IE icon as you download something, or how it smoothly changes between the preview windows as you mouse over the task bar. None of it feels forced, or clunky, or slow... just... smooth.

actually, if you install vista on the ssd you notice the same difference. or in other words, win7 made no performance gain on my ssd based systems. none. and i dislike the new ui, they went the wrong way for me in their new setup. much stuff is not what i think is good ui design. so right now, i have all legal vistas around, and thus no need to switch.

but the ssd is the best choice i made since years, the biggest "wow that makes a difference" ever in my now 10 years of computing experience, from 386 till quadcore.

Quote: Original post by Goober King

Quote: Original post by Instigator
I found this article about Windows 7 + SDD's. Check it out . Unfortunately they are still too expensive for the 256GB capacity I'd want. The fun part is that the prices are still coming down.. so only a matter of time before I can afford this.

You said something about a 2.5" drive so I'm guessing you're on a laptop. If you weren't I would say getting 256GB wouldn't be absolutely necessary as you could just get a smaller one and put the OS and your most used applications on it. That would go along way to improving said situation as well.

That being said is still expensive at any size and I personally haven't tried it. I sure would if I could.

still doable on a laptop, you can replace the dvd drive bay to be hot swappable with a hdd.

or, like me, just put all the big data on the windowshomeserver :) the last place for hdd's in my house :)

Quote: Original post by davepermen
actually, if you install vista on the ssd you notice the same difference.

I wouldn't be surprised; the main point of that comparison was that all I had to compare it with was Vista x64 running on a 10K rpm drive.

Quote: Original post by phantom

Quote: Original post by davepermen
actually, if you install vista on the ssd you notice the same difference.

I wouldn't be surprised; the main point of that comparison was that all I had to compare it with was Vista x64 running on a 10K rpm drive.

I guessed so. I just saw too much and more hail win7 threads, that bashed vistas performance and hailed win7s performance. none of those guys 'get' that it's mostly the same. (but win7 performance is better on low end systems, i can not argue against that.. it's just.. indifferent if you have enough ram.. even on low end systems).

i wait for cheap big ssds, then all my hdd's will get shutdown. they will then be used as offline backup, like tapes :) they're fast tapes.. :)