Shoutbox

Haha, Yes I already have backed up everything I want.  My pictures, my chatlogs and some other text files.

Is there any other way to delete everything without deleting windows XP.  fast simple way?

Just wondering.  I don't feel like calling Microsoft.

Selecting everything you want to delete and press Delete

Other than that, there's no way to delete everything from your hard drive without losing windows.

Unless your windows is installed on another partition than your files.

If you are not having any problems with your Windows installation, you might want to just clean it up instead of formatting -- uninstall programs and delete files you don't want. 

A format and fresh Windows install is not a bad idea, but could end up more involved than you've been led to believe.

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Originally posted by Purity
I don't feel like calling Microsoft

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Then, once reinstalled, install network card drivers, and register over the 'Net.

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Originally posted by Ezra
Selecting everything you want to delete and press Delete

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this won't remove everything as registry keys and such can remain that way and you can remove programs or maps you shouldn't delete.

The format should be quick (as long as you choose quick format .

Installing Windows will take less than an hour, but a few times during the installation, it will stop and need feedback from you, so you can't start it and then go out.

Windows will need to be activated, but this can be done over the internet. There is also aa phone service, you call the free number that the computer tells you, you type the challenge code into your phone, and then type the response from the phone service into your computer. If there is a problem (never happened to me, though it should have ), you will have to speak to a person. The automated service will ask you whether it worked, if it didn't, you can be transferred to a person. Alternatively, just crack Windows .

When you reformat partition your harddrive into multiple drives (eg. C:\ , D:\ , E:\ , etc.)  My dad says your computer will run faster if you do that for some reason.

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Originally posted by Curtis
When you reformat partition your harddrive into multiple drives (eg. C:\ , D:\ , E:\ , etc.)  My dad says your computer will run faster if you do that for some reason.

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Not necessarily, and only if you know what your doing.

Purity was (is?) uncertain about formatting, so she shouldn't bother with it, and you both are using incorrect terminology.

You dad is certainly correct, multiple partitions can be engineered to boost PC performance, but if you know what you're doing .

Multiple partitions are more useful when you want to separate data from programs. That way, you can reformat without losing work.

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Originally posted by rav0
You dad is certainly correct, multiple partitions can be engineered to boost PC performance, but if you know what you're doing .

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Though it is not because you make multiple (and thus smaller) partitions that your PC will run "faster"...

Aka: it is not the act and result of making partitions that will (slightly!) boost Windows performance. It is the manner in how you use the partitions that's important. Just dividing your 200GB big harddrive into some partitions will not make Windows run any faster at all.

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The reason behind partitionating is so indexing tools, backup tools, etc will need less time to perform their task (on 1 partition)... They will still take the same amount of time when you do a full backup of all partitions of course. Though, such tasks are executed so seldom that performance increase is neglectable, and even then the performance increase would be small compared to everyday use.

The reason that some people might tell you: "because then you can have the windows swapfile on a different partition and thus will make Windows run faster" is mostly BS also. This would only be true when those "partitions" are actually physically different drives, so both the harddisks can work at the same time. When you simply have 1 physical HD, there are only 1 set of HD's heads which can only do 1 thing at a time, partitions or not.

The only valid reason (IMO) to give is because of the file system fragmenting problem. When you divide a HD into several partitions (and you use those partitions of course) fragmenting on 1 specific partition will be relativly less compared to the whole drive when you didn't partitionate. Fragmenting can cause Windows performance decrease big enough to notice, hence why you should regulary defragment your HD (or partition).