Thoughts please

[gtghm]

Ok, I have a delimia...

I fresh reinstalled XP pro about 22 days ago... Since then I have benched and tested the system. Now for the delima...

Since the install, there have been little neuonces and instances of things that don't seem quite right...
For example, when trying to install a couple of progams they would not install becasue under the Administrator login all of the registery keys didn't have full permissions... So I had to manually go into the registery and activate full permissions in oder to get the progam to install....

Seems like the explorer dosen't remember my folder settings all of the time... As I set certian folder to show details and not icons, yet after a reboot that folder will go back to icons... Dosen't happen all of the time mind you but occasionaly...

So... anyway, it seems like ever since I did this last install I have had to work real had to get things tweaked just right...

But... The rig hasn't crashed, or hung up at all on the OS side of things... Every bench progy works fine with the exception of the new 3DMark 03... So I just installed a new PSU becasue I narrowed down that I was drawing down too mch power from my 4 WD drives, 2 CDRoms, various fans, and the dual Xeons...

I use this as somewhat of a production machine, I'm running the latest versions of MySQL, PHP, Apache plus the whole MX studio... So I have a lot going on and it took quite a few late nights for my limited knowledge to get it all configued just so....

My point is that I REALLY... REALLY... REALLY don't want to start over again now...

So I was wondering if I would benifit from running an XP restore or what ever its called where it basically does an OS installation over the existing install?

Does any one know when XP does that does XP leave your system drivres alone and basicly overwrite system files and stuff or am I likely to screw stuff up more if I do that...

I know that I tried it once and it seemd kinda slick... but I started getting blue screens and stuff thus this last fresh install... However, during the time of the blue screens before the fresh install, I found the system had a virus too which is the reason for the fresh install....
I figured the best way to eradicate a virus infection was to "F" disk it...

What do I do....,
"g"

[Black Hawk]

I think what you want is a repair installation. You start the XP installation and at one point where it searches for installed OS, it'll say that XP is already installed and if you want to repair it.

As for configutations and stuff, I think you should create 2 partitions. One for the OS and the other for programs so you don't have to keep reinstalling or losing your configurations. You just have to reinstall the programs and you should be good to go. You can also backup the registry before formatting.

[Thrax]

Repair install only deletes and reinstalls files native to the operating system. Profiles, programs, registry entries, they're all kept.

At most, you might have to reinstall a driver or two.

[Black Hawk]

iirc the installation asks for the video driver when installing.

[gtghm]

Black Hawk had this to say
I think what you want is a repair installation. You start the XP installation and at one point where it searches for installed OS, it'll say that XP is already installed and if you want to repair it.

As for configutations and stuff, I think you should create 2 partitions. One for the OS and the other for programs so you don't have to keep reinstalling or losing your configurations. You just have to reinstall the programs and you should be good to go. You can also backup the registry before formatting.

I have done that, actually I have like 6 or 7 30-35gb partitions... :grin

It never occured to me to back up the registery and reload the OS then just restore the registery....

I assume that you would have to rename your computer the same thing everytime... but would that be all that you have to do?

I mean there is so much more to it than just the registery isn't there? Like the startup menues and the desktop and what not....

Then there are working directories that some programs set up on the C: drive even if you put them on a different partition...

I think that I might try the repair, do the things that I describe sound like I could benifit from that or do we think that there is sometihng else going on... Is some of the behavior I describe normal?

"g"

[Black Hawk]

Well then you can use the backup program in XP and backup those specific directories (they aren't alot) and files. The stuff in the start menu and desktop are in "C:\Documents and Settings\<user>". As for the programs storing stuff in C:, I don't think they do cause I have all my programs installed (or moved) in D and there's nothing (of the non stock programs) in C:\Program Files.

[Straight_Man]

Also, the recovery install decides whether or not to rewritwe the whole system state set, which could mean a full registry rebuild.

Have you had this after WindowsUpdating???

I would do as Blackhawk says, once things are set, do a backup or make a rollback point of the system state (whihc grabs registry and files it is built from) AND folders you want contents of, then you might schedule a rollback. Reason for making your own recovery point, is to have Widnows roll back to THAT point instead of an install point which would wipe your custom registry, and I THINK this might be what is happening. Directory perms, directory views, and registry fine-tunes are all in a rollback point, and if you get a bad driver or software install, Windows can roll back to newest recovery point by itself at boot, though it might tell you it has recovered from a serious error as it comes up if it does this and this is a stock SP1 install. Some of the parts of what will be in SP2 will be showing up, cannot guarantee they will be perfectly compatible with what you have in SP1 now, for instance the firewall WILL be on after SP2. IE especially is being used as a way to get security packs installed that can affect your perms to do certian things.

Also, to be sure file\folder\storage volume perms take, when doing a manual edit it is good to reboot before doing much else, so the changes are committed if Windows will let you. One thing that will block things as you are gettign blocked is wrond IDE driver pack, and the result is that XP can put storage in a slower mode and override standard higher speed mode settings. I can find out how to get into looking at that if you want, but an older IDE driver or a setting of BIOS to normal on a HD and not LBA+Block mode has caused this set of things to happen to me before with XP and earlier Windows.

XP does not like CHS drive access. Avoid if at all possible. LBA plus Block access is easiest way to keep XP home and PRo happy, and Pro will allow more custom tuning than Home will before rolling things back to preset defaults. You might, since you want to tune, look at the PowerToys release for XP that Microsoft has available for it. http://www.pcworld.com/ has a link to it in their downloads area. That is a non-support pack for power users from Microsoft, a relative to the old TweakUI for older Windows. Has been tested some, though, so should generally be decent now-- simply do a system state rollback\recovery point before using, though, until you know what has what other consequences that you did not know would heppen.

John.