rec.autos.simulators

My Question- In the past to re-install windows I have re-formated my C drive
and started all over again. This has solved all my problems in the past, but
it's a hassle. I have to re-install and patch all my sims.

Is there a way to clean up windows or re-install without messing up the other
installed programs. I have run Norton Utilities, First Aid, etc and they are a
quick fix to bigger problem. Any advice???

Do one last reformat/reinstall, then DON'T install Norton and First Aid.
Norton causes more crashes than it will ever prevent and bogs your system
down more than you can possibly imagine.  If you don;t believe me, get a
benchmark program from someplace and check your system after the reinstall.
Then install Norton system bloater and check it again.

Using ANY utility that monitors _everything_  your computer does is just
begging for crashes.  Look down by your clock on the taskbar...if there are
more than two or three tray icons there you are running too much ***in the
background.  Clean out your startup group.

As for reinstalling windows without having to reinstall programs, you can
reinstall on top of your existing installation, but that doesnt remove
registry bloat, etc.  Too bad programs don't come with a handy utility (like
a .reg file to double click on and merge) so you can update a new registry
without a total reinstall.  At least enough to get the program running, then
you can import saves or settings.

Just a thought.

daxe

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What you can try is this: Reboot into DOS, deltree the \Windows directory
and reinstall win98 from DOS. you will then need to reinstall your software
(to install the windows files from each program), but if you tell the
install to use the existing directories, all your patches etc. should remain
in place. Not much quicker than a format, but much better than trying to
remember all the addons you have and where they are!
    Hope this helps :-)
                                    Phillip..

I've had a lot of trouble with Windows too. At one point I got so fed up
with it, that I was visiting anti Microsuck sites daily and above my
computer I hung this text:  "The day Micro$oft produces something that
doesn't suck, will be the day they start producing vacuum cleaners."
Actually that is still there, I just love that text :-).

Anyway, the solution I found was installing Linux as a second system on
my computer. I now use Linux for everything except sims and games that
really need Windows. The real advantage is that you can install a bare
Windows version with just directX and all sims. Windows is actually
quite fast if you don't install all that office rubish and other weird
applications. As long as you can keep the application count low on
windows it runs just fine.

But the best part is that once you're familiar with Linux, you find out
it's way better than Windows. It's free, it looks better, it can do
multi tasking, you never have to reboot after installing/changing
something and it's build on a real kernel. Nothing like Windows build on
MS-DOS build on the BIOS.

If only Papy would port GPL to Linux, than I'd hardly ever have to boot
to Windows. That's my greatest wish for the next GPL patch!

// Johan

http://www.ghost.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/

Mikkel Gram-Hansen

Mea***er