how do you avoid having to install the same apps over again on each fresh os installl

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yariman

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Oct 16, 2008
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I know from previous experience that i usually do a fresh install of the os once a year. Id probably do it more often if I didnt have to keep installing the same apps after I installed the os e.g. skype, codecs, my music manager etc etc. Its a pain in the a**e. What does everyone on the board do to speed this up? I looked at slipstreaming ( i have vista now) and I found out thats concerned with something else.

I know Id probably have to update the apps once I reinstalled the os but thats far easier than insalling from scratch.

any ideas? prefabaly free ones ;-)
 
oh and one more question, from reading previous posts regarding partioning it seems lots of people keep the os on one partition and then install their aps and games along with standalone data on the other. I was wondering in the case of a fresh install of the os how would would you link those apps to the os? would you have to reinstall them all again and if so why bother to put them on a seperate partition?
 
A long, long time ago, in a Galaxy far away, I made an image of my OS with everything newly installed.
To restore, I backup my email, game saves/settings, data etc then it takes a few minutes to restore the fresh image.
Naturally Windows will need to update and you will need the latest versions of drivers and some software but it gets you up and running much faster.

I use Acronis Backup. Its not free though.
There are other backup solutions, some free.

To answer your second post, I install ALL apps to the windows partition and games to another.
If you have backed up your game saves you can get the games running ok again.
Apps on a second drive/partition will need to be backed up as well as the OS install if thats your method.
I now use a 40GB partition for Windows.
 
You would use something like Ghost or TrueImage to create a good, clean working image.
yariman said:
oh and one more question, from reading previous posts regarding partioning it seems lots of people keep the os on one partition and then install their aps and games along with standalone data on the other. I was wondering in the case of a fresh install of the os how would would you link those apps to the os? would you have to reinstall them all again and if so why bother to put them on a seperate partition?
Click to expand...
There's no reason to do this, to be honest, because most applications would need to be re-installed anyway to get the proper system files in place and registry entries added. Some games apparently can work fine this way, but none that I've tried. If you are really concerned about re-installing everything, either use a drive imaging program, or set up a file server with an install directory, and put everything there you normally install on a fresh build. I do this at home, and it is easier for me to keep updated. I keep a base, fresh image, and then I pull down the software I need.
 
hi deacon, re: installing stuff on a different partition and the problems of registry additions etc thats what i thought. Ill look into some of the backup software out there and just create an image of my os with the core applications that ill dfinately use.
 
djgizmo said:
Hiren's boot cd works wonders :)
Click to expand...

So do most warez apps... go figure. ;)

Install everything the way you want, including the most commonly used applications, get it ALL working the way you want, updated to the hilt, and before you actually being using the PC for your regular day to day stuff, image that puppy and stash it in a safe place.

Simple.
 
Imaging the drive is the way to go. Do it right after you have installed all the stuff you usually reinstall after a clean Windows install. Acronis True Image works great for me. I keep an image of my 640GB C: drive current on an external 500GB drive (which works great because the program uses compression). It's like System Restore but for the entire drive.

If you keep the OS and apps/games on separate partitions you still have to reinstall most of them after each reformat to recreate registry entries and application data in your User folder.

With Vista, there's no real need to reinstall unless you experience a serious problem that you just can't fix. The OS doesn't slow down or become unstable over time like XP and 9x sometimes do.
 
You can either do drive imaging or do what I do......backup your whole Application Data folder.

That way when you reload Windows, just drop in your AppData folder after you have reinstalled all of your programs and everything will be pretty much 100%
 
You can run DriveImageXML from a BartPE disc. My only complaint about it is that the images don't compress much.
 
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