[JBoDEAN]

With my WindowsXP, I seem to have a bad habit of doing it at least once a month. Need to break that habit, because it is a constant headache.
Just curious on how often users format and reinstall their OS's.

[mister_man]

I haven't reinstalled my XP since March.

[vern2]

Since i put XP on I have had to format and reinstall 3 times, in about 5 months. Recently I have gone back to win2k, seems to not blow it self up as much, I will probaly stay with win2k for a while now.

[CUViper]

I voted yearly, but in reality it ends up but about a semi-annual thing. Although, typically the reason I reinstall is because of new hardware (hard drive, motherboard, etc.), not because of OS problems...

[JP-]

I had it on since febuary ish time until HDD went pear shaped and i had no intention of formatting at that time as everything was working great

Most probably yearly.

[pmistry]

I would have answered bi-annually, every six months for me. Although a new hardware device or a mess up on my part will result in a format. I have a friend who uses 98 and probably hasn't reinstalled in years, even with new hardware, man that hard disk must be so fuking fragmented, and the registry must be so damn bloated.

[Davros]

Since I got WinXP last year, I have only had to format twice, both times because of hard drive reconfiguration. Pretty much the same story with W2K before that. But when I was on Win98, it would take a major crap and force me to format to get rid of errors every 3 months or so.

[BladeRunner]

Still on my original installation of WinXP which was installed about a week after it went retail once MS had sent me my copy.

[Admiral LSD]

I've only reformatted and reinstalled my main copy of XP 3 times since last September. The first time I had to reinstall because Live!Ware screwed it over and the second time was due to a partition table implosion. It'll rise to 4 when the SP comes out because my current install (the 3rd) is acting kinda funky. I hardly ever reformat because its such a bitch backing up, reinstalling and restoring everything.

[Philipp]

My Windows XP installation is installed since last december

[embj]

Ever since I have Win XP I do not format as often because of the great new feature. System Restore. On Win 98 it was like every few months. :p

[jdulmage]

My history of Operating Systems:

Windows 95: One time, then I upgraded to 98
Windows 98/98SE: Every month usually
Windows Me: Every couple of months, if I was careful
Windows 2000: Never, because I only used it for a little while, then went back to Me because XP was on it's way to a build that was worth keeping as a primary OS
Windows XP: Usually every 6 to 8 months, but mainly because of new hardware or of experiments that I've tried that have failed, etc. It has yet to be an OS issue.
Linux: Installed on a Monday, removed on a Tuesday
BeOS: Had no need to keep it installed as a second OS.

[INFERNO2000]

Win95: reinstalled once because of one of Packard Bell's programs(an answering machine) fucking up our modem--we could never call out. It stayed installed w/o problem for 5 years after that though.


Win98: reinstalled almost every 2 months. Fucking Compaq always gave me registry corruption errors.

Win2k: reinstalled every 3 months for the first 9 months. Just tweaking, and getting rid of a dual boot OS.

Later, with my first system that I built from scratch, I'd reformat it almost every day, or every 3 hours. Fucking 2k Via KX133 GeForce problems.

WinXP: I reinstall only when I want to, or have borked my system by tweaking things I shouldn't have and corrupt a file :p

[Uykucu]

my w2k sp2 @ home was going for about 18 mths, however ıt just died on me after a lightning hit the building next door and fried my Nic's and switch. Now it doesn't boot up. Coincedentaly sp3 is just released so ıt needed a format anyway.

[JP-]

I lost a nice 5 port switch in the recent lightning storms

Lightning sucks !

[Uykucu]

Yes it does....
I had a cct breaker and a UPS protecting the comps however i think it was the emp getting through which i could not do aqnything about.

This is life. I am happy i could get away with approx. $300 damage. It could have been a monstrous loss if something happened to my HDD's