How to reinstall an operating system….

I first learned how to reinstall my OS back when I got my first computer. It had Windows ME on it. The manufacturer installed setup lasted 4 months. What happened was my system stopped being able to burn Audio CDs, and tech support told me to wipe it. So I did. And then while doing it, I blew out my modem and my sound card. And that was the first time I cursed out tech support. They really didn’t appreciate that. But a couple of hundred dollars later (since I had to replace the components), and a couple of days, I was up and running again. Burning audio CD’s were always an issue, but considering how I was running WinME, Norton, and a flaky cd burner… The issue with burning audio CD’s wasn’t really successfully addressed until I upgraded to Windows XP, and I had to buy the then current version of Easy CD Creator from Roxio. But I dgress:

I soon added a second hard drive, and became adept at backing my data up externally. Today, I just use an USB hard drive. Anyway through all the years of experimenting with different configurations (various versions of Windows, Linux, and dual-booting), experience has taught the best, most painless way to rebuild your system:

1. Nuke it, and then reinstall the OS of your choice on a clean partition. All ‘upgrading’ is going to get you are problems. If you’re old OS is going to give you drama, expect it to carry over to your next OS. I learned this from WinME.
2. Once the OS, is installed, then the next thing is to reinstall your network drivers. Because you need an internet connection for activation and updates. Some of my network devices had native OS support, others I had to install the driver. Then, you need to activate your OS, if applicable (Windows 8.1 on my computer is what it came with, and Windows 10 is activating via a digital entitlement to my microsoft account).
3. Next, before you install any other driver, is to hit Windows Update and bring your OS up to date. With Windows 10, this actually happens automatically as part of the initial set up. With Windows 7 and 8.1, I actually have most of the needed updates downloaded on to USB drives, so I just update them from there, and then I’ll go to Windows Update and finish it there.
4. Then I install the video card drivers. One of my problems with 8.1 a couple of months ago was that the video card drivers I was installing needed a patch from Windows Update first.
5. Then I install the rest of my hardware drivers. Currently this includes:
• 2 Printers
• a bluetooth adapter. It’s actually part of my network card, but physically it connect to my computer through a usb riser, so it’s a different driver).
• a TV tuner. I’ve actually had one in my computer since 2001.
• 2 game controllers. 1 is a joystick for my Flight Simulator, the other is conventional gamepad.
• A wireless keyboard/mouse combo.
• And the all essential sound card.
6. And after this come the essential utilites. 7-zip, SciTE, Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon Drive, OneDrive (if applicable), Chrome, my HOSTS file, among others. Yes, I use Firefox as my web browser of choice, and I’ll install it later. But Chrome works for now.
7. Then I fire up my external hard drive, and I copy all my files over. All 735 GB’s of it. These are all my documents, music, Steam back-ups, virtual machines, and some other things.
8. After this, is when I install Office 365.

And from here, my system rebuilds take different paths.  Sometimes it depends on the time of day (there are some items that take so much time, that I just leave the computer on overnight. And there are some items of software that are or are not compatible with version of Windows that I’m running. Generally after I install Office is when I install Nero, Cyberlink, Firefox, and Thunderbird. And that’s when I start using my computer again.

Obviously when I wipe my computer, it takes time to get everything reinstalled and moved in again. Everytime I do it, I’m without my Flight Simulator, and my MechWarrior for as long as it takes to reinstall it.

But now, I also have my laptop, so I still access to a computer. And since my laptop came with Windows 10 on it, there really is no option as to which OS to run, so there’s no incentive to nuke it on a semi-daily basis…