I haven't reinstalled Windows in almost 4 years...

everyone had to take care of their own laptop, including installing os, softwares, etc. she didn't bother installing av. I use av so I know she infected my usb drive. tried talking to her, but she didn't listen. so i disable the autoplay to prevent the virus executed when it's plugged into my laptop. but still the av alert irritated me. so i used that trick to prevent creation of autorun.inf in all my drives. no more virus from her. my female co-worker was someone who unplug her computer without shutting down windows when she was in uni. she didn't know about shutdown thing till she started working.

and she's a software developer.

>What exactly would be slowing down an OS after 4 years
The filesystem, NTFS is garbage. It's know as 'Windows rot'

I am sorry user that you have to work with people like her.
It used to be that computer jobs were for enthusiasts like typical Jow Forums poster with at least half a brain, an all kinds of tech wiz who is more or less versed in various computer and electronics related topics.
Sadly this is no longer the case, more and more normies with horse blinders on who can't see past specific scope of their studies.
And then, some of them are also whamen...

Attached: (((you))).jpg (960x960, 91K)

i dun git it Jow Forums, what's it mean?

>posts a random picture so senpai notices my reply
Sorry, pic not related.

if you're familiar with task scheduler, msconfig and the startup tab in taskmanager you can remove all the garbage.

she was the worst kind of programmer i ever met. i met some retarded male programmer too but no one matches her.

>clutch
>brake
>gas

>my female co-worker was someone who unplug her computer without shutting down windows when she was in uni. she didn't know about shutdown thing till she started working.

Attached: are you fucking serious.gif (300x164, 1.86M)

dead serious

i think i was one of the rare guy in the office who installed av by my own. there was a famous virus outbreak called Conficker in 2008. most of my co-worker's pc got infected. not mine. i had enough of having my pc infected by virus when i was in high school so i know what i should do and what i should not do.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker

I've had my current Windows 7 installation for four years and can definitely tell there is some hidden bloat using up a lot of space. I've done a Disk Cleanup routine and scoured my Appdata folders for shit to delete, but I'm still down to 33GB of free space on my 120GB ssd even though I don't feel like I have very much on it. I have WINDOWS, ONE 20GB GAME, and a slew of small programs. I put all of my media on a secondary harddrive.

at least i learned something when my pc got infected with virus. some people never learn anything and must reinstall their pc repeatedly.

NTFS definitely hides bloat. I think that's why defragging frees up space, it forces the file system to take care of its trash.

A "clean" Windows 7 install with everything removable deleted and then some takes about 25GB of space minimum.

Check these folders:
C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\CrashDumps\
C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\CrashDumps\
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Steam\htmlcache\Cache\
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\
C:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files\
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\
C:\Windows\Temp\
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Steam\htmlcache\Cache\

Also, check Nvidia and Nvidia Corporation folders in Program Files, Program Files x86, appdata local and appdata roaming. Firefox also likes to shit up appdata local and roaming.

But even if you find all the big-hitters of your bloat, you probably have at least 5-10GB of "unremoveable" shit because it's hidden amongst thousands of files in shit like syswow64 or in h undreds of subfolders when you have no idea where it is or even what exactly you're looking for.

>CCleaner buddy
enjoy your malware

Bleachbit ftw

winsxs

nirsoft.net/utils/uninstall_view.html

Relax. It is all in the past. Now we have SSDs.

It didn't use to be, but this was all the way back in the Win9x days due to installers/uninstallers for applications doing a really REALLY bad job at properly dealing with updating of files and registry entries where you could end up with a (un)installer fucking up some DLL linking or reg entry that could cause other applications even system apps not to open any more.
This shit was mostly fixed in the 2k/XP era, and basically never an issue in Vista and after.

When I used wangblows 10 for a while, the auto updates would always break something and so a fresh install was needed. I only used it as a gaymin OS and dual boot with debian.

Win 10 LTSB

>What exactly would be slowing down an OS after 4 years? Current running the latest version of Windows 10.

Normies that install everything of CNET Downloads, Softonic, Atube catcher or other crapware.

Attached: 1524196221473.jpg (960x540, 63K)

I swear to God I just reinstalled Windows based on a strange bug that my computer would lag every few seconds when typing and I tried deleting and system restore it didn't help.

Its ungodly fast, I mean I got used to the turgid feeling of my PC, used to have Battle.net and Discord though and I wonder if that helped.

Still, webpages load in miliseconds and I can visit any website and videos just pop up instantly, can run several at once, all messagers, Skype, Etrade PRO at once.

I am shocked at how fast it is and I would encourage anyone to see how little software running in the background you can get away with too.

Explain this voodoo bullshit you're spouting.

If I install this do I have to configure something to make it work as normal?

constant reinstalling is fucking pointless unless you are a virus magnet

Attached: Capture.png (811x324, 17K)

see

So how does this affect the PC performance?

Define work as normal.

My W7 install lasted 8 years without needing a reinstall. W10 reinstalls itself twice a year with the big updates anyway.

What about regular restarts? There are people who swear by them, but honestly I've never found a need and never found there to be a difference.

Tempted to do a reinstall of my OS since I've had this going for about 6 years now, but I already maintain it well enough.

If you've ever worked with a sizeable software project you'd know cleanly migrating between API-breaking version changes are difficult. Major W10 updates (i.e. a new "redstone X") tend to leave behind unused files, registries, etc. so I just reinstall it from scratch every major update. If you have an SSD the whole process only takes like 15 mins anyway.

Just switched one of three Win 7 systems to Win 8.1. Not too much difference if you're using Classic Shell. Good to know I can rely on this until 2023. After that I guess I'll just kill myself.

You have no idea what kind of dumb shit the average user installs.

Look at this shit, its 20+ virtual drives.
Add to that time and you suddenly have all sorts of bullshit that runs on startup.

Plus you are dealing with people who buy cheap ass computers and complain they are slow

>why is this $300 dell laptop so slow !

Attached: hurts to live.jpg (1583x801, 356K)

Attached: 137.jpg (604x454, 146K)

>20+ virtual drives
Any closure as to how that happened?

Install Debian.

IIRC they were downloading ISOs and just kept mounting them on new virtual drives each time.
I never asked about it.

These are people that know better so I don't bother trying to guide them on the right path.

These are people that instead of connecting the printer to the network, they literally have one very long USB cable that they move around to different PCs (they are all close together) when they need to print.

They tell me to build a PC but don't spend a lot, then complain its slow
I just shrug my shoulders
They didn't want to spend any money on an OS so they got pirated windows , no big deal either way.
They were so concerned about hackers stealing their banking info, they bought a laptop just to do their banking on.

They are paranoid of hackers, they used to have McAfee installed on their PCs and phones. Now they use kaspersky ;)

I gave up with any of that stuff anymore, they want to do things the hard/dumb way I just let them.

Attached: Jerry-Seinfeld-No-Thanks-and-Leave.gif (295x207, 567K)

>they want to do things the hard/dumb way I just let them.
That works until they start trying to blame you for shit. I've been there a few times.

Minimal Debian with Openbox is comfy as fuck. If not for the systemd cancer, Debian would be among the best distros.

works fine on my machine after a year desu

Attached: 156102938475.jpg (2560x1440, 270K)

My PC still has the original install of Windows 7 from 7 years ago.
People think you have to reinstall every year because they never clean anything.
They never defrag (or have it disabled on systems that do it automatically).
They never run a spyware/virus scan, or have an antivirus.
They never run something like CCleaner.
They never use an adblocker or might even use IE.
They never clear cache.
When they run out of disc space, they dont clean. They just add more discs.

Attached: how to view photos.jpg (902x1787, 861K)

You don't need an antivirus. You don't need crapware like CCleaner. You just need some fucking common sense. Then, use that common sense to delete Windows and install Linux or buy a Mac. No sane human being uses Windows.

>No sane human being uses Windows.
Sane humans use the method that works in most cases. Insane people try to use the method that doesn't work repeatedly. Every Linux distro is literally what doesn't work over and over again.

Sane people don't put up with Windows slowing down, crashing, downloading shit on its own, getting viruses, and collecting data and keep using it. And if you think Linux doesn't work, you're too retarded to help and you should keep using Windows.

>I can't effectively maintain a Windows system
I hope you get the help you need.

tell that to those IT managers in corporations

>tfw want to use Linux, but don't want to have to put up with getting multiple monitors to work or getting all my data moved over

>Then, use that common sense to delete Windows and install Linux or buy a Mac.

Attached: 1491939836740.png (1302x2155, 107K)

>reinstall windows 7 4 years ago
>runs fine
>upgrade to 10
>runs fine for two years
>decide to reinstall because some shit isn't working
>everything is fine until 2018-04 update
>never completes
>hide update
>future updates having trouble
>try to in-place upgrade to 10 1803
>won't do it
>have to reinstall but too sick of this bullshit
The ride never ends.

>What exactly would be slowing down an OS after 4 years?
Autistic degenerates who don't know how to use their PC. Running scripts they have no idea of, installing useless crap, not deleting installed crap properly. Manually cleaning the registry isn't complicated either if you aren't retarded, yet it's unnecessary most of the time.
Unless you're using inadequate shit written by a genuine de/g/enerate, merely running the uninstaller will clean up the registry - it's grandma-tier autism along the lines of "I removed the folder, thus I deleted the program!" what causes Windows to slow down considerably with time. The same can easily happen on Linux, as there are plenty of tools that install themselves not exclusively in ~ but the vast majority of l33t l1nux h4xX0rs don't really go further than the package manager and neither they put their riced h4xX0r 05s under the load anywhere near the Windows' one.
My old Win7 PC required precisely zero windows reinstalls over the course of about 7 years.

>Sane humans use the method that works in most cases.
They might if they had the means. Most people can't even install an OS, user.

based

They might not be able to install an OS, but most are still using Windows 7 somehow. And before that they were using XP. My point stands.

>SourceForge
>2018

Same, latest update ruined everything, downloading 8.1 to see how it goes. Never used it as I went from 7 to 10

8.1 is actually pretty comfy. Only thing I legitimately hated about it was the way the application menu was presented, but that can be replaced very easily with either the legacy view or the Windows 10 hybrid view. Otherwise, it was everything good about Windows 10 without all the bad shit.

A proper operating system does not need to be maintained. Keeping a shitty OS running is not a good use of time.
Your low quality response only proves my point.

Pretty sure I could shit up a linux install out of carelessness if I wanted to.

But first I'd need to figure out how to even get a fucking browser installed on it.

>AMD has discontinued support for Windows 8.1
Wtf I unironically love Nvidia now

What are you talking about? AMD still has drivers for fucking XP on the r9 280x

>What exactly would be slowing down an OS after 4 years?
Shitty "maintenance" or user error. See:

>"We no longer support Windows 8.1 officially with consumer postings. If users want to use the Windows 7 driver on Windows 8.1 then that is their choice."

Latest driver is from July 17

Clearly bait. Literally every common Linux distro comes with a browser, and it's one that many use on Windows anyway, with no functional changes. It works out of the box.

People who reinstall their OS every year are dumb lazy fucks, because with some investigation you'll get that using stuff like adwcleaner, malwarebytes and ccleaner (or any variant of your choosing) you'll clean your system of most of the shit you may get from the internetz.
I know that everyone in here are Jow Forumseniuses that doesnt need to install anything but the latest version of common sense, but out there in the field, you need the users to install an AV so their stupid actions wont bite their ass.

I had a guy from a car shop once who had all those DVDs with wiring diagrams from various manufacturers and cars. maybe 10-15 of them. and reading from the DVD was slow as hell, and he didn't want to click and load the ISOs all the time. So I ended up mounting all the ISOs at boot every time (the path for each manufacturer was specified in the settings, so you could have BMW as I:, Mercedes as J: etc. by default they all point the physical DVD drive, and the discs have to swap out)

utter waste of RAM, but it was faster than DVD access, and he didn't have to bother with right-clicking the ISOs to load.

>a proper os fixes itself with automatic patches
hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Why would you downgrade like that?

bring your own device was a mistake

windows updates often, it does not update well
the cumulative service packs/rollups leave less problem than doing each daily update

Any updates to avoid in Windows 8.1 lads?

hmmmmmmmmmm

Attached: 2018-05-15_07-53-43.png (747x407, 44K)

the laptops and the usb drives belong to the company

constant updates pretty much fuck up the system to the point that you need to do a fresh install

100% true.

Maybe older Windows but Windows 10 doesn't slowdowns as 7 does.
It don't even slowdowns with low HDD space like older Windows do, right now I'm at 4GB in C: and it works just as fast as when I was over 200GB free, I've even go as low as 700mb for a few days and it was fine.
When the SPrin update came out I was tempted to do a reinstall so I did but it nothing changed, really it was a just a complete waste of time, it didn't felt any different besides wasting my time having to reinstall all my shit.

Back in the days when I was dualbooting xp and 7, I started to pay attention to portability of my programs. Portable versions were just comfy on dual booting. Positive side effect was in fact smaller windows rot on xp and even in case of reformating system drives all worked out of the box and only file associations had to be reassigned.
I stick to this habit to this day and I think it's cleanest way to maintain any windows.
Not even once.

Uninstall programs with Geek Uninstaller from MajorGeek. It shows you leftover files and registeries for deletion.

Yes, C: is for Windows and Windows ONLY, not a single bit of other stuff goes there. I install all my programs on other partitions and choose archives over installers whenever possible. This way you could simply format and reinstall from scratch whenever you want without losing anything, and none of this "repair" bullshit that doesn't really clean anything.

Too bad today half of the programs of today are so shit that they won't even let you choose the install location and install in C: anyway (FUCK YOU, firefox) and the other half are like "lno registry entry? try reinstalling, faggot" after a clean OS reinstall.

Most users on this board are probably not old enough to use partitions or know about how the old Windows behaved. I've been running a Windows 7 install for 6 years and kept it under 30GB and in working condition. I'm like "I have 5GB of unexplainable bloat lying around" while everyone else on this board seems to be like "lol, still 100GB free on my SSD, who cares".

>I install all my programs on other partitions and choose archives over installers whenever possible.
>I've been running a Windows 7 install for 6 years and kept it under 30GB and in working condition.
>none of this "repair" bullshit that doesn't really clean anything.
You are me and I am you, brother.
>FUCK YOU, firefox
Vivaldi still offers "standalone" option in the installer, which is basically portable with some safety tweak not to get your stored passwords stolen by someone who copies your stuff.

Registry clogs up because it's shit.
Empty folders and other leftover files clog up your system because windows doesn't have a proper uninstall method for software and software's uninstallers are garbage.
Disk caching/pre-fetching slows down your PC considerably.
Leftovers from some updates aren't automatically cleaned.
Malware.

But this was mostly fixed or at least improved on w10. Anything older is still shit and the more back you go the worse windows gets.

CCleaner is malware. And Windows having absolutely no good software out of the box is another reason it's a shitty OS. You have to replace everything, text editor, image editor, browser and obviously system utilities as well as disabling some services. This is just putting makeup on a piece of shit. It doesn't change the fact that windows is bad.

Her body is the same way.

her body? what do you mean?

Check the $RECYCLE.BIN folder, tick Show hidden system files in Folder Options and you should be able too see it. In a previous installation I had like 20GB stored there and couldn't be deleted because the traditional recycle bin didn't show up any of the files that were already deleted, it seems like those files got corrupted when trying to empty the bin, how? nobody knows.

>Registry clogs up because it's shit.
voodoo bullshit

>Empty folders and other leftover files clog up your system because windows doesn't have a proper uninstall method for software and software's uninstallers are garbage.
voodoo bullshit

>Disk caching/pre-fetching slows down your PC considerably.
voodoo bullshit

>Leftovers from some updates aren't automatically cleaned.
voodoo bullshit

>Malware.
anti virus

>The people saying that are usually self-proclaimed "power users" who have fucked up their installs with "tweaks"
Enjoy using Windows 10 without those "tweaks", unless you are masochist and you love Cortana, Telemetry, Cloud Sevices, UWP bloat, 3rd party sponsored apps installing by itself and adverts in Start Menu

Attached: 10.png (827x587, 423K)

I don't reinstall shit for that reason. It's mostly because my current OS has issues and I might be looking at some alternative at the moment. Windows 10 had many builds, they all worked differently, some had more bugs than others despite being newer, so I had to reinstall shit over and over, and because it often just decides to shit the bed when it has to actually update a whole build.

Or, or have the EDU version, disable cortana and keep telemetry to a minimum and uninstall maybe 3 apps because it doesn't automatically download stupid games. All of which takes a few minutes.