Who else is OCD about windows installation?

[VERTIGGO]

After installing my os over several dozens of times, I've really boiled it down to almost an exact science. Is anyone else this meticulous with windows setup and tweaking? I do have some questions about what's good and bad about mine, but I use a log to ensure I do everything the same and refine it when I need to.

Some of this may be confusing, and I'll explain anything, but just so you get the idea:

WINDOWS 7 x64 LOG
Windows 7 Disk - Remove partition and let setup create its own
Activate - Activate over the internet
Seagate Diskwizard + reboot
Create BASIC image (with only activation)
Wordpad settings: "Show below the Ribbon"
Fix drive letters, disable Floppy Controller, rename 'C:\' drive "Local Disk" to "32S WINDOWS 7-64"
Turn off system restore
Taskbar settings: Taskbar to left of screen, never combine buttons, always show icons in notification area, set 5 recent programs to display, unpin winexp, IE, and wmp
Add toolbars 'IMPORTANT' and 'DESK', lock taskbar
Pin all that can in '\DESK\WINDOWS' to Start Menu except winexp to tskbr, remove: "getting started", projector, xps viewer, windows faxnscan, Power button is Restart, don't display recent items
Windows Update - Run Windows Update rebooting until it has no more updates
Set Theme - Restore from .theme file
Turn off UAC
Windows Explorer Settings: Turn on Menu Bar, show all and auto expand folders, show hidden folders, don't hide extensions to known file types, View > Status Bar
Set up a folder of videos and one of documents Details: Name, Size, Date created, Type, Date modified and Apply to Folders
Install Google Chrome and restore profile
Set shortcuts to open maximized (shift + right click)
Install Catalyst package minus registration
Display Settings: Untick Recycle Bin from desktop, change your picture, set text to 125%, set mouse pointer to Large Inverted
Power Options: Create new power plan using High Performance; set never hibernate, no Hybrid Sleep,
Install Creative X-Fi driver package
Run Creative Update (Alchemy, Console Launcher)
Pin Creative Console Launcher to Start Menu, set settings
Set 'Microphone' as default in windows settings
Install Highpoint RAID driver - For Rocketraid 2300
Disable all autoplay options
Install Highpoint Web GUI
Enable sharing on drives
Install Setpoint for mouse and copy Setpoint folder from backup
Run all Registry Tweaks (from '_TWEAKS' folder)
Set Page File (250 on 'C:\', 6000 on 'D:\')
Pin Paint to Start Menu
Turn Windows Features off: Windows Media Center, Tablet PC, XPS
Perform tweaks in bookmark folder
Set up Libraries: Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures, Series, Video
Install Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Photoshop 7, CCleaner, File Compare, Foxit Reader, Hard Disk Sentinal, iTunes (drag My Music from backup), Jarte + 'DOCUMENTS\DOC CONVERT PACK, Java, LockHunter 64, Mediainfo, AVG, mkvToolnix + copy mkvExtractGUI, Mp3tag, SeaTools, Smart Defrag (disable auto defrag), TreeSize Free, KatMouse, Ventrilo (drag profile from backup), VLC Media, open office calc, WinRAR, Zoom Player 7 Max
Set up Gadgets: Clock, Weather, Stocks, CPU Meter
Set File Associations with WMP: avi, wmv, mpg
Change environment variables TEMP and TMP to 'D:\TEMP[\TMP]' respectively
turn off password sharing, sharing for public networks
Taskbar Properties: display start menu options as a menu, network, run command
Reorder Networks (ncpa.cpl > Advanced)
Ultimate Windows Tweaker: Personalization - Disable full row select items, Show drive letters before, Security Settings - Disable Error Reporting, Additional Tweaks - Show "Open Command Window Here", Show "Copy to Folder..." and "Move to Folder..." and Remove "-Shortcut"
Set up indexing on all drives, turn off windows defrag
Install Magic iso and mount BF2 and COH .isos
Install Steam to 'D:\Program Files' (drag steamapps/skins back in and update)
Install Battlefield 2 to 'D:\Program Files' and patch (drag 'My Documents' from backup)
Install Company of Heroes TOV to 'D:\Program Files' and patch (drag all don't replace, drag files in '\MODS\DRAG CONTENTS TO COH' and replace, drag 'My Documents\My Games')
Delete all remaining desktop icons, run disk cleanup on C:\ (Windows install)
MSconfig settings: Timeout 5 seconds; untick Apple Mobile Device, iPod Service, Logitech Bluetooth Service, and Steam Client Service; remove iTunes, QuickTime, Steam and Adobe Gamma Loader from Startup
Run CCleaner
Reboot, create an image backup of just 'C:\' and copy D:\Program Files to backup location

MUST BE DONE AFTER REIMAGE:
Connect to printer
Share all drives
run defrag

 

[udonoogen]

i prefer zipgenius or 7zip over winrar. i am just about as OCD as you. reformatting takes up an incredible amount of time.

 

[wwswimming]

what's wrong with OCD ? this is the kind of thing you should talk about during a job interview. if someone is going to hire you to design a test fixture for 5000+ mixed high-speed digital, RF, and power data points, they NEED someone with good attention to detail. what you are referring to as Windows OCD.

 

[MrChad]

Why are you installing your OS so often? Its precisely because of all these mundane steps that I try to maintain my installation and avoid reinstalls.

 

[VERTIGGO]

haha @ swimming, precisely.

@ MrChad, I don't know exactly; it's kind of my derived question. I so meticulously establish everything, and create images immediately following activation and then when it's complete, but it seems that things slow down within weeks every time, and I just give up and go back to the basic image, and set everything up again.

The biggest annoyance I think is that uninstall doesn't ever really clean everything up, so after installing and then removing a few dozen random utilities, games, benchmarks, or what have you, the system is far worse than it was originally.

I guess I wish there was a straight forward way to find out whats wrong with the system, especially those times when it responds like a dog but you can't detect any unusual cpu, memory, or hdd usage... it drives me batty.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Haha I have a bunch of stuff I always do the same. I don't quite have it down to the apps I install as it depends for who I'm installing it but it usually goes like this:

- Image original drive for backup
- Boot off xp cd
- Format drive + create main partition + restore partition
- Go through install
- Once in windows, disable XP theme, put to classic
- Put classic start menu on
- Remove personalized menues
- Add administrative tools
- Disable screen saver, standby etc

Then from there I start installing the apps and stuff. Usually spend a couple hours trying to find drivers online unless it's my own machine then I have the CDs. I rarely install for myself though, think it's been like 2 years since I've had to format. I keep all the apps on my linux server so it's fast to install (stuff like 7zip etc... ).

 

[corkyg]

Looks like we all have a little bit of Adrian Monk in us. This mis an interesting thread. Have a nice Christmas - enjoy your families.

 

[lxskllr]

I just wing it every time :^D I don't do anything special. Must haves at install time are security software, updates, and programs I use every day. Otherwise, I piece it together over a few weeks.

 

[Zargon]

if your machine is that slow after a few weeks that you need to wipe and start over, you are probably doing something wrong...

 

[undeclared]

Make a ghost image.. Seriously.

Once everything is installed perfectly, make a ghost image on a seperate partition (for me it was about 14 gigs perfect install.. or like 40-50 gigs with games)

It took me on average 20 minutes to ghost it back.. and then done.

I'd get a virus for some dumb reason (well maybe this would happen once a year?) but then I'd simply boot into dos with the ghost software's utility, and then re-ghost the drive..

Occassionally, my list of apps/games would be very different from the last ghost image.. so I recommend updating them every 2-6 months depending on your set up..

Another option is commercial products like DeepFreeze, or there is a free (but not so great) Microsoft-made one..

Either way, this makes sure your install is the same and quick.. and if ever there's a problem, ghost over.. and done.

 

[Modelworks]

Images with snapshots is the way to go.

 

[Nothinman]

Is anyone else this meticulous with windows setup and tweaking?

I used to, way back when, but now I just don't care that much. Especially with Windows since I only have it because of work.

 

[kranky]

I can't stand reinstalling all the software after reloading Windows so I don't reload Windows. Have owned 3 PCs since 1998 and never reloaded one time. I'm thankful for reliable HDDs!

Even when I have to do it on a new build, I just want to get it working. When I know it's stable, and all my software is back on the system, I'll tweak other things as the need arises.

 

[VERTIGGO]

if your machine is that slow after a few weeks that you need to wipe and start over, you are probably doing something wrong...

I know! I just have no idea what it is, except that as an OCD user I may have come to expect too much of computers, leading me to over multi-tasking. But that just explains slowdowns when I'm extracting, copying, installing, and watching videos, etc., not when there's nothing happening

Make a ghost image.. Seriously.

I do! I use Seagate's Diskwizard, and not only are the images compressed, they only take 5min to create or restore. As far as I can tell, it works perfectly, but if there's an issue with the way i run things, that gets backed up as well, so I don't know...

 

[Red Squirrel]

This reminds me, one of these days I really need to start experimenting with unattended windows xp installation. I think I can change all of the settings I want too so when it's done installing it's the way I want. I tend to always do it the hard way. For my own PC I have an acronis image, but it's been so long I probably would not even use it and just reinstall from scratch. For me it's easy since I have all the drivers. Finding drivers is probably 90% of the manual time used up when reinstalling windows. I don't get why people never keep their driver CDs.

 

[VERTIGGO]

Because cds are out of date by the time they're packaged. When I still used the included disk for my sound cards, I still had to update from the internet immediately. It's just not reasonable to "preserve" "updates"... it's almost an oxymoron.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I tend to keep my installs for years sometimes. I don't notice slow downs over time, just do basic maintenance. Go figure.

 

[VERTIGGO]

"Basic maintenance"; I hear that a lot. I use CCleaner for disk cleanup, and in the past for registry cleaning, but how do you repair "the system", i.e., the unknowns? Like when drivers and apps leave seemingly irreversible damage to the registry, or even when Windows files are altered... Windows update, antivirus, defragging, and emptying the recycle bin seem totally ineffective when a system really begins to feel it's age.

 

[lxskllr]

"Basic maintenance"; I hear that a lot. I use CCleaner for disk cleanup, and in the past for registry cleaning, but how do you repair "the system", i.e., the unknowns? Like when drivers and apps leave seemingly irreversible damage to the registry, or even when Windows files are altered... Windows update, antivirus, defragging, and emptying the recycle bin seem totally ineffective when a system really begins to feel it's age.

I don't really run into issues like that. I don't maintain my machines at all. When on XP I defragged every few months or so, and now that I have Vista it does it every week. I don't clean my registry... I try not to install every crap app that comes along, and my machine stays fast and stable.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I don't really run into issues like that. I don't maintain my machines at all. When on XP I defragged every few months or so, and now that I have Vista it does it every week. I don't clean my registry... I try not to install every crap app that comes along, and my machine stays fast and stable.

Ditto.

 

[Cattykit]

haha @ swimming, precisely.

@ MrChad, I don't know exactly; it's kind of my derived question. I so meticulously establish everything, and create images immediately following activation and then when it's complete, but it seems that things slow down within weeks every time, and I just give up and go back to the basic image, and set everything up again.

The biggest annoyance I think is that uninstall doesn't ever really clean everything up, so after installing and then removing a few dozen random utilities, games, benchmarks, or what have you, the system is far worse than it was originally.

I guess I wish there was a straight forward way to find out whats wrong with the system, especially those times when it responds like a dog but you can't detect any unusual cpu, memory, or hdd usage... it drives me batty.

In that case, read my thread about VHD. There were days when I was like you but since using VHD, I no longer do all those tasks. As mentioned in other thread, I even use VHD instead of uninstalling programs. Let me give you a simple fomula:
Differential VHD>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Regular VHD>>>Ghost imaging>>Re-installing OS.

 

[Nothinman]

I don't really run into issues like that. I don't maintain my machines at all. When on XP I defragged every few months or so, and now that I have Vista it does it every week. I don't clean my registry... I try not to install every crap app that comes along, and my machine stays fast and stable.

No doubt. I'm not even a Windows guy and I don't understand how people get their machines into those states...

 

[pcgeek11]

No doubt. I'm not even a Windows guy and I don't understand how people get their machines into those states...

Agree. I have Windows installations that have been running daily for years with no problems. I just do not understand what some people do to their machines.

Not saying I haven't seen customers machines that are slow and hang up on every click of the mouse. I do not and will not spend time sorting out these issues for them. Format and install and I keep an image on file as I know they will be back. When they do come back it is 15 minutes of unattended easy money to image it back to the HD.

We have all seen the type.

pcgeek11

 

[VERTIGGO]

I think that's what I mean about OCD. I bet in most cases I'd be fine just uninstalling extra junk, defragging quick, and fixing my drivers, but in the back of my mind I have this notion that I can only be "fresh and clean" with a re-image, so that's ultimately what I do. It seems to be mostly a mental penchant for having things in pristine order, and since the pc holds so many tiers of mystery for the above-average user, a refresh is the only satisfactory "solution".

 

[VirtualLarry]

I try to keep my windows install "clean", and free from unnecessary clutter.
A client's machine, which was freshly installed six months ago, she says gives her some sort of ".DLL error", after leaving the machine alone for some time while logged into Pogo.com.
Don't know what she did, have to check it out soon.