Speeding up a computer with an O/S rebuild -- are there any other options

It has been my experience that a computer's speed can be significantly increased by making a complete backup, reinstalling the operating system from the original CD/DVD, then reinstalling all programs and then putting all the data back from the backup. This is not a trival process by any means, but when I've done it, it has increased my computer speed.

I had long believed that this was true, in part because it caused the registry to be rebuilt from scratch, although what I am reading in other threads suggests that cleaning up the registry has a minimal effect.

I know the rebuild from scratch speeds up the computer, because I've done it. Sometimes in this process, I won't reload some software that I was using but I'm not using anymore. However, building things "fresh" is what seems to really speed up the system.

I think one key part of the rebuild is re-initialization of "index.dat" for MS-IE. I think that even when you clear the cache and delete temporary files, this file never gets rebuilt and there are a lot of unused pointers in this file. That is just a guess on my part -- I'd like you input.

Right now I'm running an Intel Pentium D, 3.0 GHz with 2 GB of RAM. The O/S is Win-XP Media Center Edition 2002 with updates and Service Pack 3.

Is there any program out there that can be run on your system that would accomplish much of the same thing without the two day project of backup, reinstall and data restore?

 

Much of what you write was quite true in the days of Win9x - I reinstalled the OS about once a year.

This is no longer true since the mainstream Windows system went NT: 2K, XP, Vista, 7. I have my current XP system since 8 years, never reinstalled, and it runs as fast as on the first day.

Actually it runs faster, since I fine-tuned the system over the years. If I were to reinstall, all my tuning efforts would be lost!

Myself I cannot see any reason to reinstall Windows at all, ever! If you do regular full backups of your system, whatever happens you can always fall back on a perfectly running system.

 

If you want to rebuild the registry, you can use NTREGOPT - it is from the same developer who gave us ERUNT.

You can delete the index.dat file using CCleaner; it will automatically be recreated when you start IE.

 

I swear that an XP rebuild made my system faster.

Is it your best assessment that CCleaner is safe to run?

What happens if you delete INDEX.DAT on your own (or rename it to something like MyOldIndex.OLD)?

Thanks for your help!

 

You cannot, as it is "in use" while Windows is running. (Neither can CCleaner, but marks it for deletion during the next Windows startup.)