XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: ldo@geek-central.gen.new_zealand   
      
   Got an article here in the February issue of Australian PC User called   
   “Ultimate fix for Windows” that begins:   
      
       If Windows XP, Vista or 7 has been behaving badly and the usual tricks   
       such as driver rollback, system restore and a repair installation don’t   
       help, it’s time to come out of denial and do a clean reinstallation.   
      
   And it goes on to cover all the things you need to save to prevent them from   
   being lost when you reinstall. Already the obvious question is: why can’t   
   use save user files separate from system files? Why should reinstalling the   
   latter have any impact on the former as well?   
      
   But first, drivers:   
      
       * Double Driver ... searches your PC and lists all of the drivers it   
       finds. You can save or print the list and choose to back up particular   
       drivers, which can be restored after the clean reinstallation. Double   
       Driver can even sniff out drivers from a dead version of Windows that   
       won’t boot.   
       * DriverMax ... not only searches your PC for drivers, but also provides   
       a direct link to a driver database to ensure you have the latest drivers   
       installed.   
          Users report that although neither program was able to reliably find   
       all of their drivers, the two programs together appeared to find   
       everything.   
      
   It puzzles me, that “appeared”. How hard is it to find bloody OS drivers? I   
   mean, how many places could they be hiding in? And if no one program seems   
   capable of finding them all, how can you be sure only two programs are   
   enough?   
      
   Next, saving your documents:   
      
       Next, back up the documents in the Documents folder ... for each user.   
       If you’ve saved important files in some other location, be sure to back   
       up those, too.   
      
   What other locations, and how would you be sure to remember?   
      
       It’s tempting to use Windows Easy Transfer (Files and Settings Transfer   
       Wizard in XP) ...   
          Unfortunately, there’s a big gotcha with this approach. Although   
       transferring data files shouldn’t create any difficulties, the more   
       settings you transfer, particularly when you start including Windows   
       settings, the more likely you are to resurrect the problems that drove   
       you to reinstall Windows in the first place.   
      
   Which begs the question: if it was a simple configuration screwup that is   
   causing the problems in the first place, why can’t you just undo that,   
   instead of having to reinstall everything?   
      
   E-mail seems to require its own special handling:   
      
          The Import and Export options for messages and address books or   
       contacts are on the File menu for Windows Mail and Outlook Express.   
       Windows Live Mail is more complicated to use ... Both Outlook and   
       Thunderbird are even more problematic, however, and the options these   
       two clients provide are too awkward to be useful for backing up and   
       restoring messages.   
      
   Really? I’ve used Thunderbird, and all its user data is kept in one   
   directory in my user area—that’s all I needed to backup and restore. Oh,   
   but   
   this is Linux I’m using, not Windows. Remember what I said elsewhere about   
   Free Software being handicapped on Windows? This is another example.   
      
   Anyway, the article then goes on to talk about backing up and restoring your   
   third-party application installations. All told, it turns out you need to   
   use about half a dozen different add-on utilities just to get at least a   
   partial assurance that a Windows reinstall doesn’t destroy your life. And on   
   top of that, imagine going through this sort of nonsense once or twice a   
   year. How much is your time worth?   
      
   Cue more than one likely followup expressing some of the “denial” mentioned   
   above...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)