Windows XP Pro Reinstall III
October 1, 2006 | In GeneralUpdated from my previous post on the same subject
One thing that is guaranteed when being a heavy Windows XP Pro user is that it accumulated ‘junk’ data, temporary files and suffers from registry bloat.
I last completed a reinstall of my main PC laptop, the Dell Inspiron 9100, on January 31st, 2006.
I write this blog entry as a ‘note to self’ but I figure other users may get some use for it. Several new factors came into mind when organising my reinstall. I’ll skip the back-up procedure, but I’ll mention some of the criteria from getting my laptop speed from slow to blaze.
Here were my notes:
- Keep it minimal - one thing sure to floor Windows XP Pro is installing ‘too many’ applications. The registry will fill up ultra-quick and it’ll start running slow within no time
- Avoid MS Office - nothing personal but I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird for email, and if I can get away from using (read installing) Word, Excel, etc. I will. There are alternatives: Writely and Google Spreadsheets
- Slipstream where possible - use nLite
- Backup passwords and settings - use screenshots and save to a webmail account
- Use applications with a small footprint preferably without installer packages
- Change AntiVirus package
Graphics
These are the “can’t-live-without” graphic packages:
Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional [Updates available]
Adobe Illustrator CS2 [Updates available]
Adobe Photoshop CS2 [Install from full Creative Suite package but uncheck GoLive etc.]
Macromedia Flash 8
Web Server
I require Apache 2.0.5x, MySQL Server 4.1.x or 5.x and PHP 5.1.x.
InstantRails - Ruby On Rails one-shot installer.
XAMPP Lite 1.5.4 - Apache, PHP, MySQL, PhpMyAdmin, etc. (Apache/2.2.3 (Win32) DAV/2 mod_ssl/2.2.3 OpenSSL/0.9.8c mod_autoindex_color PHP/5.1.6)
I also looked at VertrigoServ - Apache 2.0.59, PHP 5.1.6, MySQL 5.0.24a, SQLite 3.3.7, PhpMyAdmin 2.8.2.4, ZendOptimizer 3.0.1, SQLiteManager 1.2.0 - but stayed with XAMPP Lite.
Internet
All the Swiss Army Knife tools:
PuTTY
FileZilla 2.2.27
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7
Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.7
Trillian Basic - standalone
uTorrent - Faster than Azureus, smallest footprint.
Xnews 5.04.25
TortoiseSVN 1.4.0 - Subversion
Skype 2.5.0.141
Editor
UltraEdit-32 v12.10b
Utilities
7Zip - alternative to WinZip
Notepad2 1.0.12 - alternative to Notepad
Nero 7
HTTrack
Multimedia
iTunes 7 + QuickTime 7
VLC Media Player 0.8.5 - alternative to Windows Media Player
AntiVirus
AVG Antivirus 7.0 Free Edition - alternative to Norton AntiVirus
Adware/Spyware
Ad-Aware SE V1.6
SpyBot Search and Destroy V1.4
Optional
These were optional applications which I declined to install for now.
Google Desktop
Interent Business Promoter 8.1
Web CEO
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 & 2.0
Backing up to do list
Backup email [C:\Documents and Settings\XXX\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\XXXXXXX.default\Mail\Local Folders\Inbox.sbd]
Backup bookmarks [C:\Documents and Settings\XXX\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\XXXXXXX.default\bookmarkbackups]
Backup music
Backup My Documents
Backup Apache configs: http.conf, etc.
Backup settings
Backup passwords
Install to C: ?
Backing up “The Sims 2″ Files
The Directories to Back-Up:
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Downloads\
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Neighborhoods\
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Saved Sims\
C:\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Projects\
