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Anger Management: living with Windows XP + lot of software

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Armando:
Some time ago i noticed that the more "cleaning/repairing" programs i ran, the less stable my windows OS became.
So now i never run any registry cleaners, disk check repairers, etc.

I think the reason is this:
Inside every computer that has Windows OS installed, is a tiny little miniature bill gates.  And when you run these types of programs you make it very angry and it throws a fit and starts trashing things.  That's just my theory,
-mouser (August 29, 2007, 05:25 AM)
--- End quote ---

;D

 Another option;
run weekly backups with FirstDefense-ISR on your OS partition.
Faster, easier than acronis.
Run an incremental backup (superflexible is my fave) on your data partition.

That's what I do. I think it's pretty secure. I have a clean install of XP as a base image in FD-ISR. If things go really bad, I boot to that one. There's a long thread about how to use FD-ISR in security forums.

My strategy:
A base snapshot (windows, + drivers + barebones utils)
A working snapshot (the one I boot to everyday). You can afford to screw things up here)
An archive of the working snapshot (that's a 'last known good config'). It'll have all the programs you installed in recent history.

If you install something that craps your computer, I boot to the base snapshot, recover the last archive to the working snapshot, and then boot back to working snapshot. I hope it makes sense.

All in all, I feel pretty protected. I disconnected windows' own history, as this is a lot safer.

You could have as much as 10 archives if you wanted to, but I'm ok with one.

HTH
-urlwolf (August 29, 2007, 12:19 PM)
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Nice strategy for quick recovery…
I don't want to hijack this thread, but... urlwolf, I wonder... In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of using Acronis / FirstDefense-ISR ? Can you store your snapshots on an external hard drive?

(I think that that what put me off when I first checked FirstDefense is the fact that the snapshots have to be stored on C: and I didn't have enough space to afford an extra 25 Gb -- and more -- on my C: drive.  But that might be wrong...)

katykaty:
Buy a second cheap PC to test out new stuff?

justice:
Hmm interesting response there about FirstDefense-ISR. It's good to have the snapshots at the fingertips.  I'll look into that thanks. the only problem with it if what Armando is saying is true (storing snapshots on the OS drive) is of course i'd need an additional backup solution in case hardware problems develop. But maybe that's unfair to say.

There's definately a lot of valuable advice given so far :)

Armando:
the only problem with it if what Armando is saying is true (storing snapshots on the OS drive)... -justice (August 30, 2007, 03:08 AM)
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I double checked :

Non-system partitions/removable media can not be used to store snapshots
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Which is understandable.

FirstDefense is probably the ideal solution if you have a huge hard drive. My laptop is too small for it.  :)

There is also RollBack Rx. But I've read bad things about version 7. I don,t know about the newest version. For someone who just needs a way to rollback after some software testing, RollBack Rx seems like the best solution though. Of course, it needs to PERFECTLY reliable. Otherwise, what would be the point?

Carol Haynes:
Virtualise all the stuff you test (VMWare or VirtualPC - which is now free - for preference, Altiris SVC if not possible and at least do a full registry backup before installing anything dodgy on your main system).

Now if I could just learn to do it myself!

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