What's the best way to repave the family PC (running Win XP)? [duplicate]

What's the best way to repave the family PC (running Win XP)? [duplicate]

I have a two-year-old system is badly in need of a repave. At startup there are messages about missing DLLs, and Firefox and a few other apps no longer work. I'd like to hook up an external disk, have everything copied to it, reinstall XP, reinstall the apps, and grab all the data back from the backup. Is there a good way to do this?

Asked by: Guest | Views: 403

Total answers/comments: 1

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Guest [Entry]

"What you describe is indeed the best way to go about this:

I'd like to hook up an external
disk, have everything copied to it,
reinstall XP, reinstall the apps, and
grab all the data back from the
backup.

Some details: Ideally, you only need to copy the user profiles (stuff under ""\Documents And Settings"", or whatever it is called in your version and localization). But some programs store stuff like configs in their program directory (ugh) or in the registry.

So back up everything, reinstall, then restore the user profiles. Check everything works and is complete; if something is missing, you'll have to dig through the copy.

Or just install Linux, which does not need regular reinstalls ;-)."