Tutorial: Keeping the system clean

Well thought I'd make a small guide for you all... just some common sense stuff that might've been over-looked.
Some of you know that the more you install, the more you bog down your system. Yet, you don't want to back up specific files... you hate losing all your data and having to reinstall the programs right? Well you can SOMEWHAT get around that...

First off, get a back-up device. External HDD, 64GB Flash drive, I really don't care. Just something you can back your system files up on. Then do a back-up. Not the regular back-up where you drag and drop files, but the back-up where you go into Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System tools. From there, make sure your computer's clean and do a COMPLETE back-up including system state, etc. After this you can format your system. Zomg, how do you do that? Well I'm not here to tell you. Just torrent the files [I could make a guide on that if you all don't know how...] and clean re-install your system. It's easy and straightforward. Now what? Retore the damn thing. Make sure you have the backed up data on another HDD, Ext HDD, or partition and load all your files + system state back.

Some of you may ask, "Doesn't this make my computer exactly how it was before??" Nope. Well not on XP at least, not too sure about Vista. All files and MOST settings will be restored... so you may need to set up options, etc. You may also lose some save game data. But trust me, you'll speed things up.

As it is, backing up your computer is excellent for troubles like viruses which you just can't remove. For people like me who don't use Anti-virus or their firewall... this may come in handy in FEW [happened to me once] situations. (If one of you bitches about my lack of AV use I'm gonna verbally smack ya >.>)

This was a very broad and vague guide--but hey, some could use it.

-JoE

I gotta network storage server from maxtor and i do a similar thing to you. I just set it up to copy the my documents folder and desktop everyday

EDIT: Now I got windows home server