Windows woes

[Sean Kelly]

Walter Bright wrote:
> 
> So now I've got Windows reinstalled. Now comes the dance of reinstalling 
> everything else. The worst is, of course, Outlook Express which completely 
> loses track of everything after a reinstall. I have a crib sheet of most of 
> the settings, but even so, there's no way to restore which newsgroup files 
> are read/unread. I also use the undocumented method of finding which 
> gawdawful directory O.E. squirrels the files away in (all in deeply nested 
> hidden directories with 80+ character tty noise filenames) and 
> saving/restoring the dbx files manually.

It's probably not an option if you have so much archived, but I've found 
Thunderbird to be a capable email client, and all the old settings can 
be picked up by saving/restoring the proper folder in Application Data.

> Most of the other apps aren't too bad, if you were smart enough to keep a 
> crib sheet of all the serial numbers, registration numbers, and funky 
> passwords. The whole job takes about 12 hours.

I've found Password Safe to be invaluable for this sort of thing.  It's 
free, secure, and you can find out about it here:

http://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html

> Morals of the story:
> 
> 1) Keep a crib sheet of all the settings, passwords, serial numbers, 
> registration follderalls, etc.

Definately.  I have an emergency sheet locked away with such information 
on it.

> 3) If you're writing an app, don't require it to be reinstalled if Windows 
> is reinstalled. DM programs don't need to be. Store your configuration in 
> some text file that can be saved/restored. Please!


Hear hear!  For me, reinstalling Windows isn't so bad, but reinstalling 
the apps takes days.  Life would be so much easier if I could simply 
archive program directories.

> 4) If you're going to need to muck about with the system registry, do it 
> like Quicken does. Quicken has a menu item "Backup" which, amazingly enough, 
> backs up all its settings and crud to a file you specify. Then, I reinstall 
> Quicken from the CD, hit "Restore" and give the file name, and it fixes 
> itself. Quicken is full of horrible design choices, but at least they got 
> that right. No other app I've used does that.

Aye.  Quicken is fantastic.

> 5) Never, ever install anything with DRM on it on your work computer. DRM 
> often involves rootkits, installing new drivers that destabilize your 
> system, etc. This includes most game software. Use a separate computer for 
> DRM, one that you won't mind regularly reinstalling Windows on.

Sadly, I have a SecuROM folder in my user data--probably from games. 
I'd delete it, but that sounds like an invitation for trouble.


Sean