Reinstalling windows error

Special note to jhunt. Please do not reply with your BS about no need to reinstall windows over itself, but rather reformat and do a clean install.

I've heard this song and dance before and see no reason to go through the added painstaking process of having to reinstall a dozen programs, sound, video drivers, a ton of other cr*ap not to mention my cable modem drivers which is always fun to do.

I mean it would only take me something like 3 hours to completely reinstall everything.

So back off and don't bother ok? Thank you.

 

jhunt would be absolutely correct if he did recommend a clean install.  There's more than ample evidence that installing Windows over itself is virtually an exercise in futility, particularly as regards Windows ME, and that fact has been documented in this forum more times than I can count, if one takes the time to look.

What a numnuts. Apparently I was getting the error because I forgot to shut down all background programs like zone alarm. Did that and this time the reinstall was totally succesful.

 

New question though. Rather than a full reformatting, what would happen if one deletes the entire windows folder and nothing else?

Would this be the equivelant of a clean reinstall?

 

 

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@lost4ever2 wrote:

Rather than a full reformatting, what would happen if one deletes the entire windows folder and nothing else?

Would this be the equivelant of a clean reinstall?

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This would be the equivalent of removing your hard drive, and beating on it repeatedly with a large mallet.  The end result would be essentially the same - you'd have a completely non-functioning PC.  You can't get something for nothing.  If you want a properly functioning PC, and if you've done things to the OS to make it less than functional, you need to invest the time and effort to reinstall the OS properly.  Get a book and read up on this, if you don't want to take my word for it, but you're trying to do something that just doesn't work, and you're not going to get much in the way of knowledgeable encouragement or support for the shortcuts you're trying to get away with (around here, anyway).

 

 

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Message Edited by Flooby on 11-11-2003 12:28 PM

Thanks for the time and effort. Points taken and heeded.

I recall once trying to delete the folder in DOS and it was taking so cotton pickin long I decided to forget it and reformat.

Let's understand something though, I am not a young reckless cowboy with computers. Know what an Atari 400 was? I had one. New. I am not an expert on them by any means.  But I know enough to help me out in various crisis situations. So far I haven't had to take any computer of mine into a shop for any reason except one time because at the time I did not know what to do. I learned quickly.In computers, you learn by doing. You can't learn anything by staring at it all day. How did you get online? How did you get here? You don't get anywhere if you don't do something.

No need to reply. Just letting you know I'm not totally ignorant. Yet.