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Comment by samtheprogram | Hacker News Reader

Reinstalling Windows XP SP 2 on my computer growing up was one of the first things that got interested in what was going on at the operating system level. I found Windows XP Inside Out around the house, read it over so many times, and eventually re-installed it on my computer for fun.

I was floored to realize how much faster things were. No wait time for a Windows Explorer window to open. Everything was snappy, even after reinstalling games and antivirus. It blew my mind.

I still think it helps, but with a much longer tail on the frequency required. Windows XP definitely grew slow over time though, whether that was due to installing programs, caches I could’ve cleared with CClearner, or more incremental updating. We leave a lot on the OS over time.

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I had the same experience with Windows XP growing up. Very few months I would reinstall my desktop computer that ran WinXP, and I did the same with the laptop I had after that which was also running WinXP. During that time I used to install a lot of random freeware and shareware and trial software and games and game demos. And probably those things were leaving stuff behind like you guys said.

The very first time I reinstalled WinXP was shortly after I got my first computer of my own for my 12th birthday. I was tinkering with some of the files, and discovered that I could open .cur cursor files in MS Paint. I edited one of the cursor files, saved it as a bmp and renamed the file to .cur under the assumption that this would work. Set my custom cur file as cursor and logged out. When I tried to log back in I couldn’t. Whoops. Freaked out for a second thinking I had broken everything. Remembered that there was a red floppy disk with an ambulance on it that came with the computer. Rebooted the machine with the red floppy disk and reinstalled Windows. Lost my files but had nothing valuable at the time anyways. Have lost more valuable data since then. And expect to lose more data in the future still :p

My most painful data loss was when I tried a Windows "alternative" called "Lindows" [0]. Touted as "Linux, but easy like Windows!."

So I put the disk in, and it says something like "Do you want to install Lindows?" with no options, no warnings or anything. So I hit Yes/Okay/whatever the single button on the screen was, and without zero warning, it proceeded to wipe my entire hard drive.

It's been 17 years and it still hurts :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire

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