Windows Vista - Clean and Repair

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kinsten

240 posts

Master Geek

#27705 4-Nov-2008 15:29

I have Windows Vista Business installed, running SP1 and it has the occasional *glitch* which gets kind of annoying. The system can lock up, or freeze, or something. After reboot, it is usually fine, and will work perfectly (so long as I never turn it off) but I usually turn it off every night (as as I can sleep).

Has anyone found any decent registry cleaners and general OS clean up tools that work well on Vista?

I usually just completley re-install the OS and all the applications, and I still might do this when WoTLK for WoW comes out, as the updates for WoW are the biggest time waster EVER.
And to add to the trouble of re-installing, when I had my big crap out, I somehow lost my installation disk after getting the system working last time. Absolutely NO idea where in the heck the media disk is.

If there is no reccomended ideas, apparently I can use any media DVD to install Vista as long as its 32bit (yes yes I know, why didn't I go for x64).

Cheers in advance. =)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
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eXDee

4032 posts

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#175759 4-Nov-2008 17:03

kinsten: Has anyone found any decent registry cleaners and general OS clean up tools that work well on Vista?

(yes yes I know, why didn't I go for x64).

CCleaner has a 'registry cleaner' as well as removing temporary files etc. Sounds more like a driver issue if its freezing. Look in control panel, event viewer is under administrative tools in XP, not sure where in vista. Then open the system log and see if you can find the event which is at the same time as freezing.

Use Autoruns to delete rubbish like adobe updater and similar programs from your startup.

Vista product keys can be used on 64bit as well as 32bit media. If you want 64bit, you just need to borrow a 64bit disk and you can use your product key.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#175770 4-Nov-2008 17:23

I don't recommend Registry Cleaners - you will ended up with some missing stuff. Last time I tested one Windows Update couldn't find the Microsoft Office components needed to install some updates.

There must be some reason why the system freezes. It could be faulty memory, faulty PSU, faulty HDD, faulty drivers. I would look into each one of those before even considering reinstalling the OS.

kinsten

240 posts

Master Geek

#175784 4-Nov-2008 17:51

freitasm:
There must be some reason why the system freezes. It could be faulty memory, faulty PSU, faulty HDD, faulty drivers. I would look into each one of those before even considering reinstalling the OS.

Lol, funny you should say that. When I played around with Linux last year, I had enormous problems with my computer. I now have a new Motherboard because of it. Tried different RAM, HDD, Motherboard, CPU, CPU-Fan.

Reinstalled Windows, Linux many times. (back when I still had the media)

Nonthing seemed to work, ran graphics stress testers, cpu stress testers, ram testers, then finally figured out how to get my backup restored (that was a mission in itself).

After about 3 weeks of testing my computer in many different ways, finally got my replacement motherboard, put everything back together again, stopped playing with linux, had my hdd restored, and everything kinda worked again. I basically never turned my computer off for the next 5 months and had absolutely no problems what so ever.

I moved flat, now the PC is in my room, and as it is basically next to my face, I don't like sleeping with it on. So turn it off. Now have occasional problems, at least 2-5 per month, usually after boot-up, within 1st 30-50 mins. If no problems by that time, there are no issues for the rest of that session.

I beleive it is usually associated with HDD activity.

(wow what a rant, lol)

I am usually totally with you freitasm on this one. Just looking for an easy out.

OK, so I can use Vista x64 media to install. with my 32bit business key?

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
PS3 Slim

JoeBloggs

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

#176078 5-Nov-2008 12:40

2-5 freezes per month, while mildly irritating, isn't the end of the world. You would buy a new HD, new RAM etc, but at the end of the day that's a lot of expenditure to fix a problem that doens't occur that often. In your case I would wait until my computer was a little older, then just buy a whole new box.

w2krules

491 posts

Ultimate Geek

#176237 6-Nov-2008 00:30

Have you tried putting your computer in standby instead of switching it off? There is very little difference in power consumption.

You might need to set your BIOS to use S3 standby mode for this to work properly i.e. shut down the PSU.

I was a geek before the word was invented!