There has to be an easier way to rebuild a Windows XP machine

May 5, 2007

I have this old eMachines PC that I have in my living room, hooked up to the TV and stereo.  Mostly I use it to run iTunes, but also a few other gadgets like when I was training for the marathon I would upload my GPS data so I could see how horribly slowly I was running those training runs.

I’m not sure if it’s iTunes or some of these other gadgets and apps, or a virus, but the PC is getting kinda slow.  Like I know it’s an underpowered Celeron, but still it’s over a 2 GHz Celeron.  So it should have no problems playing back video, but I just downloaded my first iTunes video (an episode of Star Trek) and the playback is herky-jerky.  Even when playing the smallest resolution window.

So I’m planning to rebuild the PC from scratch, and this time only install the bare essentials (probably just iTunes for music/movies, and Picasa for my vacation photos).  Hopefully then it will be able to run the iTunes videos smoothly.

Thing is, rebuilding a PC is so tedious.  I wish there were an easier way to do this.  Luckily, backing up stuff is pretty easy these days thanks to writeable DVD’s.  And my two main apps, iTunes and Picasa, both have features for creating easy back-ups.  My iTunes library required 4 DVD’s, while Picasa took just one.

So I think everything I need is backed up now, and so tomorrow I’ll wipe the machine and restore from the manufacturer’s CD’s.  Then of course you have to run thru the Windows Update, probably a bunch of times as it picks up newer and newer patches.  I can’t remember if the original install is XP SP2, if not I’ll also have to run the SP2 upgrade.  Plus install IE7, because I really like tabbed browsing and IE is still faster than Firefox.

All told I’m sure it will take the better part of Sunday morning.  I’ll probably finish just in time to go outside and mow the lawn.  Yippee, what a hot exciting Sunday I have planned.