Fresh install

[Haiku32]

I feel like I have far too much rubbish on my computer and I could do with a fresh install. I don't have many important files, and all the ones I desperately need are backed up on a flash drive.

Before I reformat, there are some things I'd like answered .

Is there any way to save the current state of my firefox? As in, all the bookmarks, themes, add-ons, etc?

Will I need to download all my drivers again, or will windows do this automatically?

Any other things I should look out for?

[GheeTsar]

Yup - you can save your Firefox bookmarks using the "export" function in the bookmarks screen. I think it save it as a .json file which you can then import when you reinstall.

I think you have to reinstall all you plugins though, but that shouldn't take long.

Windows will probably get functional drivers for most of your hardware, but it won't be the most up to date. I'd recommend getting hold of every driver you might need in advance, particularly those in relation to getting online if you have a wireless network card. It also makes the install a bit quicker if you have them all to hand.

I also get hold of the latest versions of Flash, Acrobat, DivX, Itunes/Quicktime, CDBurnerXP, Silverlight, and anything else like that you have installed to hand (check your installed programme list for a reminder of what you might need).

If you're a gamer, make sure you backup all your saved games (even Steam games). This can take a while as some games bury the save paths in hidden folders annoyingly.

Other than that, as long as you have all your documents/music/photos backed up then I reckon you're good to go.

Good luck.

[Zak33]

get every driver in advance and put them on an external drive of some sort, USB hard drive, large USB pen drive etc.

Get Winrar on their too. And maybe 7-zip
And Adobe Acrobat reader
And Firefox
And your favourite CD burning software to hand.

Then once you've install the OS and got the motherboard drivers on, you should be online, but next is the service packs from Microsoft.

You can save your Email from outlook too if you want. And your email address book.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270670

I have a partition for all this, and I keep it updated all the time, so when someone on ere links to something cool , such as Defraggler, I have it all good to go in one place.

[Haiku32]

Got all my documents/photos backed up on usb stick. Sticking music/videos on portable hard drive the now.

Is it best to have the drivers for every piece of hardware then? What's the best way to do this, just going into device manager, finding what drivers I've got and downloading them again?

[Zak33]

its' best to go to the manufacturers website for each piece of hardware and get the latest ones.

Motherboards often come with a combination of options... onbaord sound or do you have a seperate card? Network card is normally part of the driver pack but sometimes is stand alone. you might need a SATA driver too.. not all versions of XP and Vista are supported so you might need a floppy with tjose on. (yes... sometimes a floppy is needed!)

Start at the beginning.. what is in your machine?

[GheeTsar]

I'd get drivers for your graphics card (from nvidia if your system tab is up to date), motherboard drivers (from Abit), and then for any extra bits of plugged in hardware you might have (eg: soundcard, PCI wireless network card). No need for a HDD/DVD driver though.

[Haiku32]

Got the graphics card drivers but can't seem to get motherboard drivers as abit website is playing up. Just using onboard for network and sound.

So really all I'm after is graphics card and motherboard drivers?

[nightkhaos]

Get Winrar on their too. OR maybe 7-zip.

7-zip is a replacement to WinRAR. I find it ofters better and greater support than WinRAR. You should never need to install both.

[GheeTsar]

Oh - and get your virus scan software to hand as well.

[Haiku32]

Got all that .

Should I just go ahead and reinstall? Or is there anything crying out to you to stop me?

[Zak33]

make sure you can get back online for help if it goes wrong.

[ash_rm]

You should be able to backup your complete Firefox profile by copying everything in the "%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default" folder to the new profile folder in your new install.

More info here - http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

[confusingcircle]

Is there any way to save the current state of my firefox? As in, all the bookmarks, themes, add-ons, etc?

Couple of ways to do this as there are some specific backup addons you can get for firefox, but i've found that you can use the mozilla collections addon. This will allow you to sync the list of your addons to the web, and reinstall them from one place once you have a fresh copy of firefox installed. Also means you can do this on multiple computers and share them if you wish.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...ages/collector

Would also recommend xmarks to make a web backup of your bookmarks/passwords, again also useful to sync your bookmarks with multiple computers, or have a web copy that you can access anywhere:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

[Haiku32]

You should be able to backup your complete Firefox profile by copying everything in the "%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default" folder to the new profile folder in your new install.

More info here - http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

I did this. I'm not hugely bothered if I lose all my add-ons, just a mild inconvenience that if I can get out the way of doing, will .

Realised I still had another 40gb of music to back up, going to take another half an hour. Will probably leave it until tomorrow night when I have more time.

Cheers for your help guys.

[Salazaar]

Mozbackup is a very useful little utility for doing exactly what you're after.

http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

[Haiku32]

Hmmmmmmm.

Decided to just format and install. Everything installed fine and I logged into windows and checked everything was good. Installed the latest graphics card and rebooted. Posts fine, then when it goes into windows the screen goes black and I just get "No signal" displayed on the screen.

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/win7_...7_whql_uk.html

That's what I installed. I do bad ?

In safe mode, rolled back drivers. Trying to update the drivers automatically through windows, taking a while though.