I do clean installs and reinstall the programs from the ground up. I find it’s a good time to speed things up, get rid of any older driver’s that might have still been clinging in the system, and reduce used space. Over the years, I’ve developed the habbit of keeping only the OS(and some programs) on C:. I keep a few programs installed to D:(Steam being on D helps since it doesn’t install any odd files and can be copied to a new system without needing a reinstall). Anything data files are on other partitions/drives. I never let the system save any data files to my C:. This lets me backup my Firefox bookmarks and do a fresh install of the OS without any risk of data loss.
I blame Windows 98/ME for this. Used to have to reinstall every couple months to keep the system running fast so I developed this routine to minimize the pain of it. I have a folder with commonly used installs dating back a decade. It’s full of current (sometimes older versions that I liked better) of programs I regularly use so I can reinstall fast without scouring the internet for all of them.
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