Mailing List AE-List@media-motion.tv — Message #63657
From: Carey Dissmore <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
Subject: Re: [AE] (OT) PC Users, how often do you do a clean install of the OS? Alternatives?
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 19:07:36 -0600
To: After Effects Mail List <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
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I’ve used Macrium Reflect Free but currently using (paid) Acronis True Image.
While it has the ability to write to network drives, I have found it to be problematic and unreliable, so I have started to use an external USB 3 drive for the images…but I do make a safety copy of them onto the NAS.

carey
On Jan 21, 2018, at 5:39 PM, Allen Ellis <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

Thanks Carey, that list looks brilliant and I'm going to give it a shot this week. Which program do you use for the image creation / restore? I've tried veeam agent but the last time I tried it, I had some issues loading an image from a network share.

Allen Ellis
(724) 316-5484

On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Robert Houghton <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

Fantastic tip Carey, thanks. I did notice in the most recent Creators update of windows 10 that they have renamed their "Fresh Start" feature. It seems to streamline the process on Windows side at least. I do keep project files and similar items on a separate hard drive array which generally keeps them safe from OS harm in the event of a problem and then there's a live backup NAS I have running as well as File History. I operate under the thought that anyone who operates without backups in this day and age invites disaster.

    - Robert H


On 10/10/2017 7:52 AM, Carey Dissmore wrote:
Years ago on Mac, and today on PC, I made the determination that clean installs were always a benefit on a machine that I depend on to make a living and frankly put through a pounding of daily abuse. So I set about to minimizing the pain of the clean install. I don’t have time to go into details here but the overall schema looks like this:

Prep:
Collect all your installers and serial numbers, etc. Build a text file containing all this necessary data.
Work out an installation order that makes sense. Something like this:
1. OS + updates
2. Drivers
3. Critical apps and their plugins (certain drivers, like Blackmagic ones, are best installed after the apps they empower)
4. Utilities and other second tier apps

Place your installers in numbered order folders to ease this. Order your text file to the same order. Now you have a plan for your clean install. Once built, very easily updated. I keep all the installers and these notes on a NAS drive.

Install in the order above, making any notes about decisions you made or things you encountered in your text file. 
MAKE A DISK IMAGE after each phase of the install above. Park it somewhere safe (external drive, NAS, etc.)

After a week or two into the install you will have made your final adjustments to various system settings, etc. it might be a good idea to make another image of your boot drive at this point. KEEP ALL THESE IMAGES but now stop making them. 

Use your machine. If you end up grabbing updates or installing things in the weeks or months after this, open up your text file and make a note of it. 

At any time you feel system weirdness or slowdowns entering the picture, revert to your image (probably the latest but perhaps back to one of your earlier points). You have your text file to guide you as to what is and is not part of that image and you can update things after the restore very quickly.

This way you can revert back to clean install as often as necessary (I average 4-6 months) to remain at tip-top performance, without much pain at all. 

Then, after a year or two when there have been other events such as major OS or app changes, or perhaps you have switched computers or hardware, you need to start a total new clean install. Repeat from the beginning at that point. You will still be in better place having the organizational infrastructure in place.

carey



On Oct 10, 2017, at 1:52 AM, Evan Fotis Georgoulakis <AE-List@media-motion.tv> wrote:

For what its worth, I still have a 2011 win 7x64 rig by my side still working perfectly.
The old cliche applies here "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"..

However there are many utilities for image & backup / restore from Acronis, O&O and other companies that streamline the process.


On 09-Oct-17 22:49, Robert Houghton wrote:

Good afternoon,

��� Ever since I can remember, I've always took time each year or two to format my workstation & laptop and do a clean installation of whatever current version of windows on it. It always seemed kind of harsh and could easily take the better part of half a workday to repopulate it with the apps and plugins I use on it.

��� I'm starting to get the itch to do that once again and it just made me wonder with how much smarter OS's and apps have been, is there an alternative people use instead of doing a full system wipe for maintenance of the OS and all it's billions of digital parts?

��� - Robert H

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