I stopped doing it around Windows 7 and have not really seen an issue. I have Windows 10 installations that date back to the original Windows 10 release (and have been updated with Windows Update all the way up to the current) and they are running perfectly fine.
That being said, I feel like I install much less software than I used to. They used to hand out CDs with computer magazines that were basically dumps of random quality freeware/shareware. The amount of registry items and other such crap that kind of software left lying around is probably a large reason why a re-format was required so often.
That being said, I think many people underestimated increased processing power over ages.
1gb of ram on win 7 equals 4 times of 256 mb win 98 era. With 8gb it's 32 times larger. That's just ram though, not to mention processing power between pentium 3-4 with multicore i series.
The difference in ram caching and cpu processing is big that some additional process won't give much problem.
I would say vista. Many programs would go out of their way to mess with the windows\system32 folder. MS locked most of that out. WinSxS fixed many of the issues where you needed to play around in system32. They also added in a huge chunk of 'compatibility' they would ship in the registry of programs they know are messed up with particular combinations of dlls. The downside of winsxs is cleanup. It was not until late in the lifecycle of win7 they added some way to purge old junk out of it.
Reinstalling Windows XP SP 2 on my computer growing up was one of the first things that got interested in what was going on at the operating system level. I found Windows XP Inside Out around the house, read it over so many times, and eventually re-installed it on my computer for fun.
I was floored to realize how much faster things were. No wait time for a Windows Explorer window to open. Everything was snappy, even after reinstalling games and antivirus. It blew my mind.
I still think it helps, but with a much longer tail on the frequency required. Windows XP definitely grew slow over time though, whether that was due to installing programs, caches I could’ve cleared with CClearner, or more incremental updating. We leave a lot on the OS over time.
I had the same experience with Windows XP growing up. Very few months I would reinstall my desktop computer that ran WinXP, and I did the same with the laptop I had after that which was also running WinXP. During that time I used to install a lot of random freeware and shareware and trial software and games and game demos. And probably those things were leaving stuff behind like you guys said.
The very first time I reinstalled WinXP was shortly after I got my first computer of my own for my 12th birthday. I was tinkering with some of the files, and discovered that I could open .cur cursor files in MS Paint. I edited one of the cursor files, saved it as a bmp and renamed the file to .cur under the assumption that this would work. Set my custom cur file as cursor and logged out. When I tried to log back in I couldn’t. Whoops. Freaked out for a second thinking I had broken everything. Remembered that there was a red floppy disk with an ambulance on it that came with the computer. Rebooted the machine with the red floppy disk and reinstalled Windows. Lost my files but had nothing valuable at the time anyways. Have lost more valuable data since then. And expect to lose more data in the future still :p
My most painful data loss was when I tried a Windows "alternative" called "Lindows" [0]. Touted as "Linux, but easy like Windows!."
So I put the disk in, and it says something like "Do you want to install Lindows?" with no options, no warnings or anything. So I hit Yes/Okay/whatever the single button on the screen was, and without zero warning, it proceeded to wipe my entire hard drive.
Every once in a while since I switched back to windows a couple years ago I’m tempted to fresh install… then I remember my machine still runs perfectly fast
many things like low level gaming api wouldn't work, and FYI we talk about ages when virtualization was at its infancy at best (Windows 95 era there was none that I am aware of for consumer PCs, XP era still super basic, quirky and resource hungry)
People running VMs aren't trying to play games on them though, are they? Seems like the best reason for VMs and refreshing back to start each time is perfect for freedom fighters and others web surfers that don't want their host system polluted by bullshit developer's and their internet games.
I have to think that at least with modern phone OSes, apps are so compartmentalized, that there really isn’t an opportunity to pollute your entire phone.
But feel free to look at all the extensions and bullshit you have in your browsers and bash shell
