What kind of maintenance should I do to avoid software rot?

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I use Acronis for B/U's. I use CCleaner and Diskeeper for defragging everytime I shut down...takes about a minute and keeps the PC perky all the time.

I've read the article and thou I have used a computer for too many years and I have often thought about cleaning it I never have but I had a guru who occassionally cleaned it up for me but now he is gone.. so I live in fear for THAT day???

okdok, txs! however how can I know where they re, so I can
"
take a backup image of your system after taking all the updates (and ONLY taking updates, no other installations), and use that as a snapshot to start over with next time.

- Leo
03-Dec-2008"

You mentioned that there was no easy way to back-up drivers in your article on software rot. I have used a couple of freeware driver backup packages when re-installing windows on a machine that has become slow/clogged/impossible to continue with and have had no problems. I forget exactly which programs I used but a search for "driver backups for windows xp" will find you plenty to try and choose from. Basically one backs up to an external disk and then after re-installing windows one just restores them or points your browser to the backup as and when required. When looking through my list of downloaded software the installation files I have under driver backup software are DML.exe, DriverMagician.exe and drivermax.exe to give you a clue of the ones I have used. An important thing to remember when doing a re-installation of windows is to get the product key numbers of your software such as Windows operating system, microsoft office etc. I use an old freeware program called Aida but this is now no longer available so one will have to find some other programs that can give you this info. Also don't forget to backup things like your address book, favorites etc etc.
cheers
Pete

Try "drivermax" to look after your drivers.

I strongly disagree with the statement that "I'd also stay away from the registry cleaning that it offers," On several occasions my wife and our friends have come to me with computers which have slowed down to a craw. I ran CCleaner on them (both the free disk space option, and the registry clean-up option) and the computers got started working much faster. I always say yes to the backup option. I would warn that if you are not a reasonably experienced trouble shooter there may be a danger in running any registry cleaner.

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