One Year Entropy Rule Valid with XP?

A concept that I knew and applied in years gone by to Windows 95/98 recently came up on a blog I enjoy written by a Tablet PC aficionado, called Tabula PC. In a post discussing different challenges he’s facing at the office, Peter Rysavy mentions his desktop PC at work is approaching “that one year mark of entropy�:

“My work desktop is slowly disintegrating. Outlook had to be reinstalled several times, IE is shaky, and the whole thing is super slow. No, it’s not spyware – it’s just approaching that one year mark of entropy.”

Note that I’m making an assumption here, but I’m guessing that he’s on either Windows XP or at least Windows 2000 at work. Peter, I invite you to confirm that. Anyhow, here’s my question:

Does the once generally agreed upon concept – that after about a year of use Windows needs to be reinstalled from scratch – still hold true in the world of Windows XP? I realize I don’t have the readership to really start this discussion, but hopefully someone will pick up the question and pose it in a forum much larger than this.

Various fake Windows error messages. ;-)
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4 Responses to “One Year Entropy Rule Valid with XP?”

  • Marc Orchant Says:
    August 28th, 2004 at

    Jason:

    It depends a bit on how much software you install and uninstall – that is the single biggest contributor to Windows arthritis (or entropy as you label it). I have had XP systems get so crufty I’ve had to rebuild them after six months (I test a *lot* of software) and others that last 18 months before getting too cranky to put up with.

  • Glen Says:
    August 28th, 2004 at

    And then there are the likes of me. Bare minimum. Don’t rock the boat. No testing. No gaming. I surf. I Blog. I rip tunes from vinyl. I burn CD’s. ho-hum…. but goin on 3 years.

  • Jason Says:
    August 28th, 2004 at

    Wow – two great comments already! Marc, I hear where you’re coming from. I’m also a self-confessed gadget / utility freak, and tend to install and uninstall an inordinate amount of software on my machines. I have friends that reinstall their OS every few months it seems, and while I install and uninstall a lot more “stuff” (ok, a lot of it is crap, but you have to try it to see, right?) I’m surprised that I haven’t run into that problem with a machine that’s going on 3 years in production. Maybe I’ve just been lucky on that one, or maybe I’m slowing down compared to how I used to treat my systems. But it seems to me that Windows gets a bad rap for the 1 year arthritis or entropy problem, and that any other OS that was treated the same way (lots of installs and uninstalls) would have similar issues.

  • Chris Says:
    August 29th, 2004 at

    I’ve seen “Windows entropy,” but not since the release of XP. I second Marc, though — my last machine had only what I needed to survive on it, and never once did I want to restage it. The Win2K box downstairs, though, has had random applications installed and uninstalled so many times that it’s a beast to use. The amount of software you put on it is key.

    I’d love to know why that is… is it registry bloat? Drive fragmentation? An excess number of registered components?