Windows 7 Reinstalling Windows 7

[Quartermass]

It's time to clean off Windows 7 and install it again. I do this periodically, and I've now settled on the software that will be installed... so it's time to get it done. I'm not in a rush to do this, so I'm trying to do it right

I'm going to be doing a reinstall of |Firefox - I've been using the same profile for a few years now and it's time for a clean sweep there. I'm on top of Firefox and everything there is covered.

I'm going to be doing a reinstall of Steam - I've just stuck a new hybrid 500GB drive in for it.

I've backed up all my saved games using SaveGameBackup. I've taken a list of the software I have installed from Secunia PSI. I haven't yet, but I will make a collection of drivers. I may use SlimDrivers to get this or I may grab the proper install files. Not sure what is best there.

Since it's unusual for me to be doing this without some kind of time constraint, or crippling Windows problem, or hardware installation... I thought I'd take the time to find out if anyone else has things they like to do before doing a reinstall. In case there's something I could improve on to make things smoother.

 

[Highwayman]

I normally save my bookmarks out to a file for my browsers, backup or move important stuff to spare hds, move my steamapps folder to spare drive (saves redownloading 190gb...lol) make sure i have the important stuff like LAN driver handy, and make sure games saves are backed up, then off I go.

Worth mentioning I have all my common drivers and app installers on a 2nd drive beforehand. I used to go down the route of backup of the physical install but it gets out of date or could have backed up something thats corrupted or virused etc so often better to wipe and start fresh with latest updates.

 

[Quartermass]

I'll put the drivers on a USB drive, and steam files etc on the network, so I can get access to those.

I'll export the bookmarks from my browser, and the passwords too. Everything else is getting wiped. Can't think of anything else.