Does reinstalling an OS (Windows, Mac, iOS) makes the computer faster ? Should we factory reset our devices every year ?
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Usually it takes 3 or 4 years for those types of problems to get bad enough for a full reinstall to be worth it.
A clean OS won’t make your computer run faster but it will free up memory by removing any random apps you have running in the background, etc. so it might help you do more at once.
You wouldn’t really want to do that on your computer any more than you would empty out your entire house of all your things every year. Sure there might be a slight benefit but it isn’t worth the hassle.
It does by deleting lots of files, applications, and processes that get installed and saved onto the computer oder time. It basically reduces the load that your computers processor and memory have at any given time making it seem faster after the fresh reinstall. But as you continue to use it and redownload and reinstall new things, it will slow down again. The better alternative is to regularly clean up your files and applications to make sure you don’t have things that you don’t need installed and running in the background.
It can; the clutter and errors accumulated by programs can have an impact over time. But it’s probably not worth it every year. You’re much better off spending your time backing up your files every 3 months or so, and reinstalling only when necessary.
In general it’s not that reinstalling the OS is what caused the speedup. It’s that uninstalling all the other nonsense is what caused the speedup. Reinstalling the OS is just the most certain way to ensure you’ve uninstalled everything else and haven’t missed a spot, as it forces you to start from scratch.
Especially if one of the other bits of “nonsense” that’s causing a slowdown is a piece of malware that doesn’t *want* to let you uninstall it. A full re-install from scratch is one way to circumvent any trickery it’s trying to do to prevent itself from being removed.
Yes and no. There are a few things that will make a computer slow: RUNNING applications (install 12 billion apps.. doesnt matter unless theyre actively running something), and disk fragmentation. With SSDs, fragmentation is not an issue. Heat and failing hardware are usually two of the major causes of computer slowness, but reinstalling the OS wont help with that.
There is a possibility that as time goes on, various databases and indices can become bloated and take longer to load/search, but you’re not really going to see this too often.
With proper maintenance, and a little knowledge, you can keep a computer running in top shape for many years without having to reinstall it, or even any applications on your computer.
I work in IT, and my computers tend to have a vast number of applications installed. The only time I ever reinstall my OS is about once every 5 years when I build a new one. Granted, I’m running very high end hardware, but I also know how to keep it running smooth.. from managing services and startup items, to tweaking settings that needlessly eat up resources.
Let me show you an example which is easier to understand.
Does visiting a dentist make your teeth better? It’s kinda yes and no question, right? If you ignored your mouth hygiene, then there’s a good chance visiting a dentist will make your teeth better. If you don’t ignore your hygiene it doesn’t make much difference, but the dentist may find and fix something hidden you didn’t realize.
Your question is the same. If you ignore the “installation hygiene” and you install everything, download everything, accept everything without reading it – good guess is that you will slow your PC over time with unwanted running software, multiple useless files here and there and such. Which can slow your PC. OTOH if you run & download only what you really need and you don’t accept every cookie out there, essentially you don’t need to reinstall the OS for a long time.
Back in college we did a bet about Windows XP(which was fancy new OS back then :)). We installed the OS, installed all the applications we wanted and then cloned the drive and hidden the cloned one. After 2 semesters(9 and something months) we did some testing and we couldn’t tell the difference. Sure, the used hard drive wasn’t exactly as fast as the “clean” installed one, but the difference was on a level of statistical error. Long story short the few believers got plenty of alcohol for the summer break 😀
Edit> additional information to the bet – yes, defragmentation was run at least once a month and the person was actually quite careful about all the webpages, downloads and install. They installed 2 more applications for projects.
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