Ransomware Protection

Fizz wrote:

owenssailor wrote:

What is the source for the "needs" fresh install. I know any PCs that are many years old and still happy as can be.

I think this is a holdover from DOS, not needed anymore
Back then it was easy to do, three or four floppies.

Actually it is still a valid method. Windows uses a registry to control and support all its functions. This registry can get bloated with code fragments, lost pointers, dead locations, etc. There are registry cleaners that can take care of some of this but not all. Unless you are using a program like deep freeze which reverts your computer to a previous state(more than just a restore point), you can benefit from an occasional wipe and fresh install.
If you are using a SSD then use the utilities available to keep them refreshed, less write cycles used.

delwhjr wrote:

Fizz wrote:

owenssailor wrote:

What is the source for the "needs" fresh install. I know any PCs that are many years old and still happy as can be.

I think this is a holdover from DOS, not needed anymore
Back then it was easy to do, three or four floppies.

Actually it is still a valid method. Windows uses a registry to control and support all its functions. This registry can get bloated with code fragments, lost pointers, dead locations, etc. There are registry cleaners that can take care of some of this but not all. Unless you are using a program like deep freeze which reverts your computer to a previous state(more than just a restore point), you can benefit from an occasional wipe and fresh install.
If you are using a SSD then use the utilities available to keep them refreshed, less write cycles used.

It is a lot of work to do a fresh clean install. Think of companies that have large numbers of windows based computers. Where I worked we had over 2000 PC's. We certainly did not periodically go round doing a refresh of the OS install. The machines got a new install only when we migrated them to a newer release - and that was a huge amount of work.