I reformatted my laptop’s hard drive this weekend.

Wiping everything on the laptop like that makes you think hard about life. It feels like you’re wiping the memory of an old friend, and now you have to start all over again. It’s sad, because there are so many memories tied up with that particular Windows installation.

In another way, it’s like moving: It’s good, because you pack everything up that you want to keep and throw the rest. A bit of good old house-cleaning, which was sorely needed. And by dumping some registry keys and application data for the few applications you want to keep, everything works surprisingly smooth.

The only thing I wasn’t quite able to carry with me was, not surprisingly, Microsoft Office. But then again, that’s probably a very convincing argument to try out the free OpenOffice suite anyway. Since I use about 1.5% of the total functionality in Office, it probably shouldn’t be a significant problem.

Some interesting things:

• While it takes about 30-40 minutes to reinstall Windows, updating it with all the latest hotfixes, security patches and service packs takes more like two hours.
• Most applications these days seem to avoid the registry and store most settings in the Isolated Storage instead (Application Data). Big relief.
• A complete reinstall, along with all the settings, programs and utilities you want, takes at least 8 hours; and then another few days to tweak it just the way you want it. It’s a full-time job for a while. Just like moving.