It happens at one point or another. You end up realizing that your computer is slow, loaded with things you don't want, documents scattered all over the place, and more icons than you ever imagined. You have pop-up windows throwing themselves at you left and right. You may have even found a letter from your Internet service provider telling you that your computer is sending spam mail to others! Some local technician may have even told you that the best way to take care of that problem is to reinstall everything with your product recovery CDs or a Windows CD.

STOP! You don't have to wipe out your computer to make it work right again! No matter what anyone else may tell you, don't accept that fate and move on! I have personally brought many machines back up to top condition in terms of security, cleanliness, speed, and usability, WITHOUT wiping out documents, settings, icon layouts, and everything else that makes your computer unique!

Are you aware that any technician that wants to reinstall everything without an extremely good reason is either inexperienced or lazy? Reinstallation is a "quick universal fix" for many software problems when a tech cannot figure out how to repair it. Sure, if you nuke your software and bring it back to factory condition, it'll run better. There's no way to dispute that. However, there are many negative aspects of wiping the slate totally clean that you might not realize:

• You will basically lose all of your settings in your software. Nothing will be spared. You will have to re-configure everything.
• The only two ways for a tech to get your software settings back after re-installing are to do it all by hand for you, or to slap the registry data and files from the "unreliable" installation over the new one, which is dangerous and unreliable.
• If your documents aren't backed up properly before a totally clean install, you'll lose everything. Period. No, they can't get them back after erasing and installing over it all.
• If you no longer have the original disks for any piece of your software, the tech may be unable to put that software back on your computer.
• Your computer's security will not necessarily improve simply because of a total reinstallation. Think about it: if the system isn't severely compromised, can't the configuration changes needed to secure a system be done WITHOUT wiping out everything?
• If you forget that you don't have a disk for a program, a QuickBooks database isn't stored in a convenient place for the tech to locate it, or anything similar, you can easily lose it through reinstallation.

I have had the displeasure of reinstalling my own installation of Windows before. The last time I did it myself (keep in mind that I am an experienced technician) it took me about ONE ENTIRE WEEK to restore my system's programs and settings back to the way I liked them. After that reinstallation, I have not done it again. Every computer problem I encounter is taken care of without reinstalling. There are solutions to problems that you might have been led to believe required a reinstall. Take it from a person that has heavily used the same installation of Windows 2000 for three years, and it still runs about as fast as when it was fresh!

Tritech Computer Solutions' policy on this is simple. Reinstalling everything from scratch is not acceptable. Your data is priceless, your settings are priceless, and you deserve to have the computer repaired, not wiped out. There are two reasons that a reinstall is required:

• If your Windows installation's registry is totally destroyed or your installation is corrupted to where it won't boot even in safe mode, you will require a reinstallation in some form.
• If your hard drive is failing or has totally failed, the likelihood that you'll need it all installed anew is very high. If the hard drive failure is not absolute, Tritech can potentially recover as much as 100% of your important data, depending on where the failure has spread.
• If you explicitly want a clean slate, a reinstall is acceptable, but your data being protected in the process is very important!

As a Tritech customer, we believe that you deserve the best service possible, and we know that your computer is a tool to accomplish many of your goals. Don't accept a total wipe of your system without good reason. I certainly won't.