Yup. I've never wiped a Macintosh system. I certainly am not going to start with OSX. No restarts either except for security updates. Mostly I think it is old habits that die hard. As stated before the repair permissions has taken the place of the repair desktop placebo.<br><br><br><br><br>(__*__)

Actually, the old Rebuild Desktop DID fix one thing. When you got generic file and program icons, it always fixed that.<br><br>Yep, other than adding a new hard drive, I haven't done the erase and reinstall in years. And as program activation schemes become more and more accepted, I'm even less inclined to start from scratch.<br><br>And I know some people swear their computers runs faster after doing this but I think it's the clean-car-and-oil-change syndrome. I've only experienced it once. Years ago in the OS 9 days, a couple of hard program crashes on my old Wallstreet PowerBook screwed up my hard drive so bad I had to do a low-level format and reinstall everything. That baby really zipped until I actually had to start installing programs and extensions. Gradually, it slowed right back down to what I was used to. Can't say I've experienced that in X.<br><br>

No matter what I never had a kernel panic or freeze, when I notice things get wonky - I run repair permissions and its good again. Even if its a placebo or not, it works for me.<br><br>Conversely, I have never had to wipe HDs and do clean installs in 10 years - well for the one time that the problem was hardware related and I thought it was software.<br><br>

I've noticed most of the items in need of repair/verification are font related. I run a gabillion fonts through FontAgent when compiling ads for publications, and Onyx tends to make things right. I think running the cron scripts to delete the various caches is the magic stuff, after a restart the system and most all apps seem snappier... if it's just a placebo I'm good with that. <br><br><br><br>

Reminds me of that old Steve Martin routine where he said he had just tried this new drug called "pla-CEE-bo" and he was high as a kite.<br><br>

In my case, the purpose of blowing out the system is not to fix any one little problem. It's a very useful housekeeping procedure I do *once* or *twice* a year. <br><br>In doing so, I ensure that:<br><br>--I go through my hard drive and archive everything I want to keep and organize it<br><br>--Any files that have become corrupted such as preferences, etc...completely erased. <br><br>--Once I put everything back, I redownload all the latest versions of my shareware apps, software updates, etc. This forces me to keep things current. <br><br>And then, there's the intangibles. OS X is not perfect...and is prone to wacky behavior at times. A complete reinstall fixes it every time!<br><br>Others choose to troubleshoot their OS issues....I say more power to them!<br><br><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>my old Wallstreet PowerBook<p><hr></blockquote><p><br>Hey, watch what you say about the Wallstreets. Mine is still pluging away as the house computer downstairs, running Jaguar. A little slow (OK . . . a lot slow ) but very serviceable.<br><br>. . . . . Here's lookin' at [color:red]you</font color=red> kid.

Had I but known. I had a lot of accessories that I packed with it when I traded it in at CompuUSA a couple of years ago. Got $350 store credit for it which was fine with me. I really loved that thing. Did every upgrade possible except for the processor. <br><br>Have you tried ShadowKiller? Eliminating all those drop shadows makes it a little snappier, taking some strain off of that whomping 4 MB VRAM.<br><br>

As I recall, the desktop could not hold more than a certain number of files, a little over a thousand, and after that the Mac might go bonkers! I found this which jives with what I remember [and I found on Apple's site the once a month recommendation too]:<blockquote><br>It is recommended that you rebuild your desktop file on a regular basis, as frequently as once per month. Your desktop consists of a pair of invisible system files that maintain information about the files, folders, and programs on your hard disk drive.<br><br>Occasionally your desktop file may become too large or may be damaged. Rebuilding the desktop file relinks documents to their correct programs and rewrites the desktop file. <br><br>Before you rebuild the desktop, verify that you have enough space available on the hard disk. The desktop rebuilding process requires hard disk space and will not successfully complete without it. A good guideline is to always have 5 percent of the hard disk drive or other volume available as free space.</blockquote><br><br>and<blockquote><br>This is normally a sign of an unusable Desktop file. The Desktop database contains information about all files on your hard disk, including the icon associated with the file. Over time, it can become unusable and fail to associate the proper icon with the file. <br><br>Rebuilding the desktop usually fixes the issue.</blockquote><br><br>Rebuilding the desktop was not just to make a person feel like they did something, which might have been better than nothing. I am of the opinion that repairing permissions is a 'good thing' also.<br><br><blockquote>Repair Permissions<br>Why: OS X uses a permissions system to determine which programs and folders a user can access. Sometimes these permissions are mistakenly modified, and you can’t access folders or programs. Repairing disk permissions restores the correct permissions, allowing access to folders and applications.</blockquote><br><br>If anyone does not want to repair permissions, more power to them. Oh another thing. Manys the time I have seen people say, "throw away your plist such n such file" as a way to repair an errant file or program. Throwing away the 'desktop' file in OS 9 was the same as rebuildint the desktop and much the same result as ditching the plist file.<br><br>KateMate

I'll have to see if that improves performance. Thanks!<br><br>. . . . . Here's lookin' at [color:red]you</font color=red> kid.