Originally Posted by
nkedel
There are many bad design decisions in Windows, and many more that are not inherent to Windows but which are design conventions with how most companies/developers write software on Windows. That is not one of them.
We can agree to disagree on this point: For me, it is inherently better to segregate the programs that are installed with the OS from the ones that I install myself. That works best for me, but by all means, do what works for you.
Originally Posted by
wr_schwab
While this won't help you this time, you may want to look into something like Acronis True Image Home.
You go through the pain of reinstalling Windows, all your programs, tweak everything the way you want it and then you use this to make a disk image which you put somewhere you won't loose
The disk image is a copy of everything on your hard drive exactly as it stands at the time the image is made. In the future, if you need to do it again, just restore the image and then you just need to update Windows and anything else to bring you back to where you are right now.
This is a great idea that I completely forgot to mention: Imaging the installation can save a load of time on reinstalls, especially if you do it after all the Windows updates are done. I currently use Macrium Reflect, which offers a free version.