I finally gave into the desire. I just got finished backing up all (i hope) of my data on my IBM Thinkpad T-40. As I write this I am running the IBM rapid restore function. Basically a hidden partition on the hard drive has all the settings and software that the machine had when it was bought. I am just returning it to the factory fresh setup.
I do this every once and a while. I may have done it once or twice before on this particular machine and I have only had it for 11 months. When I had more free time I would do this almost every 2-3 months. Now I don’t have the time, so it is a big pain in the ass to do, but it does wonders for the performance of the box.
I was having issues with the machine freezing up and then begin to work again after 30 seconds or so. I also realized how much crap I had accumulated on the machine. Now I am going to put Windows XP (pro), all the security patches and a few other pieces of software. Everything else I need I will put in a VMWare Virtual Machine. I will put VMWare workstation 4.5 on my machine. I just downloaded the free upgrade from 4.0. I want to keep this laptop as clean as possible. I know deep down that it will never happen in reality, but at least I will try.
I will spend the next week installing the main pieces of software I will need. I will spend the next month after that installing other miscellaneous pieces of software until I am finally happy with the setup.
Whenever I do this I always hope I remembered to back everything up. I almost always forget something. Sometimes important stuff, but usually something stupid, that will just take me time to get again, or I say goodbye forever to it.