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PSA: Stop telling people to just 'reinstall Windows' for every single slow PC
I see this advice all the time and it drives me nuts. A client brought in a laptop from a shop that told her a full wipe was the only fix for it being slow. I ran a quick check and found a failing hard drive, which a reinstall would have done nothing for and she would have lost all her data when it died. It's lazy troubleshooting. Last week, another one just needed a driver update and a good dusting out. A full OS reinstall takes hours and is a huge pain for the user. It should be the absolute last step, not the first. We need to actually diagnose the problem. Has anyone else had to clean up after a shop that just defaults to the nuclear option?
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william8165mo ago
Totally agree, saw a tech youtuber rant about this exact thing lol. It's just lazy and can make things way worse for the person.
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lily_stone765mo ago
That video from Linus Tech Tips a few months back really stuck with me. They showed how a simple "turn it off and on again" script can totally miss a failing hard drive, letting it get worse until data is lost. What kind of tech problem was the youtuber talking about where that lazy fix does more harm?
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