How often do you format your pc?

back on windows 95 it was like every other month. since then it changed a lot. with windows 10 i didn't had to format anything.

I got a small question around computers, its not about formatting but about defragmenting... I am running on a windows 7 ultimate 64bit (no SSD's), I kinda wonder how often I have to defrag my PC to keep things clean, I do this now almost every month but is it really need so much? Anyone please? Thanks in advance :)

unless something bad happens, i never do it. ^^

Every 6 months or so. I hate all those random files that are left by games or programs I no longer use.

I run cleanups and stuff mabe about once a month.

I don't really format, I clean up my HDD once ever 3 months maybe?

Since I upgraded from winxp to win7 in 2010 I have not formatted my PC. I mean I switched computers and in that case I do a clean install, but I haven't encountered anything bad enough that it would warrant a format.

Before then, however, hoo boy.

On bad days, when I close my eyes, I can still see the Win 98 installation screens.
And then.. then.. I used Win ME. But I still did most formats win 98 since I was a dumb kid doing dumb things.

Only when I buy a new rig. ^^

If the worst comes to worst then I have the cloud and external HDD backups and I'm using Acronis.

Every time I buy a computer with Windows installed on it. Once Linux is installed I generally don't have a need to format my HDD.

Only when needed, which is almost never. Last time was a few weeks ago because I switched to Linux and then switched back to Windows.

Everytime I get a virus I can't clean up, heh. Last time was maybe December 2016 or so? Virus was cleaned but registry kept giving me an error about something missing so I figured it's just best to start new since who knows what else was messed up.

Fresh OS instal once a year. Since I use Win10 I have the feeling its not really needed though

Used to format whenever I got bored, which was a lot. Now I never really bother unless there's a very major issue...like a virus party. (but that doesn't happen anymore either). I kinda admit I miss those old sturdy memory / boot-sector viruses

Almost never. Last time I had to format was years ago. I had a nasty virus and figured itd be less of a headache (and take less time) to just scrub it than to clean it.

I used to format every 6 months - with each OS upgrade (it was easy enough since all my data was on a separate partition). I still format every OS upgrade, but that's now every 2-5 years.

Rarely. Last time was when I upgraded my Phenom II X3 Windows 7 system to a Pentium G4560 system with Windows 10.