To reset or not to reset? That is the question.

[barryem]

I'm a member of the annual factory reset church and I'm pretty devout. I've been doing it with ereaders, computers, tablets, phones, etc. for years. Decades, actually.

I realize I'm in the minority on this and a lot of people don't do it and they have very few problems. I certainly don't think it's a requirement of any kind.

I do it for a number of reasons. First, things go wrong all the time. In a typical computerized device we all do things we shouldn't from time to time. I'm careful about rebooting my laptop daily and I never power it off abruptly unless something serious goes wrong, like it locks up. That's rare but every now and then it happens. Sometimes a program crashes. Sometimes I install something questionable even though I'm pretty careful about that sort of thing and I'll worry about it and change my mind and uninstall. Sometimes things look good until they're installed. Sometimes I'll install something and simply not like it or find I don't need it and I'll uninstall it. Every uninstall leaves at least a little bit of garbage behind and some leaves a lot.

Anyway our computerized devices slowly develop potential problems every day as things happen and since they involve such huge amounts of software we're rarely affected by these problems. We never use more than a fraction of the code in our computers and if something goes wrong even in an area we do use it might not effect us much.

Or it does effect us and we have a problem. Then we deal with it. Or, in the very worse case, it effects us and we don't notice it, causing problems that might even appear later on our backups.

Anyway there are a million things that can go wrong and chances are some did today. And chances are it really doesn't matter. But over time it adds up and since my computer is important to me I like to keep it fresh and give it a clean start now and then.

I personally think that's a wise thing to do. If you don't think so you probably shouldn't do it. And the chances are pretty good if you don't do it it'll never turn into a major problem for you.

It's partly for peace of mind. There are practical aspects of it as well. It probably won't turn out to be a lifesaver but it could, although if it does the chances are you'll never know it. It can't hurt. It might help.

My advice is simply this: be aware of what's involved in doing it and in not doing it and then decide what works for you. But make it an informed decision.

Barry

[eschwartz]

Maybe the "accumulated junk from uninstalling software" is an acccepted response on a Windows PC forum.

Ereaders are linux or Android, have set software, no registry, and anyway have a much better OS and software management model.

The only thing reinstalling my computer could possibly accomplish is requiring me to reconfigure the entire system to have the same installed software and in-use configuration as before... until I have an identical filesystem to the on I rashly deleted.
So I assume the same goes for my ereader.

[robko]

Originally Posted by murg

I just did a factory reset on my year old Kobo Glo HD, before I installed 3.19.whateverthereleasenumberwas.

The reason I did a factory reset was to trim down the internal database.

Unless I'm mistaken, just signing out and back into your account on your device would have done that with a lot less effort.

[murg]

Originally Posted by robko

Unless I'm mistaken, just signing out and back into your account on your device would have done that with a lot less effort.

My Kobo has never been synced...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by murg

My Kobo has never been synced...

Maybe not, but you have to have either logged in when setting it up or inserted a user into the database. You can sign out on the device and it will generate a new database and prompt for a setup. Maybe the simplest way to do this is simply delete the database file. That will get a Kobo device to do the setup.

[murg]

Hacked the database.

Originally Posted by davidfor

Maybe the simplest way to do this is simply delete the database file. That will get a Kobo device to do the setup.

Now you tell me...

[barryem]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Maybe the "accumulated junk from uninstalling software" is an acccepted response on a Windows PC forum.

Ereaders are linux or Android, have set software, no registry, and anyway have a much better OS and software management model.

The only thing reinstalling my computer could possibly accomplish is requiring me to reconfigure the entire system to have the same installed software and in-use configuration as before... until I have an identical filesystem to the on I rashly deleted.
So I assume the same goes for my ereader.

I tried to keep my little rant as generic as I could and at the same time, as inclusive as I could. I know what I said is very true for Windows. It's also true for just about everything before Windows came along.

My programming background was in MS-Dos, unix, xenix, and various IBM and Univac and RCA mainframe OS's, and only a little bit in Windows. I retired when Windows was just becoming a thing.

I don't know enough about linux to say whether those issues are properly dealt with but even if they are they're only part of the problem. And I don't know that they are. Unix was far more stable than Windows but it developed problems over time.

Anyway, there are all kinds of things that go on in any computerized device that can alter the way it works over time. These range from cosmic rays to the fact that computers in recent decades no longer have hardware parity. Bits get changed here and there, now and then. Users mess up here and there, now and then. Data gets corrupted when removing it too quickly from a PC, here and there, now and then. There are a million things that can happen. They probably don't matter but they might.

It's all about how careful you like to be. As I said, a lot of people never bother and they're never sorry. Some are sorry. It's just playing the odds. Bet the way that works for you.

Barry

[eschwartz]

Well, sheesh, the only thing a Kindle factory reset touches anyway is the userstore!

Surely your logic requires you to reflash the firmware... to a read-only partition...

Anyway, it's not hard to find all non-packaged files on a linux OS, and confirm their integrity. You can even version-control them, to be really sure.

There are plenty of tricks, and failing that, grounds for optimism, for avoiding extraneous HDD reimaging.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by issybird

Every now and then, I've had to do a factory reset. No biggie and it's solved whatever I meant it to solve. But occasionally I see people advocate a factory reset as a tune-up, or akin to getting an oil change - just something that should be scheduled occasionally to keep things humming along.

So is this something I should be doing? I admit it, I hesitate. Partially because I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school, but also because of the nuisance aspect of starting from scratch.

Should I suck it up and do it or let well enough alone?

Leave it alone if you have no problems.

I've got some friends who seem to be stuck in 1996, which is the time when Windows 95 would crash every other minute after half a year of use (because of the "DLL hell").

They just can't believe that it's not neccesary any longer to reïnstall Windows every half a year. (I've had Windows installations running without any problems for up to 8 years now, even doing in-place upgrades from Vista to 7 to 10.)

"Back in the day" it was *REQUIRED* to re-install Windows every half a year (or year, if you were careful) because it would be messed up beyond repair. Nowadays, there's no such need if you use your computer normally.

I think that this urge to 'reset' that some people have is a hold-over from early computer days or something.

So if it can be done with an operating system, an e-reader can do it for sure. I have never factory resetted my Kindle PW1, as far as I can tell, and it's now more than three years old.

[Katsunami]

Oh, and if you would like some proof of my post above... see the attachment in this post. It's a screenshot of my laptop's installation. I install all programs in "C:\Programs\" so its creation date reflects this computer's installation date.

At this time, it is 7 years *TO THE DAY* (8 jan 2009 - 8 jan 2016) that I have installed this computer with Windows Vista Business. Then I upgraded it to Windows 7 in 2011 (after cloning the hard drive to an SSD), and now to Windows 10 a few months ago, right on top of the old installation.

As soon as its successor arrives, which is in transit right now, this laptop will retire without having been re-installed... *ever*. The same goes for the desktop counterpart, which will also be succeeded by the new laptop, and that computer is almost 8 years old.

Factory reset just to 'refresh a device' and 'make it run smooth'?

In 1996? Very necessary.
In 2016? Baloney.

Embedded stuff such as e-readers will run forever if you don't do any weird stuff like trying to hack them.

[issybird]

Thanks to all who weighed in. Luckily for me, the consensus agrees with my own inclination, to let well enough alone. The bottom line seems to be that the incremental advantage, if any, of resetting wouldn't offset the nuisance aspect and I don't like fiddling with stuff anyway, so I'll let this thought go.

Thank you again.

[theunderscore]

Rebooting is normally the answer :P I have to do that with my phone now and then.

[Froide]

Originally Posted by theunderscore

Rebooting is normally the answer :P I have to do that with my phone now and then.

This.

Between reboots, I run Clean Master on my Android devices, and CCleaner, Glary Utilities, and TFC on my Windows computers.