DavidR
8
For many years the accepted thought was that leaving your computer running was better for your computer as the temperature range was more stable than constantly switching off your computer. The most stressful time for components is start-up.
For many years I left my system on 24/7 with no harmful effects, I didn’t even allowing the system to go into standby and spin down the HDDs. The only time I shut down were for system related problems in win95, win98 and win98se.
Components have improved, but the most stressful time is still start-up. Since switching to XP Pro, I leave my system on all day shutting down at night (doing my bit for the environment, not because it is best to do so).
Just my 2p worth.
Edit: Re VRDB, I don’t allow mine to run automatically, but schedule it into my regular maintenance tasks, so that when it is being run at a time with little else running. This takes about 5 minutes for about 6GB of data (obviously not all of that isn’t required for VRDB scan), the first time it is run will obviously be much longer.