Aspies For Freedom

Hi recently i my xp laptop is screwing up. My brother claims its very slow and lags. So he told me to system restore the whole thing. While i thought it might be a virus, because i dun have the cd's for restoration...... I thought maybe formatting the hard drive may help in cleanning up the registry errors...etc etc Any1 thinks that might help? or maybe you hav a better alternative for me??? Thank You For Your Suggestions!

Have you carried out scans for viruses, spyware, adware, malware, rootkits etc? (The AVG software is pretty good for this and is free for home use)

One thing you can do is re-install XP (which will format the hard drive in the process). This worked for me.

But you will need to back up everything you don't want to lose first - and it is still worth scanning for nasties as the virus / worm / whatever might be in one of the files you are backing up.

Good luck.

first off, get the following programs;

Spybot S&D
Link
AdAware
Link

download them, run spybot, update it, scan it, reboot when asked, scan again, reboot, repeat until you get no positive matches (if it asks you for Teatimer, say yes; it'll stop unauthorised changes to your PC, a little like the UAC in Vista, but better)

run adaware, update, scan, reboot, scan etc etc.

then, if you have no Firewall or antivirus, get something like AVG

update, scan, reboot, scan, repeat until no positive matches.

then, run the Defragger built into windows. depending on the size of your disc, this can take minutes, hours or days. ( I have a 1TB (1024GB) drive, and i dread the day i defrag it). once defragged, your read/write times (when the hard drive makes noise) should be quicker.

also, press ctrl+shift+esc and go to the processes tab.

write it down, or get a screenshot (print screen, go into paint and press ctrl+v, save and upload to photobucket or similar) and we'll tell you what you can terminate

OH! forgot to say, if you dont have the discs, UNDER NO ACCOUNT FORMAT.

you will not be able to restore the OS if you do.

oops - didn't realise you didn't have the discs - although you can buy XP discs pretty cheaply from ebay or overclockers now.

pikajedi4 - 1 Terra Byte - now that's impressive - I'm not even up to half of that yet!

btw is it worth having a look in startup (I find that all sorts of things creep into there which can really slow your computer down when you first turn it on) too and also trying something like hijack this in case there is any unnecessary stuff in the registry - but I will leave pikajedi4 to advise you as you know more than me!

heh, mesa likes that disc :p
only cost be about £150...

anyway, I wouldnty mind you seconding my opinion; in this sort of case, its worth having two people look at it.

I'm going to be telling you to stop things like Quicktime and RealPlayer starting at startup, but i'll talk you through that when we get to it.

oh, about that Ctrl+shift+esc shortcut...it might not work, so just press crtl+alt+del if it doesnt.

Well, I certainly agree that in the absence of XP discs scanning for all possible nasties and defragging and removing any unnecessary items from startup, processes and registry is the best course of action.

Also, how full is your hard drive? You need at least 15% free for the computer to be able to run reasonably well.

If you do manage to get hold of some XP discs at a later date though, it is certainly then worth considering a format and re-install.

oh yes, speaking of free space;

get the Crap Cleaner and use that too. cleans up more than Windows will

there are more things that we can do, but....for now, i would just try what we have mentioned in this thread. if, after that, you want to further optimise XP, just say so, and we'll talk you through.

(also, 775 posts....same as the socket number for my processors =D)