Trying to fix a rally messd up (software-wise) machine

[Iridium]

Alright, this isn't quite, "Ryan, I don't have a modem and can't access the internet...can you help me?", but it's close. My friend is running a 1.6 GHz P4M laptop. (Academy issue stuff.) Mine works just fine, but hers is bogged down to the point that startup takes nearly 10 minutes and everything runs slow. The idea of computer maintenance is totally lost on her. I've defragged it, compressed and backed up old files, and it still runs slow. My ideas now are:

1) Spyware scan;
2) Uninstall old programs;
3) Clean the registry;

Any other ideas? After the defrag and cleanup it showed almost no improvement; I really don't know if the three above steps will make the difference, (though I really hope so!). Any other ideas? Any good programs to try?

-Iridium

 

[ardy891]

Reformat the hard drive, its easy enough!!

 

[Tommy Boy]

ya, sounds like it's an old install of windows, over time things start running slow and stuff like that...I would just reformat it