XP problem????

[JerryB1]

A friend has an older computer and cannot at this time afford to buy a new one. The problem is, he;s running Windows XP and his hard drive is over 50% loaded and the machine is very slow. He does not have a restore disk. How can I restore his machine to the factory settings and clean up his computer???

Thank you for the help...

 

[iPwn]

You cannot restore to factory settings without a Windows Installation disk unless there's a "recovery" partition on the computer. There are some tricks to speed up the computer though.

First and foremost would be disabling all the startup programs by going to Start > Run > type msconfig and press enter.
Go to the startup tab and press disable all.
Now re-enable things like the AntiVirus Software and critical apps.
If you don't know if it needs to run, just ask.

Next would be cleaning your registry. To do this, use CCleaner. It is recommended that you do an inventory of all the installed applications and remove any that are no longer used or crapware (WebSearch Toolbars and the like).
When you run CCleaner, on the left hand menu choose registry and the click analyze.
Once complete, Fix the Selected Issues (All of them) and make a backup of the registry.
(When you click Fix Selected Issues it will ask if you wish to create a backup of the registry, click yes and save the backup)

Some additional tips for Windows XP
<General House Cleaning>

 

[JCB1]

the best thing to do would be to wipe the hard-drive and re-install windows XP

or you could take a look at a guide i wrote a while back @ How to make windows xp run faster | Computing Tips to see if this helps you get some speed back

 

[Tommy Boy]

The reason it's running slow is probably not because the drive is half full, it's probably spyware/adware/viruses. Get some virus and spyware software and run it on the pc. Also a good registry cleaner will do wonders for making the pc run faster.

 

[JerryB1]

Thank you for the advice.
I tried to download CCleaner, (which I have used for years, along with Glary Utilities) but his web browser is very messed up...

 

[codeman0013]

Do you have the computer? I would reccomend we start with running a scan with HiJackThis Found here Trend Micro HijackThis - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com Save it to your desktop and run it and send us the log file so we can start there..

 

[JerryB1]

The computer is in the same house where I stay but I don't have access to it all the time. Will find out today if he wants it fixed or not...

 

[bullzi]

Open up Task Manager and let us know how many processes are running, that's gonna be a good place to start with to determine if he has spyware/adware running in the background.

There's multiple things we can do to speed things up, on program I swear by is Smart Defrag Smart Defrag. Windows defrag software has actually been proven to slow the computer down. My Q8200 rig began to run slow lately, even with it's good hardware a cluttered hard drive brought it to it's knees.

So, start with letting us know the processes running and I'd also recommend running Smart Defrag.

 

[JerryB1]

What I plan to do, whenever this person decides, is get a XP boot disk from this web-site and do a clean install. That way I'll be able to get rid of all the crap on this guys machine...

Has anyone ever used this site???
Bootdisk.Com Popular Files

I'm just trying to help out a friend that doesn't have the means at this time to get a new computer...

Thanks again for all the help.

 

[iPwn]

You can't legally get Windows from a website...