Can this gentille spirit RELOAD WINDOWS without blowing up the house???

Here's the bottom line: I have an HP PAVILION 505n and use XP. The past few months, my speed to move from one site to another, or even to fill our forms on certain websites, has gotten slower and SLOWER and S-L-O-W-E-R. I've already defraged and stopped certain programs from opening up and done my anti-virus and antispyware....you name it, NOTHING helps.

SO.....my brilliant son who lives far far away tells me that he's sure I need to reload my windows. But he says this: You lose every setting you have, you have to reset everything, reinstall everything from scratch, reenter usernames and passwords, back up all your critical data and files (and i know you have no idea where most of this stuff is located so you'd likely lose a lot if you weren't careful). This isn't a decision someone like you can take lightly.

Oh gee. I'm thrilled.

SOOOO, can I really do this on my own?? IS THERE A STEP-BY-STEP instruction page somewhere, just as step-by-step as a recipe for a great dish?? Or am I doomed here?

Janie

 

Janie,

Welcome to TSG, I hope we can help. You might want to get some double confirmation on this. But below I have linked to a thread here that explains in detail how to reinstall windows without losing critical data (most of it anyhow).



http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/499568-guide-reinstall-windows.html


But again, before you jump the gun, wait for double confirmation as I have never actually used the above method.

 

at blackviper.com you'll find illustrated installation guides for both XP Home and XP Professional

 

Janie: The solution to your problem may be as simple as increasing the RAM in your machine. The machine comes with 256 MB standard, which is not really enough to run XP properly. You should have at least 512 MB.
Go to www.crucial.com, enter your machine's make and model. They will tell you exactly which RAM you need and the price. You can install it yourself if you are mechanically inclined.

 

Hmm that is a good point Flags. Recently at work I was cleaning up a laptop for a person here, and boy was it just slow as molasses. After throwing every trick up my sleeve into it (and even some from other peoples sleeves) I still couldnt get it some mor speed.

In short, upgrading to 512mb ram was definitely the solution!

 

BEFORE you decide to go through a LOT of aggravation repairing or reinstalling Windows, I get the impression that most of your problems seem to be related to browsing the internet, NOT that Windows itself is causing problems, though Flags DOES make a good point about RAM...

In most cases, you can use the FREE CCleaner program (formerly known as "Crap Cleaner") to delete the JUNK files on your hard drive, which should make browsing work MUCH faster for you. You can download a copy of CCleaner from here:

http://www.scanwith.info/files/ccleaner201_slim.zip

Simply right-click that link, and save the file "ccleaner201_slim.zip" to your Desktop, where it will be easy to find later. Once the file has downloaded, CLOSE ALL OPEN APPLICATIONS, including your browser. Next, right-click on the .ZIP file, and highlight the "Extract All" option. Windows will create a new folder (called "ccleaner201_slim" on the Desktop; double-click the new folder to open it. Next, find and double-click the file named ccleaner201_slim.exe, and follow the prompts from the installation wizard, which will install CCleaner onto your system.

For instructions on how to use CCleaner to clean your hard drive, take the tour on the CCleaner website:

http://www.ccleaner.com/help/tour/1-after-installation

Just follow the links, and you shouldn't have any problems cleaning a lot of the JUNK files off your hard drive...

Once you've finished with CCleaner, reboot your system; when you get back to the Desktop, open your browser and check to see if things are working better...

Post any questions you might have BEFORE you begin, and let us know how this turns out...