Jump to content

refreshing windows xp


jumpjack

Recommended Posts

My WinXp installation is now quite old, more than 1 year; so it became slow, especially while browsing internet.

Does it exist a method to "refresh" the system, as I did with Windows 98, when periodcally I "reinstalled" it, without deleting anything, but thus just "refreshing" system files?

I tried a regcleaner, tonight I'll start a defrag.... but whatelse?

I don't want to reinstall from scratch, I have HUNDREDS of applications installed!!! (But if I'll reinstall XP, by sure I'll "install" all applications using UniExtract rather than their installers!!!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Personally I'd bite the bullet and reinstall, surely your not using all of those programs anyway! If you just reinstall the important ones then reinstall others as you need them its not too much of a chore and all your software is up to date. I download all the latest versions of drivers and software prior to reinstall.

But if you're clear you don't want to go down that path then uninstall anything you don't use first. Do a thorough malware scan using your AV and get a free second opinion using an online AV scanner such as Panda Active Scan. Also do a full scan using Spybot S&D. Use CCleaner to get rid of all the junk files. It also has a reg cleaner built in. Use Autoruns to disable any startup apps you don't need/use. You can check all XP files with the File Checker utility. At the Commandline (Start>Run>type "cmd") type "sfc /scannow" (no quotes) and have your XP CD handy.

You can do a 'Repair' Install of XP but I'm not 100% clear what that actually does or how you go about it.

Good luck!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget about deleting your temporary internet files AND temporary files. Most of your temp files are located in c:\documents and settings\profile\local settings\temp. Also if your profile is larger than the amount of physical memory (RAM) you have in your computer, that will make things slow as well.

And besides, a year isn't an old install at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget about deleting your temporary internet files AND temporary files. Most of your temp files are located in c:\documents and settings\profile\local settings\temp. Also if your profile is larger than the amount of physical memory (RAM) you have in your computer, that will make things slow as well.

And besides, a year isn't an old install at all.

Which could be the cause of right-click causing a several-seconds-sleep while system "thinks" about what to do...? :wacko:

I think the virus some days ago attempted installing on my system (a trojan contained in a.exe and immediately detected and stopped by Avast) actually had time to do something malicious.... :blink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget about deleting your temporary internet files AND temporary files. Most of your temp files are located in c:\documents and settings\profile\local settings\temp. Also if your profile is larger than the amount of physical memory (RAM) you have in your computer, that will make things slow as well.

And besides, a year isn't an old install at all.

Which could be the cause of right-click causing a several-seconds-sleep while system "thinks" about what to do...? :wacko:

I think the virus some days ago attempted installing on my system (a trojan contained in a.exe and immediately detected and stopped by Avast) actually had time to do something malicious.... :blink:

There is a registry setting that determines the amount of time between the right click and the appearance of the menu. They use a time delay to compensate for the eventual case of having too many items in such menu. But you can certainly change this value and get the menu to appear faster. I don't actively use this tweak so I can't tell you how to do it, but you should be able to find it in a tweak guide.

Besides, that is a cool name for a program... a.exe... :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"sfc /scannow" - Do not use this! You will probably make your system very unstable, or even not usable. I'm talking from experience. SFC is not good as it should be. If file is not found in cache, then it will ask XP CD which could contain old version of that file, but you had never from some Microsoft update and then this can cause troubles.

Cheers ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...