Cleaning a mess

[You Know Who ~]

our 11 year old has his own computer and frankly it is a mess. Lots of
games and stuff which he installed and which have slowed the system to a
crawl. I would like to fix it by either re-installing windows or repairing
it. The computer came originally with windows 95 (yeah, i know, but he's
only eleven) and then was upgraded to windows xp. We have the original win
95 retail disc and the win xp upgrade disc.

What would you recommend? Thanks in advance.

b

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

After restoring your system, consider installing a good
antivirus program, such as Windows OneCare. You can
try it absolutely FREE for 90 days.
http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/default.htm


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience -
Windows Vista Enthusiast

---------------------------------------------------------------

our 11 year old has his own computer and frankly it is a mess. Lots of
games and stuff which he installed and which have slowed the system to a
crawl. I would like to fix it by either re-installing windows or repairing
it. The computer came originally with windows 95 (yeah, i know, but he's
only eleven) and then was upgraded to windows xp. We have the original win
95 retail disc and the win xp upgrade disc.

What would you recommend? Thanks in advance.

b

 

[Patrick Keenan]

our 11 year old has his own computer and frankly it is a mess. Lots of
games and stuff which he installed and which have slowed the system to a
crawl. I would like to fix it by either re-installing windows or
repairing it. The computer came originally with windows 95 (yeah, i know,
but he's only eleven) and then was upgraded to windows xp. We have the
original win 95 retail disc and the win xp upgrade disc.

What would you recommend? Thanks in advance.

b

I would suggest two things. The first is to take the faster and more
reliable approach to fixing a badly compromised or damaged system - back up
any user data, then reinstall clean, starting with removing and recreating
the system partition. This ensures a clean slate, a known-good starting
point.

The second is to make an image of the system in that condition before you
hand it over, using something like Acronis TrueImage or Drive Image or
whatever. This will allow you to very quickly reset the computer to that
known-good condition the next time he trashes it. Instead of several
hours, you'll be done in half an hour.

You will need to have all the drivers on hand before you start this process!

HTH
-pk

 

[Unknown]

Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think there was such a thing as an upgrade
from Windows 95 to XP.
There is a lot of hardware that runs with 95 but not XP compatible.
Is the old machine really worth upgrading? Memory size? Processor speed?
Hardware compatibility?

 

[Tim Slattery]

Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think there was such a thing as an upgrade
from Windows 95 to XP.

You cannot upgrade Win95 to WinXP, but you can use a Win95
installation disk when a WinXP upgrade CD asks for proof of a
qualifying product.

There is a lot of hardware that runs with 95 but not XP compatible.
Is the old machine really worth upgrading? Memory size? Processor speed?
Hardware compatibility?

Excellent question. Any machine that came with Win95 originally
installed is *very* unlikely to run XP well at all.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

You can use several antivirus programs for free (provided they're for
non-commercial use) and there's no time limit. I like Avast!, but there are
several others. And they don't come with all that dangerous "Registry
Cleaner" and other automated "cleaner" crap that OneCare does. OneCare is a
DANGEROUS product!

You're a shameless shill, Carey. Always have been, always will be. A total
blot on the MVP program, IMO.