melanie2k said:
I have Windows XP Prof from 2002 andhave had itupdated regularly. It
says SP
3. When I put the CD in the drive and click reinstall, it comes back
and
tells me my sistem is newer thatn the CD.
That is because you are booting off your hard drive rather than the CD.
I realize the system has been
updating regularly and obviously is newer than the CD, but what else
can I
do?
Why do you want to perform a Repair Install? First we need to assess
whether this is appropriate or not. The more details in your answer the
better. Please include the make and model of your PC and its specs,
including the amount of RAM installed, size of hard drive, and amount of
free space. If there are error messages, please post them verbatim.
I cannot afford to buy a new computer w/a current operating system. I
just want to reinstall mine so it runs more efficiently.
You can make your PC run more efficiently without reinstalling the
Operating System. And since it is very time consuming, it is generally
not recommended unless malware has taken over and you can't remove it.
Fortuantely, malware removal is straightforward and successful most of
the time.
Here are the usual causes of sluggishness:
1. Malicious software (malware). You need to rule this out first! This
page has excellent information:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware
2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up. Fortunately, there are other antimalware programs
available that use far fewer resources (e.g., NOD32, Avast, and Avira).
3. Too many of *certain types* of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge.
Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
But before you do this, you should use the preference settings of the
program in question. Otherwise, for some programs, they will return to
the startup list anyway!
4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.
The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for
Windows XP:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm
5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:
http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/
and
http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
