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Is there a set procedure for cleaning up a computer?

I know most people backup their stuff and then do maintenance but is there a 'best practices' for doing so?

My computer is so cluttered up with apps that I'm not sure what I have anymore.
I have applications running on task manager that I just don't know what they are.

I've down loaded so many things to try and improve PC performance that I think it has now had the reverse effect. I'm sure that the registry is not as clean as it could be although I run a registry scan on it.

I am unable to ftp to my son's pc although everyone else can, using the same profile so it looks like there are config problems on my pc but I can't find them.

My HDD is overflowing and I need to start again.

1. would I be better off just reinstalling OS or backing up and reformating?
2. If I reinstall, would i still have some of the problems that I have now?
3. If I reformat, what are my options, quick or full?
4. what is the best procedure to back up my hdd? should I just backup files or apps too?

I am running xp pro with office 2003. I use AVG for virus scans and Registry First Aid for the registry.

I also use photoshop, filezilla and azureus. Apart from that I don't need most of the other crud that I've accumulated such as all the apps that get loaded when a new printer is installed.

Any help is much appreciated
Thanks.

Hi lucian,

There is no real set way of cleaning up windows. There are many tools that will help clean up aspects of XP, such as registry cleaners, malware, unwanted files, disk fragmentation, but even with all of the tools in the world, there is nothing like a fresh clean install of Windows. A clean install will sort out most software problems, except for things like boot time viruses and bugs within any software or drivers you install afterwards.

If this is what you decide to do, then the first thing you need to do is copy all of your personal files, documents, music, videos, pictures and anything you want to keep. If you have a CD Writer, external HDD or USP Pen, you can copy your files off this way.

It is not possible to backup software that has already been installed on your PC, as any software package you have installed will become part of Windows, it's registry and system files. You'll need the original setup.exe or installation CD for any software you have and want to keep.

If you need help during the installation of XP, take a look at this site: XP Clean Install

thanks. now I have a weekend project..

I finally got it up and running this weekend but run into a few snags. I tried slipstreaming for the first time which failed so I had to use original disks.

I think I know where I went wrong on that as I'm using a corporate edition from before I retired and it needed a licence which I forgot to add. No problem, just wanted to try it out.

I had religiously backed everything up to an external usb hard drive so that I could easily restore only the things that I needed and then back everything else to cd/dvd's.

I made a list of all the things I needed to run on the new install and everything was looking peachy.

I reformated the c: from my usb drive using partition magic. don't know if this was the correct thing to do but that's the way I did it.

loading my new os from disk said that the ntldr was missing. I found the only way to build was by having the usb drive attached. okay. No probs. xp loads and goes through its final reboot and lo and behold, no usb drive. Vanished into thin air.

My question now is where has it gone? Is there a config setting that needs to be changed? Also, I cannot see my second hdd. I couldn't see it before and that was one of the issues that I was having with the previous setup.

any help in finding my drives is REALLY appreciated.

Thanks Ian

Hi Lucian,

Can you go to My Computer, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management.

From there, click on Storage > Removable Storage, Media. Can you see your external drives listed here?

Now its really lost is marbles.

I just now loaded sp2. I was able to copy from this laptop to cd then load it.
Installed it and rebooted now its hung.
Ive tried every mode, safe, safe wih network and normal and it hangs in the same place.

when I boot normal it hangs at the flash screen. Before the new install I had the flash screen disabled and was able to see everything as it loads (reminiscent of my old mainframe days when everything just whizzed off the top of the screen).

That is exactly what I get when I boot in safe mode (I suppose it bypasses the flash screen)

Now I can see that it hangs in exactly the same place. The last message displayed is:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system 32\drivers\mup.sys

Now I've just reinstalled windows again. As I said earlier, I initially formated from an external drive with partition magic. The only way I can load the os is by having the external drive hoked up an then boot from the os disk.
When I get tis loaded, do I really need to have service packs installed. Tht seems to be whats killing me. If service packs are onlyscurity updates then I can surely control that from my router and using avg.
comments please.

..and bug fixes. Service Pack 2 comes with it's own security suite including firewall. It's a good thing to have (if possible).

It's sounds like whatever version your using maybe a dodgy version, corrupt or damaged. There are some really nasty modified versions of SP2 out there. Make sure you download the correct versions, preferably from Windows XP Service Pack 2 or a self contained SP2 download from here: PC World - PC World Downloads - Windows XP Service Pack 2