Reinstalling windows

[Nottm_George]

I'm thinking of reinstalling windows as I have the disc and code words that I got when the computer was new, I'm want to do this as someone told me after a number of years a computer slows down (and mine as started to do this) with small amounts of info left behind when using the Internet (is this right?) anyway is it easy I know I will have to save all my documents and photo's and such like before I do this any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

[bazwillrun]

You dont even let us know which version of Windows

[Hymie]

Even if you are running Windows 98, I doubt a reinstall would speed up your computer. In my experience, the time to do a re-install is when the PC fails to boot reliably (regularly displaying messages of missing files etc..).

Others will no doubt give more advice.

Having reinstalled my operating system a number of times – it is advisable to back up important data; in theory your desktop and other drive storage should be OK – but with such a drastic step, it is better to be safe than sorry.

[nigetrix]

If you are re-installing windows 7 it should be a straight forward process as it may only take a matter of ten minutes or so and is usually trouble free, if it's windows xp it could take an hour or more to re-install, it is true that pc's slow down and become sluggish over time but this is determined by many factors, before you go ahead with re-installing windows i suggest doing the following to help speed up your pc, run disc defragmenter by going to start-programs-accessories-disc defragmenter, also run disc cleanup which is in accessories section to clear out unwanted files, reboot pc and see if this speeds things up a bit, hope this helps.

[Old_Geezer]

There can be a number of reasons why a PC can slow down. Maybe first you could check you have enough disk space. You can run something like CCleaner to get rid of unnecessary files. Then you may wish to check you have enough memory.

[TTG]

See what programs startup which are not needed. Start, Run, Msconfig. Search on net for each program that has a "tick" next to it and untick if it's not needed. Same with services. This is for Windows XP.

[RAV1D]

Make sure you have all your files saved and driver disks for any hardware you may have. all computers are different depending on what hardware/devices you have/use with them. If you format your hard drive and wipe it all off and start again with a fresh copy of windows you may then have to install driver discs to get your monitor/screen to work right again and update things from the internet. Some times its simple other times there is a lot of messing about just to get it back to how you want it.

[Nottm_George]

Many thanks to you all I'll have a think about it