[redden137]

Hi guys, just been asked a question from a friend who wants to try to re-vert his 3 year xp home back to almost new,
his question was as follows
If he un-installs all programmes he doesnt want from his folders in the c/drive and then goes into add and remove- and removes everything except the nvidia drivers, media player and updates does a reformat will his o/s be "fresh" again
he has no recovery cd or xp disc, i ask because im not sure if this would work and would like to here from others if this is at all possible? will he be okay doing this and then use some software to clean out the registry at the end
hes doing this as he wants to put it in the kids room as a "new" pc and not because of any malware or virus problems
many thanks

[Dave Hybrid]

If he removes the folders first, then the programs wont uninstall via add/remove programs.

Also a reformat wipes everything so a recovery or windows CD is required.

And no, it won't be fresh if he just does a clean up, the registry etc will still have been played with.

That's not to say uninstalling programs properly via add/remove, deleting personal documents and doing a spyware/virus and ccleaner run won't get you pretty much there.

[redden137]

sorry i didnt mean to say a reformat i meant a to say If he un-installs all programmes from the add and remove and then goes into his c/drive and then removes eveything he doesnt want (except the nvidia drivers, media player and updates) and does a "DEFRAG" after will his o/s be "fresh" again

[Dave Hybrid]

No, but it will be close if he does all that and runs ccleaner both the clean bit and registry bit.

Regardless, without a windows CD what choice does he have.