Reinstalling XP

[§ìgñå]

my dad has a computer he says is getting really slow, hes run ad-aware, but i dont have the time to guide him thru spybot and the other apps, he's just planning on reinstalling xp

Instead of reinstalling xp from the cd, would "resetting" the registry be a viable option? I've done this proceedure when fixing a corrupt hive on xp, but Im thinking it might work well for a quick cleaning.

basically what happens is you delete xp's registry and settings, and manually restore them from the \windows\repair folder which contains a fresh registry that was saved on the first successful startup of xp. then apply all windows updates, etc, and re-install programs that wont work cuz they no longer have a registry entry.

this site has the commands easy to read if you want to take a look.

so what do you think? just reinstall or give this a try?

[Survivor]

No experience but if you're going to reinstall you might as well give this a try first for future knowledge?

[DiscoDave]

Sounds nice but i've never had any experience with that technique.

Thought if i was in your position, i'd just do a nice clean re format and install XP agin, safe in the knowledge of every naughy program / file / rescourse from third party sources are gone.

[Tormentius]

That will work but your apps will need to be reinstalled since the restored registry won't contain application information.

[+JuggerNaut+]

yer, reformat so you can sleep easy at night.

[§ìgñå]

ya i told him to reinstall since i cant be arsed to walk him thru it.

[shaft]

ya i told him to reinstall since i cant be arsed to walk him thru it.

Is that anyway to treat your dad?

[mik0rs]

For the sake of a couple of hours you might as well do a complete format, of course you might have to back some stuff up but at least you know it'll be crap free when you're finished.