To Reformat or not to Reformat

Try downloading memmaker from the net...it is a freeware program that cleanes out the ram after a program has used it and keeps hold of it....The ram us recovered to make it available to new applications....thus recycling resources

256mb of ram is not a lot for winXP. Have you considered adding more? Hope this helps.

Check the following article on TechRepublic, entitled "Tweak Windows XP for optimum performance". I tried these tips and the computer was noticably faster.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00320030324shu01.htm&src=search&_DARGS=%2Ftrsignup%2Ftr_short_signup.jhtml.4

Also, you should eliminate as much as possible from loading at startup.

No need to reformat because of poor performance,first do a general maintenance on the system by running scan disk and defag the drive.

Also you may want to consider upgrading the memory.

It depends.

If you've installed a lot of programs, and UNinstalled them (if this is an experiment/test machine), then I recommend that you do a complete format and reinstallation of the OS.

If this is a standard machine and the apps that arethere work fine, then do not reinstall. My suggestion in this case would be to run a disk cleanup, disk defrag, delete everything found as searching for *.tmp, delete everything with ~*.*, delete everthing in c:\windows\prefetches . etc.

The below has some other speed tweaks to WinXP. See what you can shut off that you are not using... and this should help considerably.

http://www.datacreek.net/webgear/tips/xptweaks.html

At this time, I recommend against formatting and re-installing XP.

Start by opening task manager, and seeing what programs are running in the background.

It is very possible that you have picked up some spy-ware or ad-ware along the way.

Download and run AdAware 6 or one of the similar programs.

Using Windows Explorer, clean out the shortcuts in the recent documents folder for each profile.
(This sped up my XP box noticeably)

XP is more of a memory hog than the older versions ofWindows.
I recommend installing as much RAM as the motherboard can hold / you can afford.

Chas

Microsoft recommends running XP with 256 MB RAM, so you can bet 512 is required. I've been using XP for a month. After upgrading from 256 to 512, ther was a big difference in performance. (PIII 850 MHz)

Cheers

After reading the other answers I would try running a utility called CLEAN UP, it removes temp files. Also check the registry to see if uninstalled programs are still there. Good luck

I am sorry for not replying sooner but since I asked the question "To reformat or not to reformat my computer has crashed" and although I have had it repaired it crashed again after only a few days and I will have to wait until I can afford to get another tech out to look at it again.
Thank you for all the help that was offered in answer to my question.
Mirralee.

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