Computer issues

[Kyrie]

So my bro seriously neglected computer maintenance issues on his PC for just under a year, and the resulting problems caused me to have to do a system restore a few days ago. It seemed to keep everything in the "My Documents" folder, and the Start Menu was unchanged, but everything else was wiped clean and restored to defaults.

Aaaaanyway, I did my best to clean up the system after the restore through Ad-Aware, defrag, compression, etc etc but the machine's STILL running terribly slowly, freezing up, getting popups all over the place, and generally being a pain. Anyone know how to remedy this? For the record, it's a Compaq Presario running on a Pentium 4, 2.40GHz with 504MB of RAM with Windows XP Home Edition. If that helps.

And if someone could tell me how to take stuff off of the Start menu, that'd be cool too. I know absolutely nothing about Windows XP (and quite frankly, just don't like it very much) and very little about PCs in general, so any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[insaneferret]

well taking stuff off the start menu, you just right click on it and hit remove from this list

as for shite on the system, make sure you've got the latest version of ad-aware, or it's going to miss a lot of stuff, if ad-aware cant get some of it, it's most likeley one of the nasty adware hijacks that are usually uniqe to each of thier vile little companies, this tool removes most of those http://www.tomcoyote.com/hjt/

of course the ultimate solution is to back up his important docs to CDs or hard drive on another computer (i used my harddrive MP3 player to do this the other day) and reformat the hard drive and re-install windows, that will fix any and all software problems, garuanteed

system seems to have a decent processor, compaq therefore Pile of shite motherboard and usually substandard components, but usually thats not a serious problem XP runs a lot better with 500 mb of ram or more, so you're probably ok, consider upping that to 712MB-1GB if he plays any games

i was hesitant going over to XP too, but it's seriously a great OS, takes a bit of getting used to, but everything works great for me

[Aluscia]

Call me, Kyrie... 905-336-4020... or call me at Dan's house this weekend, 905-319-0627

[Maz]

start, run, msconfig, start up

[Kyrie]

Thanks, everyone. :D I'll try out that tool you recommended, ferret. Much obliged.

Can I call you tomorrow, Laur? Sorry I didn't get that post until today, I've been busy taking care of things since my parents were away for a few days. Thanks. :)