Windows XP slowdown

[SquishyWeasell]

My friend told me that every once in a while like 6 mo. or so it is good or format and re-install XP. He says that it will make my computer run generally faster. Is he right, and if he is right, why is that so? Isn't XP a sophisticated operating system that can handle itself for more than half a year?

 

[ScrapSilicon]

7 months on this install ..going

 

[n0cmonkey]

Both sides of the coin are correct, I think. If you do a lot of installing and uninstalling and blah blah blah there will be junk that clutters up the system. A lot of uninstall routines don't like removing the entire program and will leave traces behind. Also, if you don't clean out spyware it can get pretty nasty.

But XP should run just fine after a year or two of use, if you take care of it. Just like everything else.

And I don't think this is really hardware related.

 

[johnjkr1]

I format every 3 months. It's fun. But as long as you keep antivirus/spyware cleaned out and update your drivers, you wont get much of a speed boost.