How can I clean my computer up without formatting it?

December 28, 2009

Every year I format my computer, just to get it cleaned up.

I already use CCleaner to clean up the computer, and delete unwanted programs, and have deleted restore points. I was wondering if there was another utility or something I could do to make the computer almost new from the factory without formatting and reinstalling Windows.

It’s an XP by the way.

How to clean a virus/malware/trojan that seems to generate “memory could not be” read/written error on all?

November 12, 2009

If I login into XP the regular way, every program generates an application error of the genre "memory could not be written" or "memory could not be read".
If I login through the recovery console, this does not occur. All programs and executable work as normal.
Every virus, spyware, malware, trojan scan says the system is clean. I also ran a registry cleaner.
How do I fix this problem without formatting and reinstalling XP?

How to clean my computer thouroughly without formatting?

October 22, 2009

Ok, so my computer has been running pretty raggedy latly and i had just a bunch of junk on it. I run antivirus that updates regularly, i have spyware scans i do regularly, i do everything you can. I run zone alarm. So i just deleted a lot of things, but how can i clean memory and remove pointless things that are just acting as clutter? What else can i do other than completly formatting to help my computer.
Yes, i defrag like every 4 weeks or so. I delete everything i run scandisk everything is fine. But it jsut runs slow not like it should to my standards at least. Is there a way to clean windows or clean memory or do something to kind of refresh it? For some reason i jsut think my windows operating system is a clutter from all the stuff i download. I just think it should be performing better

Old Dell Computer Crash ?

August 21, 2009

I was recently given a virtually dead computer: A Dell 233. The owner said it performed worse and worse and just finally became so hopeless he chucked it. Without giving you all the details he gave me a Dell Diagnostics disk, Win 95, 98 and upgrade ME disks and the boot floppies for each but none will install or run. So far all I’ve managed to install is DOS 6. I’ve scanned everything and run all the diagnostics and the only odd thing that shows up is that CHKDSK found a really long, long path name with a final sub directory called FLASH which for some reason I can’t get into (cd command).

Why can’t I get into this final sub directory to see what files are in it?
Is there any forensics-type software out there somewhere that will help me put some life into this old tank?
Formatting and reinstalling Windows means I probably lose a lot of old drivers so I’d rather avoid that… at least for a while. I suspect you’re right about the RTKit.