On 30 Dec 2006 at 3:47, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> My daughter's  computer was extremely,  extremely slow -- like you have
>  mentioned.  I asked her if she had  anything important on it and  she
> said no.  Then I told her to format the  HD, which she did  and it runs
> like a brand new computer, cause it's so fast   now.  Harriet 

The conversation you don't want to have  goes:

A:  Thanks for reformatting my machine, it's much faster  now.

B:  You're welcome.

A:  But where did <xxx>  go?  I need that!

B:  Oops.

Users cannot always  correctly answer the question "Do you have anything 
important on the  machine?"


From the fact that a re-format sped things up, it's  possible that a 
defragmentation of the file system would also have achieved  this effect.  
It's more likely, however, that an accumulation of  spyware, adware, old 
cache files, and other unneeded junk was eliminated by  the re-format, and 
most of that could also have been found and removed by a  less drastic 
approach.

David  Gillett
---------------------------------
 
The reason I mentioned formatting the computer, is cause is  not used for 
anything except for her husband to play games on ---- also, where  she works, 
they have a guy who works on all the computers, reformatted it  for her -- at no 
cost.  Since he didn't have any thing to save on it, it  was no problem.  
 
Now.. mine was running extremely show in the last couple of days,  and I mean 
extremely slow, so I uninstalled this camera thing I recently put on  there 
since Xmas and it's fast as ever now.  It not only had installed  about 8 
things in the control panel pertaining to this camera install, but I  liked to have 
never gotten them uninstalled either.    Harriet

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