Fellow listers,

A friend asked me to clean up her PC, which runs Win XP. I have never used Win XP, so I'm really at a loss as to
where to begin. The unit runs fine, but her complaints seem to be focused around sluggish performance, porn site
pop-ups, ads, homepage hijack, and tons of useless programs. Please suggest my options for getting this system
clean, lean and mean!

So far I have installed AD-Aware 5.83, which found 101 various entries (folders, files & Reg keys). I have not
removed any of them yet. The next thing I did was run her Norton AV. program, which found nothing - lucky
considering it was disabled on the msconfig startup tab.

I am comfortable in the registry and BIOS, but please remember I know nothing about the OS itself. The unit is not
currently connected to the Internet - I don't dare try that yet. Any suggestions that include downloading good
clean-up programs are fine - I can download them to my PC, then transfer. Last but not least, what are the
essential programs that are common to XP that should be loading on startup?

Please assume I know nothing about this OS if you reply. If I've left any relevant info out, please tell me what
you need to know. Also, please feel free to CC your reply directly to [log in to unmask]
Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

Al Thompson

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