XPpro repair

[tape]

Have done clean installed of XPpro when things get just too slow or gunked up with excess baggage. I'm afraid it's time for another, but I don't really feel like doing all the applications re-installs, too (luckily my documents are on separate partition). Problem is that my install CD from DELL is of SP2 vintage and since I do updates as they come, I am running SP3. I'm not really understanding all the repair mumbo jumbo selections on the install disk. Any quick and easy site that spells it out and then perhaps would give me a suggestion other than another clean install? Thanks.

Have you tried CCleaner to remove some of the gunk your talking about?

[tape]

I've used CCleaner but find Advanced Uninstaller Pro more to my liking. Perhaps my gunk was just a generic term for things that seem to gunk up the smooth operations of other apps (I guess these would be the common bits & pieces that lots of app install/uninstalls creates or more accurately, do not fully remove)

[fwallis]

I would suggest you to use disk imaging of your WinXP and you won't have to reinstall your
applications or softwares.

Please note that if your Computer is running WinXP with SP3 then you might have problems repairing
or reinstalling it from a WinXP bootable/installation CD having built in SP2.
Use WinXP bootable CD with SP3 built in.

[tape]

fwallis,
you have me at a disadvantage here. I am not familiar with disk imaging. How would this allow me to not have to reinstall applications after a system rebuild? Thnaks for your input.

[glc]

What he is trying to say is this - when you have a nice clean system, you image it with something like Acronis True Image. When it's time to rebuild, instead of reinstalling everything from scratch, you simply wipe the system drive and restore the image.

[tape]

gls,
I assume you mean to do this after all regular applications installed.

[glc]

Exactly.