had this computer now for about 3 years, was a pretty high spec computer, its really really slow now…

i guess its just possibly got lots of viruses, havent done the virus checker thing in a while,
is there anyway i can just completely re-boot it and start from scratch?

everything on there is all backed up!

cheers!

if it's all backed up then rebuild using your windows DVD and put the backups back on. It'll be a lot quicker and easier than trying to tidy up what you've got.

If you've got a recovery cd from the pc maker then its simple as it will include all the drivers already. If not use the windows cd, but make sure you download and back up the ones at least for networking/wireless otherwise you're in trouble 🙂

How much space is left on your hard disks? They get very slow if they are nearly full.

When I used PCs I reinstalled the OS every few months to keep it running smoothly.

Has Norton been anywhere near it?

after doing the antivirus scan try running ccleaner to delete unwanted stuff from the harddrive – temp files and other stuff the operating system creates when its running and then run a defrag programme like MyDefrag to speed up the disk, if that fail then I'd look at a reinstall of windows

Rebuild it, best option that works, especially if it's been running a few years.
Other option is to delete all temporary files, delete any non-used app's, stop anything 'auto-starting' @ startup that not essential & defrag the bugger (might take a while).

Has Norton been anywhere near it?

^^^^^ This

Get Norton off there sharpish.

Download and run CCleaner for a start. Then run disk cleanup and defrag. There are also a few settings you can play with to release additional oomph, but I'll have to dig out the link.

Check how much space you have on you HDD(s). If you're down to <10% then a simple trick is to shrink your recycle bin to something like 50Mb. This could free up a couple of gb and get things shifting a little bit.