As a computer gets used, day in day out it accumulates all sorts of junk. A lot of it you pout on there and a lot of it is put on there by web sites you visit and by applications that you have long since stopped using or long ago uninstalled. It seems that every program leaves behind remnants of itself and eventually that the kind of thing that slows your poor computer down. The fix it to wipe off your hard drive and re-install your operating system. Once that is done, your computer will be fresh and free to run like it used to.

As an aside, heavy users usually do this once a year. Anyway, there are two ways to do this:

#1. Take it to your local computer store, along with your original Windows CD, and have them do it. Once you get it back to your home you can install all of your most coveted software and files and off you go. Call them for pricing of this very common operation.

#2 Do it yourself. Not as hard as you'd think with Windows XP or Vista. You just need to format your hard drive and re-install:

To format a hard drive with Windows XP (or Windows 2000 but who owns that now?), insert the Windows CD and restart your computer. Your computer should automatically boot from the CD to the Windows Setup Main Menu. And Then:

To format a hard drive with Windows XP, insert the Windows CD and restart your computer. Your computer should automatically boot from the CD to the Windows Setup Main Menu. And Then:

1. At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER and then press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.

2. If an existing Windows XP installation is detected, you are prompted to repair it. To bypass the repair, press ESC.

3. Then use the ARROW keys to select the partition or the un-partitioned space where you want to create a new partition in. Press D to delete an existing partition, or press C to create a new partition.

4. Type the size in megabytes (MB) that you want to use for the new partition, and then press ENTER, or just press ENTER to create the partition with the maximum size ( I recommend the "maximum" option for most people).

5. Select the format option that you want to use for the partition (I would recommended the "NTFS" option), and then press ENTER.

After the Windows Setup program formats the partition, follow the instructions that appear on the screen and you can continue installing Windows. It really is this easy. Do it in a little over an hour or so.

But before you do either of these methods you will need to save all of your precious photos and important files. You should have already backed these files up to another source for safe keeping (yeah right) but if you haven't, best to do it now by transferring them to a DVD or CD via your DVD/CD burner. In option #1 above, ask them what they charge to do that for you.

Once your new, speedy, re-installed system is up and ready to go (or back from the computer store), you can now reload all of the applications (Word, Fire Fox, Photoshop Elements, Nero DVD Burner, whatever) that you were using before. Of course you can put all of your photos and files back from that DVD you burned earlier.

You will be amazed at how fast your newly cleaned computer will run, holding off that time when you will have to really upgrade your system by buying new. If you are like most people that probably will be quite some time.