I've had this cheap rig for a while and it's becoming intolerably slow on loading. I've never done a factory reinstall though I did do a data migration to an SSD hard drive several years back. I'm thinking I got the PC back in 2015 and the data migration to a new hard drive back in 2018. Would a factory reinstall be a good idea? If I do so any files I should focus on and save to a thumb drive that wouldn't be immediately obvious?
Depends on how much junk you have running at any given time. If you do wipe it back up your bookmarks for your browser(s), any documents, pictures, etc.
Not sure if this applies, but maybe you should consider a transition to a Linux OS, since they tend to give an extra life to older rigs.
I guess it depends on the type of use and the software you *really* need to use.
Total reformats aren't the miracle pill they once were but certainly wouldn't hurt if you are willing to back to square one.
I'd recommend having a run through with something like ccleaner first to see if you can eek out anything from what you've got- trimming startup programs and other junk can help a bit.
Gott be careful with CCleaner. They got bought out a few years back and introduced some bloatware and some potentially bad features.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on January 25, 2022, 02:15:53 PM
Gott be careful with CCleaner. They got bought out a few years back and introduced some bloatware and some potentially bad features.
The driver updater is easily avoided by not clicking into it.