My computer has gone to hell in a handbasket.

[Ouch!]

First off, as far as the structure and workings of a computer, I'm a novice.

Alright, this has been a long time coming. Honestly, I don't know what the heck is wrong. I have a number of different spyware and virus protection programs that I keep updated. None of these have recognized any viruses on my computer or anything else of the sort. Despite that, my computer has become slower and slower. I've heard that this can be due in part to my harddrive running out of space.

My first reaction, of course, was to remove unnecessary programs and files from my harddrive to make space. I did this, freeing up at at least 10G in the process. It didn't help much. I tried to defrag my computer, and that didn't help much either.

I've been having problems updating windows as well. For the past few weeks, every time I try, it tells me that my computer is in an "unstable condition" and that I should remove my Microsoft Service Pack through add/remove hardware. This sounded like a generally bad idea, but today I finally gave in and did just that. As it turns out, it was a bad idea. Now many of my programs don't run properly. For example: windows media player now refuses to open. When I scroll in Firefox, it doesn't scroll smoothly and instead jumps down the screen in little interupted spurts.

Now I'm preparing to resort to the last option that has been suggested to me: wiping my harddrive and reinstalling windows. I've already saved the files I really don't want to lose (mostly word documents, music, and videos). I just have a few questions.

First: should I worry about the internet failing when I wipe my harddrive? Our router is hooked up to my computer, and it's my computer where we can access all the options for it. I've talked to my old man and he has no idea if it will do anything, but he thinks that the router will continue to wirelessly provide internet to the other computers.

Second: if it does, will copying the various folders from my program files on my local disc drive and pasting them into the program files once I've got my computer running again work, or would I have to reinstall everything?

Third: how the hell would I actually go about wiping my hard drive properly? I'm really at a complete and total loss.

Fourth: considering how much of a novice I am, is it probably better to just take it back to Dell (shudder) and have them take a look at it? I'm pretty sure my warranty on it is still good.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[rubah]

Your router probably doesn't depend on your computer. It shouldn't.

You'll need to reinstall *most* of your programs. A lot of them install DLL files or make registry edits so just having the .exe will not work.

You don't need to entirely wipe your harddrive, since you just want to restore system stability. Merely reinstalling your operating system (windows I assume :p) or another of your choice would be sufficient.

[Shoeberto]

How many programs do you have running at any given time? And how long do you go in between rebooting your computer? What programs do you find yourself constantly using (this can matter, because some programs are crappier than others at handling resource management and often alternatives to things like browsers and media players can be found)?

Dell will probably shaft you, really, and a full wipe should be a last resort.

[Ouch!]

As far as programs, I don't really run much. Word, Final Fantasy XI, Firefox, iTunes, and MSN Messenger, really. No more than two or three at a time. As far as how long I go without rebooting my computer, the longest was about a week, but it's usually not that long.

How would I go about just reinstalling my operating system?

Despite what my dad says (he's big on the "Oh, we have a warranty. They say they'll just fix it right up!" thing, which has worked in the past with my sister's virus ridden computer), I had a feeling that going to Dell probably wasn't the best of my options.

[Shoeberto]

As far as programs, I don't really run much. Word, Final Fantasy XI, Firefox, iTunes, and MSN Messenger, really. No more than two or three at a time.
Are there a lot of programs running in the system tray? Often times Dell likes to have their own little security center programs run in there, as well as other crappy software they bundle, which can add up and cause your system to slow down a bit.

[Ouch!]

I hadn't thought of those, but yes, there's loads of them.

[Shoeberto]

This (http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml) is a really good program that installs itself into the Control Panel that allows you to modify what does and doesn't run at startup.

Try turning the stuff you don't use, then see if your computer starts to run any better. If not, then you might want to go ahead and try a fresh install.

[Ouch!]

While I'm sure this will help with the speed of my computer, it doesn't seem like it's going to be a solution to my computer's stability. It doesn't seem to be something that's going to get me back access to the programs that no longer work such a WMP and the problem with Firefox.