How to clean out my computer without getting rid of the operating system?

Question

I have a dell, and I don't know the exact year or anyting, but It's about four years old, and I just got it from a friend for my daughter. She turned it on, and there was a ton of stupid stuff, and we cleaned out alot of the programs, but it's continuing to run horrible. Like she will be on it something will pop up saying "memory cannot read program click ok to debug and cancel to terminate program." well we clicked okay and sometimes it will be fine and others it will shut off the computer. We don't have the operating system disc that came with the computer, its a windowsxp. we were wondering how to refresh the computer and get rid of everything on it except the operating system. Serious answers only please.

thanks.

Answer 1

my advise is to use ccleaner to clean out your pc or go on line to search what is the perfect way ?

Answer 2

go to this website im working on http://www.superfoos.blogspot.com/ there is a video i put of all the best FREE cleaning software please leave comments or suggestions and tell your friends about it too

Answer 3

Use your recovery cd if u have 1 and if u don't u could try taking it to a computer shop

Answer 4

Sarah

your in luck dells do not  need or require a disk to be reformatted back to factory settings , dells come with a hidden restoration image that quickly put the pc back to the way it was when it cam out of the box , to use this feature power off the pc , when restarting hold the ctrl button and push the f11 key several times . this will bring up a norton ghost image wizard follow the directions and in about 10 minutes or less your pc will be back to factory specs