How do I get my computer to work quickly - like it did when it was new?

I have a two year old P4,XP Pro,2.4GHz,512MB RAM,60G hard drive -- formatted into 3 drives of 20G each. It runs much slower than it did when it was new. Perhaps 'cause the C drive is almost full (~2G free),maybe 'cause so much software installed (Office 2003,

Photoshop 7,etc massive programs),could be the registry is too big? maybe all of the above?

maybe none of the above??

I've defragmented the hard drive,scanned for viruses

and adware,etc, erased temp files, cookies and cache.

Any solutions?

How do I get my computer to work quickly - like it did when it was new?systemworks

The ugly truth is if you want the computer to run like it was new, you must return it to a like new state. This means reformating your hard drive and reinstalling windows, or using the system restore disk that came with your system. Over time Windows systems just get bogged down and get slower. Things like you suggested are helpful sometimes, but a good format and reinstall is sort of the cure all. It is however a bit labor intensive. If you do reformat, you may want to concider recombining your hard drive into one partition. The advantages of partitioning your hard drive into smaller logical drives are negligible these days. If you鈥檙e not ready for this yet, one additional think you may want to check is what programs are starting up when your computer starts. There are many places where these little apps like real player, hardware monitoring programs, Windows Messenger, etc hide and use your computer resources. You may want to consider adding another 512 of ram too, it may help your computer to not rely on free hard drive space as much.