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Reinstall Windows... If You Dare

It is a radical step, but reinstalling Windows will sometimes yield a significant performance increase. This is not something that I would advocate lightly, or to everyone, but in some situations it can make sense. In particular, a reinstall can be beneficial if any of the following apply:

• You have been working on the same Windows installation for several years and have built up a large volume of installed (and perhaps partially uninstalled) applications. This will generally mean a lot of configurations, settings, Registry entries, etc., not all of which may be necessary.
• You upgraded Windows 95 over top of a Windows 3.x installation (which is not a good idea and can lead to performance problems.)
• The system has recently and suddenly slowed down for no apparent reason (but see here for possible hardware reasons why this could happen.)
• You have problems with your Windows 95 installation, of which performance is just one possibility.

To do a reinstallation properly, you need to start with a clean slate. This means backing up your data and reinstalling Windows from scratch. (Reinstalling over top of the old installed Windows is easier, but generally does not accomplish much.)

Warning: Reinstalling Windows is a big job, and includes the risk of lost programs and data. You may have problems getting the system set up again exactly the way you had it before. It is for this reason that I don't recommend it for most situations. Don't try this unless you know what you are doing (I may add a procedure to the site for this at some point but right now you're on your own. :^) )

Next: Resolve Compatibility Mode and Performance-Limiting Drivers

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