I use Ccleaner, Auslogics Reorg, Spybot, and Malware to keep my PC Clean.....but it is still too slow. Hoping Win 10 is the solution.

Anything that says registry cleaner just is not going to work and very well may cause problems. Avoid anything like that or any pay programs (unless someone can give you a specific one they have used safely).

Which Operating System do you run?
Do you ever defragment or clean temporary files?

But I know I have to upgrade; just don't want Windows 8.

I have Webroot running all the time, and run Malwarebytes at least once a week. Also defrag every month or so, and ditto with cleaning the temporary files (I use Google Chrome, and I find it demands to be cleaned regularly).

I've seen CCleaner, and if you've had no trouble with it, I'll definitely give it a go. I know some of these co-called cleaners can be bad, and it's so hard to know.

I've just always run CCleaner so use that because it has a few useful functions like you can tell it to delete the IE history but save the Firefox history. And to save certain cookies. Little things. Its default settings are fine but if you use XP built in DiskCleanup your fine without it.

Let's see if anyone else can comes up with something. With XP and what about a 6 year old install? It really needs a fresh install of XP to speed things up. When I ran XP, I reinstalled twice a year out of habit. Witn Win7 that has not really been necessary but it is a faster computer hardware to begin with so that might be one reason that I haven't felt the need to reinstall. That sounds like something you are not comfortable doing. I just never really found any program that speeds up a computer enough to make a difference.

Do you know what your processor speed is or how much RAM you have? It should show up in System Properties.

It's version 2002, Service Pack 3, but it has only 1.59 GHz, 1.95 RAM.

That doesn't seem like much.

I don't have a disc for XP; it came pre-loaded with the computer, back in 2008. So how do I reinstall?

I did find out that, today, when the computer was extremely slow, one site that I deal with a lot for work was having problems of its own, and this afternoon they'd fixed them, and it's been running faster. But there are too many "error" messages lately, and I know it needs attention.

So the 1.59GHz should be plenty for XP. What is the name/type of the processor shown?

Also, in My Computer how much free space do you have on Drive C? How much free space on the other drives?

What is the make/model of the computer--usually a white tag somewhere on the case?

since I'm at the other end of the earth!

The computer is a Hewlett Packard.

The free space on Drive C is 377 GB, and on Drive D37.0 GB. On E, it didn't have anything, just zero for used space and free space. On the info panel about the spaceon the drives, there is a window that says "Disk Cleanup" - will that help me?

I'm not sure about the processor - where do I find that information?

The E: drive is recovery partition that would allow you to reload the computer back to out of the box. The only think about that is it doesn't always work right so I'm not sure I would recommend it. There is also a program on there somewhere in an HP folder that allows you to burn recovery DVDs which is safer than the recovery partition. You can only burn them once but it sounds like you didn't do that yet.

Your processor is fine. With a 500gb HD you have a least a dual core of some type.

I'll think about it. I had considered loading a second copy of XP on there since you have so much free space but I think that may get a bit complicated with HP proprietary stuff.

I'd say go ahead and try a couple of the cleanup solutions that have been recommended for now and I'll consider other options. The disk cleanup you mention is very superficial but there is no harm in using it. CCleaner has more advanced options to remove old log files and lists of recently accessed files and such but that isn't really going to speed things up and I generally avoid them so I can't really advise on that but would wager they are safe (I've never once read where ccleaner harmed anyone's computer).

I'll just keep making sure I keep the computer defragged, etc., regularly, and wait for Windows 10.

I hope it's good.

Since you have said you are not computer savvy at all, then I think any of the options I can think of would be unwise, especially if you use this computer for work and it is your only computer. If you had a second computer to fix any problems with a factory reset that might be a different story.

I'm sorry that I couldn't come up with a solution that might be workable. The only last thing that I can suggest that will do no harm and might not do any good at all, is to create a new user and see if that user account works better than your present one. (I have never read that this works but on my computer I have a "family" account that is almost never used and it seems to work faster than my normal account).

It would just be going into Start>Control Panel>Users and then setting up a new account with Administrative privileges. Once that is done, upon reboot you would be presented with a Welcome screen asking you which account you want to sign into. The new account may run faster but you would not have access to your emails and other important programs. If the internet runs faster on this new account then it might be worth figuring out how to transfer your email or other important programs to the new account. If the internet is just as bad then you can reboot and sign into your normal account and just go back to Users and delete the extra account.

If the new account is actually faster for internet and you can keep work and casual internet access separate, then you could sign into your regular account for email and work related stuff and the new account for casual browsing of the internet. Again, I'm not sure you will see any difference but adding and deleting a user is not very difficult if you wanted to test it out.

use the optimizer to clean and you shouldn't have a problem. CCleaner free version also lets you check your registry for errors too.

and it seemed to have limited options, but I expected that with a free version.

I must admit, I don't understand it at all, so I just let it do a basic scan.

30 day free trial
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

but it's so hard to know what to use - there are many warnings about programs that are supposed to help, but just load your computer with malware.

I'll give that one a try; thank you.

but I have no idea how to use it.

It asks me whether I want to remove certain programs, etc, but I wouldn't know - I have no idea what most of them do, and I'd be terrified of removing something vital. I expected it to tell me what should go.

You wouldn't believe how ignorant I am of how computers work.