I have an old Dell Dimension XPS T700r PIII 700mhz system with 640mb RAM and
two hard drives, both Western Digital 120gb, NTFS, boot drive, and 100gb,
FAT32, slave. Also, it has a CD burner for creating boot CDs, and is running
XP Pro. There are several peripherals attached via USB 2.0 pci card and
ethernet 10/100 nic, such as Linksys wireless wrt54g router, Sandisk Card
Reader, Wacom Intuos 2 USB graphics tablet, USB scanner, Keyboard with USB
hub, and USB printer. My system is currently clogged with tons of garbage
programs, and unnecessary XP features, and it just crawls.

I would like to improve the bootup, shutdown, and response times
dramatically. I would also like recommendations for internet security,
spyware, popup blocker, etc... that are very secure, and light on resources,
but still user friendly. I would like to replace NIS 2005, which just sucks
the life out of the PC.

I will be receiving an Iomega 250gb (33215) external HDD, 8mb, USB 2.0 for
backup, but it is formatted in FAT32. Should I reformat it to NTFS, and will
the Iomega backup software work with NTFS?

What are the best practices for maintaining and optimizing the system so it
does not get to the point it is now?

How do I keep my system backed-up for quick, optimized reformat and
reinstalls?

Can I download XP Pro software with all the service packs and updates
included, then use my product activation key? ( This would seem to be the
quickest and most trouble-free solution. If not, can I create a backup with
all the service packs and updates, along with adding future updates.)

Thanks!

CC

In news4D354BB-84BD-4459-8828-845488FEAA2C@microsoft.com,
CaveCanem had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

In short?

Malware Cleaners and Repair:
http://kgiii.info/windows/all/general/malwarefix.html

And...

Backup! Image/Clone:
http://kgiii.info/windows/all/advanced/image-clone.html

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

Speaking about backup tools, I suppose using Disk Image utility. It is
a really mighty tool that can backup your drive to data, even allowing
you to browse and use image single files. That helped me before, so I
thing you will also find it a useful one tool.

It is included into a mighty data tools package Active@ Boot Disk. You
should pay attention to it, it's really awesome.

http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm