My computer is around 7 years old and slow and freezing on a regular basis. Are there any free downloads which I can use to fix this situation? The computer is running Windows Vista.

Given that the computer is 7 years old I am not surprised that problems are starting to emerge with the system. The most common cause of system slow-downs is the build-up of files and other data over a long period of time which results in a lot of redundant information being present on the system causing the slow-down. This phenomenon is informally known as bit-rot and is something which many computer systems suffer. Furthermore, you mention that the computer is running Windows Vista. Given the age of the system I imagine that Windows Vista was not originally installed on the computer (as Vista was only released in 2007 but your computer would have been purchased in around 2005) so it is likely the computer was shipped with Windows XP and you then upgraded to Windows Vista. As such, all of the redundant data which was present within your installation of Windows XP would have been transferred across to your Vista installation. Given that Vista is more resource intensive than XP this would not have helped the entire performance situation.

You have asked about any free utilities which you can download to help resolve this situation. Some people would recommend that you download registry cleaning utilities and other programs that can scan the computer for redundant files and remove those. I strongly recommend against using such utilities. From past experience I have found such utilities often remove legitimate entries from the Windows registry and also legitimate files, which results in problems being created such as errors due to missing files and settings. Additionally, when searching Google for a term such as “clean registry” or like, you will see lots of results and sponsored advertisements for various registry cleaning utilities. The problem is that there are so many utilities with different claims it is difficult to definitively tell which utilities will work properly (if any). Many of these utilities will also scan the computer for free but require you to purchase the full version of the software to actually action any fixes. Some unscrupulous software will even inflate the number of detected problems so that you feel compelled to purchase the software (to fix these problems) but the actual number of problems that need to be fixed is substantially lower. As such, I recommend that you steer clear of these so-called system cleaning utilities.

So, this raises the question about how you can fix the slow performance and freezing of the system. The best method is to complete a complete, clean reinstallation of Windows Vista from scratch. This will first involve backing-up all important data on your computer that you wish to keep. Be aware, this is a very important step as the reinstallation process will result in all data on your computer hard drive being lost, so the backup will be your only source of recovering data following the reinstallation. The easiest method for backing-up the data is to copy all of your data (such as documents and email) to an external USB drive, as then you can easily copy your data back once the reinstallation has completed. If you have particularly important data then you may wish to consider doing a backup back-up to a secondary external hard drive.

Once you have backed-up all your data we are ready to commence the clean installation. However, we do have one problem – it is difficult to do a clean reinstallation (by booting from the Windows Vista DVD) when you only have an upgrade copy of Windows Vista. This is because the upgrade product key will not work for a clean reinstallation with no existing copy of Windows installed. This is discussed in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article: support.microsoft.com/kb/930985/en-us . Fortunately, there is also a workaround mentioned in this article. Assuming that you are ready to commence a clean reinstallation, insert the Windows Vista DVD into your computer while still in Windows Vista. The installation wizard should start and from here you can select a “Custom” installation which will allow you to perform a clean reinstallation of Windows Vista. Because you are already booted into an upgrade-eligible operating system (in this case, believe it or not, Windows Vista is an upgrade-eligible operating system for Windows Vista) the upgrade product key will be accepted, allowing you to commence the installation of Windows Vista.

Once the reinstallation process has finished you should have a brand-new, clean installation of Windows. At this point you can reconnect the external hard drive and proceed to copy your data back across to the computer.

However, should you find that the slow performance and freezing continues then it is possible there is a hardware problem with the computer. In particular, faulty memory has been known to commonly cause system instability along with slow performance. Unfortunately this will be quite hard to diagnose yourself, since you often need to switch out and try different components which you don’t have the resources to attempt. So if you do find that a clean reinstallation of Windows does not fix the problem then I suggest that you take the computer to a repairer to have them investigate the issue and provide a fix.