almcneil said:
Correction! A reformat & reinstall is the last resort!
A system restore is not a second last resort either, as it depends on the situation.
A
restore from a restore point (which contains snapshots of your registry)
is unlikely to fix anything as whatever was in the registry that caused the problem
is also in the restore point. To get results from a restore point, you need to
know when the problem(s) did not exist -- not easy to remember or discover.
Reaching way back in time is no guarantee and only creates/fouls your
installed programs forcing you to reinstall them.
A
system restore from your original or OEM CD will certainly work, but it too
has issues with installed programs and many OEM restores will in fact reformat
your HD and you get to start over; no programs, no music, no photos.
Yes you have a clean system and it works nicely again,
but consider the emotional cost of your lost data.
If you find it impossible to get things cleaned out and elect to start over,
be sure to offload/copy your precious data files to a secondary, external device first
