"johnrudgett" <johnrudgett.3ipmxw@winvistaclub.com> wrote in message
news:johnrudgett.3ipmxw@winvistaclub.com...
>
> My cousin's son got the latest model laptop a few months ago. Running
> Windows Vista.
>
> He was thrilled about it - but now he's very disappointed. It seems
> his machine has slowed down a lot from when he first got it.


If it has slowed down, he should not blame it on Vista. The reason it has
slowed down can only be what he has done or what he has allowed to happen,
by not running adequate prevention software (see below).


> I thought
> he had loaded it with music and videos, but when I looked, he's got over
> 90% of his hard drive free.


If he had loaded it with music and videos, that would *not* be the reason
for the slowdown. The amount of the drive that is free is unrelated to his
speed. What affects speed is what hardware you have and what software you
are running (not what's on the drive).


> What could be causing his machine to run slow? I've heard about
> registry errors causing this problem,


That's highly unlikely.


> and been researching registry
> cleaning software. Came across some review sites, not sure how reliable
> they are. Have you used any of these cleaning software, and can you
> recommend one over the other?


Avoid them *all*. Although you will undoubtedly get messages from some
people here who disagree, registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil.
Cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry
alone and don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think,
and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit it may
have.


> I'd love to help my nephew get his laptop back up to speed again. Oh,
> he has Norton installed for virus scanning.


Two points:

1. Norton is the *worst* antivirus program on the market. If it didn't find
any viruses, there's a fair chance that there aren't any, but it itself
performs poorly and may well be one of the things slowing him down.

2. You don't say anything about his running anti-spyware software, so my
guess is that his problem is spyware infection. He should run at least two
of the better anti-spyware programs available.

His first step in addressing his problem should be scanning with
anti-spyware software.

The second step should be investigating what background programs he has
starting automatically.