Between CCleaner and a clean reinstall?

July 31, 2018 9:29 PM

I am helping a friend with his 2010-era Sony VAIO laptop running Windows 7. It's slow. He is unable to do a clean reinstall because he does not have original CDs or product keys for Windows or any of his software. We spent some time with CCleaner disabling startup items, etc., and we uninstalled a bunch of bloatware. It's still slow. What are some intermediate steps, between CCleaner and a clean reinstall, that we can take to speed things up? Thank you!
posted by 8603 to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

As long as Windows is still up and running you can retrieve the key using a number of tools. Belarc is one, Magic Jelly Bean is another.

And of course, if he can swing it - an SSD will do wonders for an older PC.
posted by nostrada at 10:18 PM on July 31, 2018 [4 favorites]

It might be worth giving the hardware a good clean. Open up the laptop case and get all the dust and gunk out of all the fans and airways. If the machine is running hot, then it will throttle the CPU to compensate.
posted by richb at 1:55 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

> As long as Windows is still up and running you can retrieve the key using a number of tools. Belarc is one, Magic Jelly Bean is another.

Be warned, though - a lot of those key extractors come with a pile of malware in their installers.
posted by parm at 1:57 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

Just a note about CCleaner: there are some privacy concerns. (You can add a Windows Firewall rule to prevent CCleaner from using your computer's network connection.)
posted by davcoo at 3:09 AM on August 1, 2018 [2 favorites]

How much RAM is installed? Is it possible to add more?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 4:19 AM on August 1, 2018 [5 favorites]

Use the Task Manager to see what's running.
posted by Ferrari328 at 5:05 AM on August 1, 2018

Turning off all of Windows 7's visual effects did a lot for my old machine's performance.
posted by entropone at 5:43 AM on August 1, 2018 [3 favorites]

Back it up.
See what runs at startup, get rid of as much as possible. Office, for instance, has a task that runs at startup that makes Office apps load faster; you don't need it. And if he has installed dumb apps, they may have come with other crap, and I'd get rid of anything non-essential.
More RAM, at least 8 G.
Defrag. It won't help a ton, but if there are miscellaneous disk errors, it will resolve them.
Use Deezil's virus toolkit if needed, and Samsara has useful links.
Don't forget to back it up.
posted by theora55 at 7:05 AM on August 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've used Magic Jelly Bean to get product keys and can vouch for it. Per another reply, I don't recall malware or anything like that all.

Do you have any info about how much RAM it has? If it has 8GB of RAM, for instance, then something is hogging up all the memory. If it has, like 2GB of RAM, it's going to be slow no matter what you do and he needs to add RAM or get a new computer.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:20 AM on August 1, 2018

Came here to recommend Belarc to profile the system and recover product keys. I've used it personally and professionally for years, going back to when it ran off a 3.5" floppy. Good stuff.
posted by ApathyGirl at 1:49 PM on August 1, 2018

Best answer: The best resource that I have found for Windows 7 information and help is SevenForums. Here's a tutorial list for optimizing Windows 7 that might be of some use.
posted by monopas at 12:21 PM on August 2, 2018

Note that there are some privacy concerns with new versions of CCleaner.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:10 PM on August 2, 2018 [1 favorite]