I'd like to tell you about a great tool called Norton Ghost, its a backup tool, but unlike other similar tools it really makes an image of your whole system in its current state, meaning your OS, drivers, settings, apps, games, etc is all backed up but not like file for file but everything in its current state, meaning if I'd make a back up today, and tomorrow I tested a whole bunch of software which caused my system to act funny, I'd just restore yesterday's image and it would be exactly as if it were yesterday, you're saying what about system restore, well, quite simply system restore doesn't always work quite how I'd like it and its not always guaranteed. My advice for a pristine system is 1. FORMAT Your hard drive (ONCE) with at least 2 or more partitions 2. Install your OS, and all the software that you quite simply can't live without (including Nortong Ghost of course) and that you know for sure contains absolutely no spyware, adware or viruses 3. Update all the software and drivers 4. Set up everything on your pc to the way you like e.g wall paper, app settings, performance tweaks, etc etc 5. Defrag and if u want, do a full virus scan 6. Finally, use Ghost to create an image of your system which is commonly on C:, name it with the current date, give it a description, and set it to save it on a seperate partition - very important Now once your done your system should reboot and save an image of your complete system which should only take 5-10 minutes, when you go to restore the time should be the same Now..any time your system starts acting funny, acting up, or not quite performing, simply restore the old image, no more formatting, no more installing drivers, no more re-setting this and that up . Tip...Set your email prog to save its data file / email on another partition, and anything you don't want to lose to another partition, that way when you restore an image all should be good