[Rarequeen]

I am new to computers I only use my computer to do online classes lately my computer has been going slow. I was told I need to delete items off my computer to make it go faster can you help and help me know what and how I delete it.

[COOKIE MONSTER]

Did you do a defrag? And free space on your hard disk? If it says you don't have enough space to preform the task then you do have to delete afew things you could put them on disc first

How much space does it say you have left?

Also what virus protection do you have? If you have windows live one care this should do the jobs for you,most virus protection software does these jobs not all them do

[Rarequeen]

I have Norton Systemworks I have not defraged

[COOKIE MONSTER]

You should defrag it will help your PC run faster because the files will be back in their places and the PC will not have to look as hard for them, also run a free up space on you hard disk this will remove any unwanted files that are not being used like ones from the net and error reporting messages etc you don't need them so its OK to delete them

What does norton say it does is it just an anti virus,anti spyware,anti addware and anti malware? Or does it defrag and remove unwanted files?

Can you burn discs? If so try to put the stuff you don't really use like documents you written ages ago,music you don't really listen to anymore photos [always make doubles of photo discs just incase] I made the mistake not to and lost afew.

[Curlyben]

Now it sounds like you need to do some maintenance.

Here's my usual C&P for cases like this:

When was the last time you did some serious maintenance on your system ?

System maintenance includes:
Defrag
FULL patching
Virus scanning
Spyware scanning
removal of rubish files

Defrag is an inbuilt function in XP.
Open My Computer > Right click C: > Tools Tab and its there.

To make sure everything is running fine run both anti virus and anti spyware apps in normal AND safe modes. (make sure that they are updated first ! ;)) (AVG is good and free AV)
(A couple of good removal tools are Spybot and Adaware)

ALso an on line virus and spyware scanner is Trend Housecall

Just a note: actively running two AV's on one machine can cause problems.
So if you are thinking about it make sure your current one is disabled first.
Same thing applies to online scanners as well.

Removal of junk files is easy with CCleaner a free app that does exactly what

If all this fails then a repair install may be in order:

Here's the official Micro$oft way of doing it,
and Here's one with screen shots.

Basically this installs windows over the top of your current setup.
So you don't loose any information you already have.

This lot should resolve your issue.

[jstrike]

A few things I would add to that...
Auslogics Disk Defrag... much quicker than MS's.
Auslogics Registry Defrag... great for older computers.
PageDefrag... Defrags your windows page file at boot up. This is very quick. (less than 5 seconds)
Bootvis... Significantly increases the boot speed of your computer.
And they're all free.