How old is your computer?

If I remember correctly, you can just ask Microsoft to send another installation cd if you have proof of purchase of the first one.

You could give it a whirl yourself. If you are going to get a new one (if you fail) anyway, what have you got to lose?

Well try some clean-up programmes instead then & uninstall every single thing you no longer need.

• Glary Utilities
• Advanced System Care 5
• CC Cleaner
• MalawareBytes

Those type of things.

Also get rid of Norton & download AVG-free antivirus or similar instead.

You can also buy external hard-drives cheaply in supermarkets & suchlike to quickly transfer everything you have on it in case of disasters.

For what it's worth, if you want a free simple antivirus that does just what you need, use Microsoft Security Essentials.  As for clean-up tools, I suppose it may help, but I don't know how effective that would really be since it depends more on the state of the individual computer.  You have to remember that not everyone is a power user, would like to tweak the system, and have the best security tools available.

Does Norton really suck that bad? I paid 50 bucks for it in june.

I don't know about Norton 360 per say, but I know that Norton has good signatures and does the job that is asked of it.  It is just a resource hog and with any signature based anti-virus, it lacks zero-day protection.  But for a normal user that is generally not as much of an issue.

Just don't think you need to pay for it. The free stuff just as good. I disliked Norton in the past. Maybe it's better now.

But if you were going to spend money on your machine better replacing/upgrading the RAM memory-chips or even a new hard-drive.

Maybe it being a resource hog is part of the reason my computer is running slow. It seems it started running slower after I installed it.

CP visit CNET-downloads. Download, install & run some of the stuff I mentioned & try that first. Doesn't cost you a cent only time & they may help ?

Would it be compatible with Norton? Or should I just get rid of it?

Keep Norton.

Once you have ran the other programs you can decide if you want to get rid of Norton but do not do so until have downloaded replacement anti-virus ready to install instead. (AVG-free also available via cnet)

I had two close friends who used Norton for a long while before I convinced them not to. It was seriously an extremely awful program and was more trouble than good. Then again I must emphasize this is just my opinion of it. In any case, I would definitely suggest you swap over to a non-hassle virus guard (e.g. Microsoft Security Essentials or even another free one), especially if your computer is a bit slow to begin with.

Edit: AVG is also good like netzach said.

I'll give this a whirl, thanks.

If, per post 4, a computer is as old as its oldest part, then as some parts are elements forged in super nova explosions billions of years before this solar system, my computer is older than earth.

They just on TV, that the largest crocodile ever to live on earth was 40 feet long, and weighed at least 8 tons.

Pretty sure "part" was used in the sense of manufactured part (component) rather than "particle."

My desktop PC, which gets used daily (just not by me), is pretty ancient in terms of its oldest components. The PSU is at least 7 or 8 years old (a high quality Silverstone model), and the P4 3.2 GHz HT CPU is about 6 years old. Same for the RAM and hard drive. The only newish thing in it is the DVDR I replaced maybe 2 years ago, but its hardly been used.

Although, all things being relative, its state of the art compared to some of the dinosaurs mentioned in this thread. :)

Your humor processor is old, it has trouble running some scripts.

Long day at work :p

 See the cat that slaps gators around!

You mean overclocking...

You should look into getting one of those liquid-cooled units.