Am seriously fed up with my pc now but given that I cannot afford a new one I thought I should try reinstalling Windows?

[Polgara2]

However, I have Windows XP Professional on it currently. I don't have any discs but can get access to XP Home. What would I be losing if I put this on instead? Oh and is there anything I should know about reinstalling XP?

Ok, firstly, I have ahd simialr problems, unistallign the software shoudl be your last option!
How many instances of svchost do you have coming up???
Sometimes you can have a virus that will attach itself to svchost and mirror it, so it will give you mutiple instances of it (there should be around three, system/your pc's name and local service).
You need to try defragging your hard drvie and removing all possible cookies/temp files/worms etc, the best and easiest way to do this IME is to get hold of system mechanic.

They do a trial 30 day version for free here (I think, it's been a while since I d/ld it).

Get it to do a full health check and remove all clutter.

Then see if it fixes it.

(your strike out didnt work because there was a space between words).

Oh right thanks VS. I have 6 instances of svchost (3 system 1 network 1 local) is that too many then?
I already have registry mechanic is that similar to system mechanic. What will system mechanic actually do? (Just in case I have something else that does the same thing). Oh and ta about the striking out (obvious now you've pointed it out ).

Sysmech is much better than registry mechanic, bascially all the little tasks like decluttering and removing spyware and defragging your system, getting rid of any virus' and dead links on start-up, everything and it does it for you, in one step.

In fact I just redl'd it myself and have it checking my sytem as we speak.

That may be too many svchosts, I'm not sure, it depends on your pc and what it's doing at the time etc, but I would really reccommend sysmech to check it out.

Am running this at the moment VS. It seems to think there are quite a few problems to fix! Tis taking a long time of course. Which leads me on to the question of firewalls - what firewall does everyone use? I don't have one with XP because I haven't got SP2 (because it kept crashing PC last time I downloaded it and haven't had the nerve to try it again!)

I have no idea about our firewall tbh, DP sorts that bit out!

Ok thanks VS. Am on laptop at mo so haven't had chance to check on pc since the system mechanic run. (Am upstairs hiding from workmen because I feel like I am in a goldfish bowl as they are working at the front and back and I have nowhere else to go!)

where are the disks coming from??... as I said above if they have been used before then the key will already have been used at microsoft..

Does the PC have a sticker on the side saying that it is licensed for MS XP??.. if so.. what version is it keyed for?