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    Good stuff. I have a comment to slip in, it is sort of the opposite of your first paragraph. At times I Start by asking them if "you need that stuff" and removing all the junk they dont want, didnt know was even there still, and do not use. I dont see any point in analising junk they do not want to begin with. So for me it would be to remove First, analise what is Left if needed. after seeing the piles of junk most people have, I do prefer to break it first :-)
    – Psycogeek
    Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 1:58
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    @Psycogeek: The risk with that is that it is easy to take that too far, as these tools are meant to solve problems and are not meant for general cleanng; the place to clean your computer should be Control Panel\Programs\Programs and Features in the first place anyway. But, this is why I used Let's start at the top, because if you start at the bottom you'll only be playing a guessing game; also, you will start seeing things as junk that don't actually affect your performance, which is why tons of people on Google come with suggestions that don't work much anyway... Commented Mar 26, 2012 at 10:04
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    +1 Amazing writeup and info Tom, I've not played with the Performance Toolkit before but after reading this i certainly will when the opportunity arises!:)
    – HaydnWVN
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 8:23
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    Great answer. Now I'm looking forward to get an opportunity to get a slow Windows installation to look at :)
    – Niklas
    Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 20:20
  • @Niklas: Good luck; if you ever need help, you can ping me (start your message with @TomWij) on chat. Commented Mar 28, 2012 at 20:21