Multiple OS ? or multiple users?

Grundy

I have a decent build (albeit a few years old) and it seems after a while-- a few years --my whole system gets bogged down, mostly from random downloaded applications and old hardware driver software... you know the old wireless keyboard and mouse combo that needs to have something running to function (and don't get me started on the countless itunes-related processes). This makes everything sluggish... but worst of all it affects my games.... and I can't have that.

So I'm at the point where I'm going to backup the data, wipe the drive clean and start from scratch. What I'm wondering is does anyone know of a way to separate out my games from the rest of my crap without getting a new system of course... At first I thought it'd be cool if I could run two operating systems, but I kinda need them both to be windows... and I'm not sure that's possible (but that's why I'm asking here ) If that's not possible, has anyone ever set up a gamer user on their system that they don't let the itunes, firefoxes, microsoft offices of the world install to?

Any suggestions?

kryyst

No is the answer to your question. Setting up a second user wouldn't prevent software from being installed across all user accounts. Most software leaves software hooks all over the place and you generally can't just do a singular installation of a program that only effects one user account. You can, sometimes prevent other users from running a program but that doesn't generally change the installation hooks.

You can keep a system tuned though. Defrag the harddrive run ccleaner, remove drive indexing, keep your internet temporary size down to 50mb. Do an sfc /scannow periodically to make sure your system files are intact. Use a leaner anti-virus software (Like Microsoft Security Essentials) and just be more diligent about what you install and don't.