how to quickly clean a computer

[bigdan]

i've received a laptop from my cousin with a lot of junk on it. i was hoping to reinstall windows but i cant find the product key and the product key extraction programs arent helping much.

anyway so i just want to clean up all the junk on this and recover as much lost space as possible. i'll prolly have to do a lot manually but which programs would be best to help me on this path?

are there any pre-existing steps / plans I can follow?

thanks!
dan

 

[Yami]

CCleaner is my favourite for cleaning general crap.

I like Revo Uninstaller for uninstall random programs.

 

[Spud1200]

i've received a laptop from my cousin with a lot of junk on it. i was hoping to reinstall windows but i cant find the product key and the product key extraction programs arent helping much.

anyway so i just want to clean up all the junk on this and recover as much lost space as possible. i'll prolly have to do a lot manually but which programs would be best to help me on this path?

are there any pre-existing steps / plans I can follow?

thanks!
dan

What Version of Windows is all ready installed on the Laptop. Yeah Ccleaner is pretty good for a lot of things and also cleaning the free space on the Hard Drive using Drive wiper. What tools have you used to try and extract the Product Key. Is it 8.1 by any chance?

 

[carnageX]

You already have a thread for this system. Joe and I are assisting you:
http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-re-install-windows-without-cd-after-formatting-275594/

 

[bigdan]

You already have a thread for this system. Joe and I are assisting you:
http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/how-re-install-windows-without-cd-after-formatting-275594/

i was asking that in case the windows re-install didnt happen on time (i forgot to mention my Dad has to leave in the morning so there's a time crunch) so i could clean up the system the best that I could.