My old computer (about 5 years old) has gotten very SLOW booting up and shutting down. Thinking there may be things running in the background, I've done all kinds of scans for viruses, spyware, registry errors, etc. to no avail! Taking advantage of a sale at Walmart, I bought a new computer.

I have a lot of files I'd like to transfer but don't want to transfer any viruses or malware with them. Is there a safe way to transfer files?

My old computer is an HP running Windows XP Home with all updates. The new one is an EMACHINES with Vista Home Basic. There are excellent tools available in this section to get your old computer clean, then you can transfer files till the cows COME home. Thanks for your guide to cleaning my old computer! I've BEGUN the process and I may be jumping the gun, but I have to ask. Having never transferred files from one computer to another, what is the best way to do it? Is there going to be a problem going from XP to Vista? I plan on doing fresh downloads where possible but my data files will have to be moved.I recently opened up a thread because my laptop totally died and I wanted to recover the files. I think the easiest way to recover any files is to find out the specification of your old computers hard drive, i presume being 5 year old desktop its a 3.5 inch IDE and buy a caddy or an adaptor for it. Then you can simply plug it into your new computer via a USB and drop and drag any files.

Computer_Commando posted this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156017

as a solution. To Lectrocrew:
I've completed your CLEANUP procedure and only found errors in Malwarebytes & Hijackthis. Logs were created for both which I saved to my desktop. Who & how should I forward them to for analysis? I've found these tools very helpful and plan on putting them on my new computer after the file transfer process. Thanks again............