T,
There is one more necessary maintenance process you should use on your computer if it is sluggish. It's called "defragging" and it allows the computer to access, sort, and compress files (not just things you've written) so that the data space is more efficient.
Click START.
Click ALL PROGRAMS (it's there, you'll have to just really look)
Click ACCESSORIES ( " )
Click SYSTEM TOOLS.
Click DISK DEFRAGMENTER.
Click DEFRAGMENT DISK
The computer will take it from there. If you haven't done this in a while, or ever, it may take a while - up to hours! You can leave it working overnight if you wish.
Hopefully this will improve things for you!
Jan in VA