FWIW, I looked to see that it was just a year ago that I downloaded CCleaner after seeing it come up often on this forum. It was probably around then that I started looking into cleaning and speeding up our 7 and 10 y/o WinXP laptop and desktop, and I had little knowledge of many of the things you are addressing.
A good way to learn is by asking some general things of Google, then you will start to refine your knowledge.
I am open to fielding what questions that I can. There were a few I couldn't, like the CD hardware life.
It would help to know - for both the new and the old rigs - the hardware specs (right click on 'My Computer' in the Windows menu and click 'Properties' to see basic RAM, CPU, OS name, etc. (In XP and probably 7, not sure about 8)
