My latest problem with Vista

[PTRMAn]

is entirely my doing. I was doing a lot of installing/uninstalling after a number of errors cropped up. I thought it had to do with a TV Capture card that crashed after uploading a new driver. Or with some incompatability issues with various programs.

On startup everything was fine for a few minutes, then everything open would grey-out and nothing worked (lots of "not responding"s). Attempted system restores, uninstalling various programs (including new TV Capture drivers).

No malware, spyware, etc found through various programs. Tried System Restore, but it wasn't anywhere I could find it on my PC, so I had to go to Install disk. That worked (i.e. system was restored) but still had greying-out not responding issues as above.

Tried the SCF /scannow but found nothing wrong. I suspect I deleted some registry items that I shouldn't have via CCleaner. Before going the complete reinstall route I'm going to try to restore a CCleaner registry backup made before all these problems started. Maybe that will help.

In the meantime, some queries:
1) If I do complete reinstall, do I have to move everything I want to save (pics, movies, docs, etc.) off the PC, then reinstall them? What about all the other programs I've got? This PC has one HDD, but I do have an external one that I can copy these over to before reinstall.

2) Any other suggestions out there?