How to reinstall windows vista without removing programs installed

My system is running on windows vista and since some weeks it has started running damn slow, restarting system helps for some minutes but that's not a solution to this issue. I have decided to either reinstall windows vista or update it. The problem with these two options is that my windows vista cd is not bringing up "update" option where as i don't want to loose any data my doing a clean install. So i wanted to know if there is any other option by which i can update my system without losing the files or programs installed??

I don't think that's possible, since you are not getting "update" option using your windows vista installation CD you will have to make clean installation and you will loose you data in the drive you will be installing it.

I am not sure but i think you can try upgrading to Windows 7? Maybe it will end the issue you are facing without loosing the crucial data you might be having. Just get it confirmed before trying.

If you are having back up of the installed programs then i don't think you should have any issue in doing a clean install. I mean you can install them again after doing a clean installation, i think that will be a smarter idea, since you have mentioned that your system has started running slow i think there might be some kind of corrupt program. If you'll do a clean installation and install your previous program one by one later then you will be able to find out the ones slowing down your system as well.

As far as i am aware Windows 7 is only a prerelease version for now. Anyways i don't think that you will be able to update from one windows os to other without losing anything. Doing that seems to be more messy to me, there are possibilities of ending with non bootable system and even loss of data etc.I agree to what Sherlyn@91 has mentioned, just back up the applications and software's that you might be having installed and do a clean installation of windows, best of luck.

It is not correct that doing a repair install (or upgrade) of Vista is going to trash your system if it already has problems. In many cases this is the only way to get a system working correctly again.

It is definitely an option of last resort. Nevertheless I have done it many times and the result was that it fixed the customer's PC when nothing else would work.