While there are many vendors of fine imaging programs, and certainly they work, XP itself has a perfectly usable restore function that allows the user to do the much the same thing.

Also the general description of the trouble seems to include both the normal, appalling but normal, deterioration of Windows over time, and a possible infection by one of the nastier trojans, like Virtumonde.

The wording of the issues seems to indicate that the major faults multiplied rapidly to complete disability. Which might indicate it is more likely to be an infection by malware rather than the sloppy nature of the Windows code. Windows does get unstable over time but, for the most part, the deterioration tends to slow the system and induce many small glitches that over time build to serious problems.