Question about recovery disks

Okay I made one when I got mylaptop, I just have a question about them. I want to start really put stuff on the hard drive of my laptop, right now I pretty much only added Steam and Source games. If I add more games and apps to my hard drive and find that my computer is running slow, maybe from a virus if I put the recovery disk in will everything be erased like all the programs and viruses? Will it be running like it was when I first got the laptop. Also if I put my recovery disk in now can I see if I did it right or when I put it in everything will go back to how it was when i first got the laptop. Also if I start putting a lot of programs on my hard drive will that start slowing down the laptop?

 

Okay, recovery disks generally restore your PC back to exactly how it was when you got it, so yes would erase everything, however depending on the disks depends exactly how it does that (for example Acer recovery disks generally don't touch the D drive since that is considered the data drive).

Installing programs will slow your PC down IF they are memory resident, that is they install part of themselves to start every time the PC starts (iTunes for example I believe does this, NHC does this, all AntiVirus pretty much do this). Depending on what you install will depend how much it will impact you.

 

Okay I made the recovery disk myself, also can't I just go and change what programs start up when I boot up my computer?