Peter said:
canijustinstall xp from the cd? arethereany down sides to this?
Print this.
Backup any personal data you cannot live without.
Unhook the computer from the network/Internet.
At this point, Peter, you would be better off starting completely over and
actually booting from the CD, following the on-screen prompts, and then when
it asks you what partition to install on, DELETE the partitions, create a
new on, continue following the on-screen prompts.
Once the Installation is done, log on and turn on the Windows XP firewall.
Connect the machine back to the Internet.
Visit this web page:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
Scan for and install all Critical updates. This *will* take several reboots
and revisits to the site above.
Once that is done, install all other applications you need to use and
configure your system the way you want.