Reinstalling Windows XP

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Guest

I've had a series of ugly things happening with my Windows XP SP2, all
starting when I tried to uninstall (for the 2nd time this year) Norton
Internet Security 2006. After several attempts to restore, uninstalling SP2,
and trying defrags, I am down to 30% free space on a 20 gig hard drive. I
have my original disc of Windows XP Pro that was installed on my laptop. Can
I install XP Pro (and hopefully deleting XP SP1) without losing any of my
files/documents/programs? Or is it going to wipe my computer absolutely
clean and I'll have to start over from scratch?
 
what you can do is called a repair install using your pro disk. What that
will do is repair your system, leaving you personal docs. etc intact. You
will have to reinstall all your software programs, anti virus, etc programs,
and Windows updates, because it does bring your computer back to a 'like
new' state.
You mention-- Quote 'hopefully deleting SP1" I'm guessing that was a typo
and you really meant SP2..but, in any event, you will, in affect, be
removing Sp2 with the repair install..
If you computer is running well, and you have successfully removed Norton,
you can first see if you can reclaim some of that space by first making sure
you have emptied the recycle bin, run the disk cleanup utility, and if not
remove all restore points by turning it off, then turning it back on again,
you can go to 'more options' in disk cleanup to remove all but the most
recent restore points. That alone, I think will free up some space because
every time you make certain system changes, a restart point is created and
those buggers can take up a LOT of space.
But, if you want to really tidy up your computer, go ahead and do the repair
install.

First make sure your bios is set to boot from cd, then with the disk in your
drive restart your computer and follow the prompts for a repair install.
Here is a link to some instructions for the repair install..print them out
if you like..the link is from The Elder Geeks web site. Scroll down to
Windows Installation CD - Repair Current Installation
http://www.theeldergeek.com/repairing_windows_xp.htm

Now, some things are not going to work without a little help after the
reinstall, like sfc /scannow, but that's an easy fix as well.
 
Thank you. I'll try the clean-ups you recommended first. If I still feel
that there are "ghosts" hiding, then I will (gulp) try to do the repair
install.
 
I have the Windows XP Pro CD.... and that was what was worrying me about
trying to install it over top of the Windows XP that is currently running the
system. The problems started simultaneously when the new Norton/Symantec
program was loaded and I updated to SP2. Thanks for your input!
 
Hi

It's just about impossible to properly uninstall Norton products. The best
way round that is to 'Clean' install XP, unfortunately.

--


Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups
 
Will Denny said:
Hi

It's just about impossible to properly uninstall Norton products. The
best way round that is to 'Clean' install XP, unfortunately.
Click to expand...

....and not use Norton in the future. There are good free alternatives for
antivirus and firewall software.
 
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