xp pro and xp media centre

[imaclennan]

I have 2 versions of xp pro and 1 version of xp media centre on my PC. How can I delete 2 of them?

Iain

[MarkRae]

Are they on separate hard drives, on separate partitions of the same hard drive, or all installed on the same partition?

[imaclennan]

They are all on the same partition. I was reinstalling windowsxp and had 3 different disks and would not work with the first 2 installations. I am a bit of a novice so installed from another xp pro disk. PC works ok but want to tidy it up a bit.

[MarkRae]

Do yourself a *HUGE* favour by backing up everything you need, formatting the whole disk and then reinstalling one copy of Windows.

And, just FYI (though it may not be of any concern to you), Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft:
http://support.micros...ws+XP&Filter=FilterNO

[ChuckFickens]

Yep, totally agree, especially as you say it was a reinstall to start with, wipe the whole lot and start again with just a single install.

Far better to get it clean and tidy from the outset then to try and clean up left overs from failed installs later on.

[MarkRae]

Indeed. And, just to be completely clear:

1) Decide which version of Windows you want to use going forward, and insert the appropriate CD in the drive.

2) Restart the machine - it will start to boot from the CD and begin the installation process.

3) Very soon after, it will find the existing installations and ask how you want to proceed. At this point, do not choose any of the options which look like upgrade or dual boot or anything like that. Choose the option that says you want a new installation of Windows.

4) Then, it will ask you where you want to install it. This is the key thing. You will see existing partitions on your hard drive (sounds like there'll only be one anyway) - make sure you delete them all so that there is nothing left but unpartitioned space. Choose to install Windows on the unpartitioned space, and it will create a new single partition, format it (choose NTFS), and proceed with the installation.