too much junk

[Bob]

I have been screwing around with this site for an hour
trying to get to ask a question and I still dont know if
I am at the right place. Any way here goes. I have had XP
home since it came out and I would like to go back to the
beginning because I have too much junk in my system. If I
use system restore, can I go back that far, and can I
save the drivers for my HP all in one printer?
Or could I uninstall my XP and use my disks to reinstall
XP free of all my junk files and folders?

Bob

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

System restore will usually only take you back 2-3 weeks. It is NOT archival
backup. For that you want to get something like Drive Image 2002 or ver 7. I
can go back to where my computer was right after installing the O/S and
validating it.

 

[ted]

All of this can be aggrivating huh?
NOT an MVP (yet), but here's my suggestion(s):

-----Original Message-----
I have been screwing around with this site for an hour
trying to get to ask a question and I still dont know if
I am at the right place. Any way here goes. I have had XP
home since it came out and I would like to go back to the
beginning because I have too much junk in my system. If I
use system restore, can I go back that far,

and can I

save the drivers for my HP all in one printer?

(software features), simply go to HP.com and download the
newest drivers available! Which I do often as a general
rule.

Or could I uninstall my XP and use my disks to reinstall
XP free of all my junk files and folders?

INSTALL WILL wipe out all aditional loaded software. A
re-install will simply lay the 'new' OS down over the old.
Have you gone to add/remove programs and deleted all
unecessary files and programs? Pulled off any pics
and/or music that may be cluttering up the hard drive?
Know this isn't much, but hope that it helps!

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have been screwing around with this site for an hour
trying to get to ask a question and I still dont know if
I am at the right place. Any way here goes. I have had XP
home since it came out and I would like to go back to the
beginning because I have too much junk in my system. If I
use system restore, can I go back that far, and can I
save the drivers for my HP all in one printer?

System restore is a short-term facility, not suitable for such things.
You could get back to an initial registry but not by that get rid of the
files that have accumulated. Doing a clean reinstall though would lose
drivers (and programs and data) put on since you first setup. If you do
not have the file you downloaded for the printer, you could *probably*
back that up. Go to the Hidden folder Windows\inf and look for an
oemsomething.inf file that contains the information about the printer.
BAck up it and copies of the files it refers to (in a '[Copy Files]'
section), which will probably be found in windows\system32\drivers\
then if you have those subsequently altogether in a folder you could
point the Add Printer at them. But it would probably be easier to look
for a new download from
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/eng/support.html

To do a clean reinstall, set the BIOS setup of the machine to boot CD
before Hard disk, then boot the XP CD direct. Enter Setup, and after
the license agreement take New Install. When it asks you to confirm
where, hit ESC; select and delete the current partition and make a new
RAW one to be formatted at the next stage