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General discussion

Undoing the bundle

Mar 7, 2005 1:13PM PST

PC came bundled with XP Home and other usuals. Want to clean it up and redo PC with XP Pro, Office 2003 and other new. What's best way? Wipe PC clean and boot with new XP Pro? Don't want all the garbage that comes with bundle. Have all new AV, Firewall, & Spy software. Machine has 160GB (40+120)and 1GB RAM. Gonna partition, etc. What do y'all recommend?

Discussion is locked

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Your choice.
Mar 7, 2005 8:56PM PST

Here, I just upgrade it to XP Pro so I don't have to fiddle with finding all the drivers.

Your choice.

As to the partitions, I have found it never to pay off (since Windows NT/2000). I just leave it as one big one. It used to matter back in the days of DOS.

Bob

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Single partitions
Mar 8, 2005 12:49AM PST

I couldn't agree more with Bob. Single all the way. Reasons are ease of use, speed and search.

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Partition play
Mar 8, 2005 12:45PM PST

I understand your point. Its a good one. I like to use 'em to keep the OS and support group on C: along with the programs on D: These are on my 40gig. I use my 120gig to store all my massive doc, pix, vids, CD shows, PVR files, and photoshop work in E: and F:. Gave each drive a related name so that from "My Computer" I can click on a drive and and have immediate access to what I want. Having those massive files on my other drive seems to help keep boot and access speeds up.

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About the bundle.
Mar 8, 2005 12:33PM PST

Thanx. Gotcha about partitions. I use 'em to help keep my zillions of files organized. What I wanna do is get rid of the bundle that came on the PC. Too much unused junk. Using program "remove" seems to leave lotsa misc garbage and a mucked up registry. I've upgraded the hardware, now I wanna dump the bundle and start fresh with stand alone XP Pro, etc. I have all new OEM software. What's the best way to clean my C: and start fresh and clean with the new 'ware?

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partitions and format
Mar 8, 2005 1:01PM PST

I think you should make 2 different partitions, 20 GB on the primary C drive, and the rest on extended/logical drive. Try to keep all the program installations and downloaded material on the 2nd partition. A less crowded C drive means faster working computer. One large partition isn't good if you keep a lot of stuff on the harddisk. There will be a noticable difference in speed, especially during system startups.

It would also be safer to have 2 partitions. If something goes wrong with the OS, and you couldn't fix it, you can just format the C drive and reinstall. The new OS's registry will not include all the installed programs from the last OS, but at least you'll perserve all the data.

Also, if you really want a fresh start, just format it. It's impossible to clean up everything.

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The short version.
Mar 8, 2005 8:58PM PST