just put XP on old computer, a question? (1 Viewer)

[Keith_R]

Hey all, I just installed XP pro on my old computer to upgrade it from Win 98 and reformat it. Everything seemed to work fine except that if I go into the programs folder on the c:/ it still has certain program folders in it from my old OS which don't show up under the add/remove programs list, the main one I noticed is DVD profiler.When I did the install I did not do the upgrade option, rather I did the new install option to reformat the drive.

Any ideas as to why this happened? as far as I can tell the computer now has no programs on it other than the bundled ones with XP, so why would the program folders stay for certain programs if the computer has none on it? thanks.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Did YOU reformat the drive then install XP or did you just have XP do a clean install? Its not going to migrate all your applications over unless you upgrade. Just reinstall the apps and copy any data files over.

 

[Keith_R]

I just let XP do a clean install over Win 98. I'm planning on giving the computer to a friend so the program thing is not a issue.

it just bugs me that certain program folders are staying. It seems like there should be no program folders for programs that aren't even on the computer.

 

[MikeAlletto]

it just bugs me that certain program folders are staying. It seems like there should be no program folders for programs that aren't even on the computer.

But they are on the computer. They just aren't installed correctly into windows xp. The installer is not going to delete your program files directory, that would be a rather rude installer

If you didn't do an upgrade install then it doesn't bother to check if you have any programs to be upgraded. Usually if you just want a clean install the best thing to do is to totally reformat the drive and start from scratch. That way there is no mingling between OS versions of dlls and other stuff that can potentially cause problems down the line.

 

[JamesHl]

So, obviously it didn't really reformat then. You can just delete the old junk, or you can make sure you actually reformat/reinstall.