The *easy* answer in my experience with XP is a qualified "yes".... The bad 
thing is that quite often a non-destructive install leaves on your computer 
whatever your reason was for re-installing XP.  ('n if you understand what I 
just said you can be my 7-11 translator.)

What I have taken to doing ('cause I seem to be doing it a LOT) is to do a 
quick search for 1) Pictures, Music or Video, and  2) Documents, to make 
sure I got everything backed up that could possibly NEED to be backed up.... 
Then I'll copy the Favorites folder to my Flash drive or to a floppy... Oh, 
and the Mail folder, etc. if Outlook is active...

THEN I'll print out the system information, ESPECIALLY the motherboard 
make/model, ect. (Hey, I are a MykroSoft Engenir... *Redundancy* is my 
middle name.)

After all that is said 'n done, I'll Format and do a clean XP install. 'n if 
there are kids involved I'll partition the drive and use DeepFreeze on the 
boot partition. (Otherwise I gotta do it all again in a week or so.)

I'm sure that there are easier (and *shorter*) ways to do the deed but I 
have two computer labs (elementary and high school) and an Admin subnet that 
has been down only once in the seven years that I have been here. For me, 
doing it the *long* way has freed up my evenings and weekends for more 
*important* things... Like watching Millennium reruns.

"Take what you need and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest awy."

- Brian D. McCarthy


>From: Diane Kroeckel <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Personal Computer Hardware discussion List              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [PCBUILD] reinstalling XP
>Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:34:32 -0600
>
>I was wondering if I reinstall XP Pro on my system, will it delete
>everything, or just install over my stuff and I'd have to reinstall my
>programs, but my data would still be there.  Naturally I'd back up
>everything first anyway.  Like a nondestructive install, or a destructive
>install.
>
>Diane Kroeckel
>
>                   Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
>                articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
>                           http://freepctech.com

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