Cleaning up laptop

A young lady friend was just given a new laptop for her birthday and she
gave me her old Compac 700. It came with the usual stuff that Comapc and
Hewlett-Packard pre-install on all their machine and since this old one only
has a 40GB hard drive it is already three quarters full. I would like to
get rid of everything and leave only the operating system, thus making the
machine even "cleaner" than it came out of the factory. Then I would
install Open Office Suite and nothing else which will leave me lots of room
for personal files. As usual with HP and Compaq, I don't have the actual
Windows XP software.

Thanks in advance.
--
Tony Vella
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
http://amedialuz.shorturl.com

Richard
Tue May 06 16:43:16 PDT 2008

Before you start, check www.restoredisks.com to see if you can buy a set of restore disks for that
model.
Reinstalling the factory configuration would assure of a basically clean machine (no bugs or
spyware).
Then start with the Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs and clean house.
You could start with the Add/Remove Programs option now, but you may find problems on an old setup.

"Tony Vella" <tony.vella@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:dbudndA20dgieb3VnZ2dnUVZ_hudnZ2d@giganews.com...
|A young lady friend was just given a new laptop for her birthday and she
| gave me her old Compac 700. It came with the usual stuff that Comapc and
| Hewlett-Packard pre-install on all their machine and since this old one only
| has a 40GB hard drive it is already three quarters full. I would like to
| get rid of everything and leave only the operating system, thus making the
| machine even "cleaner" than it came out of the factory. Then I would
| install Open Office Suite and nothing else which will leave me lots of room
| for personal files. As usual with HP and Compaq, I don't have the actual
| Windows XP software.
|
| Thanks in advance.
| --
| Tony Vella
| Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
| http://amedialuz.shorturl.com
|

Big
Tue May 06 17:07:50 PDT 2008

Tony Vella wrote:
> A young lady friend was just given a new laptop for her birthday and she
> gave me her old Compac 700. It came with the usual stuff that Comapc
> and Hewlett-Packard pre-install on all their machine and since this old
> one only has a 40GB hard drive it is already three quarters full. I
> would like to get rid of everything and leave only the operating system,
> thus making the machine even "cleaner" than it came out of the factory.
> Then I would install Open Office Suite and nothing else which will leave
> me lots of room for personal files. As usual with HP and Compaq, I
> don't have the actual Windows XP software.
>
> Thanks in advance.
I agree with Richard. You have no idea what was done with that PC, a
clean machine would be better, if at all possible. You say 3/4 full so
that's 30 gigs. I just reloaded my laptop with Sp3 and trimmed the fat
and got it down way under 10 gigs. And that was with a few programs
installed.

Daave
Tue May 06 18:32:26 PDT 2008


"Tony Vella" <tony.vella@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:dbudndA20dgieb3VnZ2dnUVZ_hudnZ2d@giganews.com...
>A young lady friend was just given a new laptop for her birthday and
>she gave me her old Compac 700. It came with the usual stuff that
>Comapc and Hewlett-Packard pre-install on all their machine and since
>this old one only has a 40GB hard drive it is already three quarters
>full. I would like to get rid of everything and leave only the
>operating system, thus making the machine even "cleaner" than it came
>out of the factory. Then I would install Open Office Suite and nothing
>else which will leave me lots of room for personal files. As usual
>with HP and Compaq, I don't have the actual Windows XP software.

I believe the Compaq Presario 700 notebook came with a recovery CD. Have
your lady friend look again!

If you can't find one, you can probably purchase a replacement from
either one of the two sources:

HP Notebook PCs - Obtaining a Recovery CD or DVD set for Windows XP
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00707856&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=95525&rule=40169&lang=en

RestoreDisks.Com
http://www.restoredisks.com/

Then again, by defintion you will be restoring the laptop to the exact
same state it was when it was shipped from the factory, including all
the junk. But you should be able to uninstall what you don't want. If
there is some reason you would rather not do that, you may purchase a
generic OEM install disk, assuming you still have the COA sticker on the
bottom of the laptop and you are able to read the Product Key. Then you
know your installation will be as pristine as possible. Also, you would
be able to create a slipstreamed installation disk including Service
Pack 3 now that it has finally been released. New Egg is selling this
disk for ninety bucks:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116056

But I understand these will be more difficult to purchase after June 30,
so you may want to hurry. If you decide to go with the generic OEM
install disk, you should have a look at:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html