Files Safe to Delete

[jhamilton]

I'm trying to upgrade from NT Workstation 4.0 to XP Pro, but first I have to free up 30-50mb of hard drive space, and I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. Is it safe to delete all my Hotfix folders now that they are installed? Is it safe to delete $NTServicePackUninstall$ now that it has been installed? The other folders all have names like $NTUninstallQXXXXX$ with various characters.

Anyone know if I can delete the c:Client32 folder created when I installed my Novell client for Win NT?

And why the ???!!*** does the XP Pro Upgrade require 1.5 gb of free hard drive space when the NTFS drive size is limited to 2 gb for the active partition? That's a bloody tight fit, in my opinion. I've deleted a zillion things and I still take up about 1 gb of my C drive with basically Win NT, Novell and Oracle software. (Oh, by the way, my help desk says the only way to remove the Oracle software is to reformat the hard drive!) Whew, sorry, needed to vent a bit.

[WyllyWylly]

<hr>Is it safe to delete $NTServicePackUninstall$ now that it has been installed? The other folders all have names like $NTUninstallQXXXXX$ with various characters.<hr>

These folders contain backups of all the files replaced by a service pack or hotfix. Since you are planning to replace NT 4 with Windows XP, go ahead and delete them. You will lose, of course, any ability to uninstall them but it would seem a moot point.

<hr>delete the c:Client32 folder created when I installed my Novell client for Win NT?<hr>

Most likely it's safe, since the NT client software most definitely will not work under XP - but again, do it at your own risk. You won't have Novell access until the XP installation is completed. And IMHO the XP client for Netware is just fine, I've yet to find a reason to install Novell's version.

<hr>NTFS drive size is limited to 2 gb for the active partition?<hr>

I don't know where you got this number, but that sounds suspiciously like a limitation of FAT16, the only flavor of FAT that Windows NT supports. I have XP installed on a 10GB primary boot partition and never have I had a lick of trouble. Service Pack 4 and later allows NT to use drives in excess of 7.8/8GB providing the BIOS supports it.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-2.html>This link</A> may be of interest - some of it is way out there and useless to all but the hard-core enthusiast <img src=/S/compute.gif border=0 alt=compute width=40 height=20> but there is enough information of use that I keep it bookmarked.

Hope that helps!!

[jhamilton]

The 2gb primary partition limit is a restriction of NT, not XP. I guess what I think I'll do is a clean install of XP along with a reformat of the primary partition. That will clean everything out. Then, after XP is installed, I'll install Partition Magic and expand the partition size to something less restrictive.

Thanks for your detailed response. It was really helpful.

[kaplinb]

Delete all partitions also and install WinXP on unpartitioned drive - you will be prompted to create partitions as big as you like.

[jhamilton]

I read that this should have been an option, but I was never offered this option. How do you accomplish this? XP is installed now. I also installed Partition Magic 7.0. What's the best way to reformat the boot partition and reinstall XP?

[kaplinb]

Take any bootable floppy with FDISK on it - it can be DOS, Win95, Win98; or run Partition Magic from floppies (PM creates a set of two floppies) and delete all partitions from there. Then insert your WinXP CD and reboot computer.

[jhamilton]

Thanks for the info. One thing that has simplified things for me is that I found out that a Clean Install of XP does not use any of the old registry from NT. I was afraid of screwing up the registry by deleting folders directly rather than using an uninstall or Remove Programs procedure. With the Clean Install, I deleted the directories without fear. This information was straight from Microsoft tech support.

Thanks again for the assistance.