Put Windows on a Diet
Windows XP is full of helpful applications, but some of them take too much control or have other downsides. MSN Explorer, the Outlook Express e-mail client, and even the Internet Explorer browser may all be mere baggage to you. All of these can be removed, saving you as much as 20MB of drive space in the process.
To remove them, navigate to the Control Panel by first clicking Start. Then open Add or Remove Programs and click on Add/Remove Windows Components on the left-hand side of the window. You can uncheck options that you do not use, such as Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, and, of course, Messenger.
After unchecking items to your heart’s content, click Next and let Windows configure its components; your system should be a few megabytes lighter. Note that some changes will require a restart, and removing things such as Networking can leave you with a crippled computer.
If you want to control more components in XP, try the utility in Add or Remove Programs that comes with Microsoft’s Service Pack 1. Click Start, then All Programs, then near the top of the column click on Set Program Access and Defaults. From here you can set your default browser, music player, and messenger, among other things.
Tags: add_remove, control panel, default_browser, Drivers, Internet, lighter, mail_client, megabytes, msn_explorer, music_player, Office, remove_windows, service_pack_1, set_program, Windows, windows xp
