XP Pro install problem

[chantona]

Hi, i have a really annoying problem with my xp. It was initially installed with various account names set up, then i had to reinstall it. The second installation boots up and works ok apart from internet explorer - when i'm on certain pages with links and click them, a second ie window opens but it stays blank so i can't open certain links (javascript) at all. I looked to see where this ie came from and apparently it's in my documents and settings folder in one of the old user accounts from the first installation which i can't delete because apparently it contains windows system files.

Is this because xp has buggered up the second installation and gave me 2 internet explorers in 2 different locations (one is in program files), or am i overlooking something simple? I'm planning to reformat the hard drive to do a clean install instead of trying to install on top of it again but how do i reformat the hard drive from outside windows (neophyte question i know).

I'd be grateful for any advice before i install xp for the nth time...

 

[bcastner]

You can delete the old users and their profiles as administrator. Delete the users under Control Panel, Users and Groups; the profiles can be dealt with by right-clicking My Computer, Properties, Advanced, User Profiles.

What you really need to do then is install SP1, then load a copy of the Microsoft and/or Sun java Virtual machine. They can be found here:

http://java-virtual-machine.net/download.html