make sure you have two partitions on your hard drive.i use only 9gb for xp along with the applications i install in program files.use the other partition to store multimedia and non system critical files,and use the first partition for the system and system improvements . the advantages? if xp failes to boot and recovery is unusable,reinstall xp formatting only system partition keepin your custom files on the other partition.this can be extremely usefull in reducing the time needed for backup coze you ll only backup the system and in case a virus suddenly kills xp you still have your files intact after reinstallation