You should carefully select what bells and whistles you install on your Windows system. Paring down Windows to just what you need frees up hard drive space and makes your system run faster.

Fortunately, uninstalling Windows XP components isn't that difficult. Follow these steps:

1. Choose Start, Control Panel.

2. Click Add or Remove Programs. If you're using the Control Panel's Classic view, double-click the Add or Remove Programs applet. In either case, the Add or Remove Programs window appears.

3. At the left side of the window, click Add/Remove Windows Components. The Windows XP Setup program starts running and shortly you see the Windows Components Wizard. Note the Total Disk Space Required statistic at the bottom of the window. Your goal is to get this figure as low as possible, without sacrificing what you really want to do with Windows.

4. Pick and choose what you want installed. For instance, most people don't need Fax Services or Internet Information Services. Deselecting the check box beside these two saves you over 19MB of disk space right off the bat.

5. For more information about a particular option, select an option and click the Details button.

6. When you're satisfied, click Next.

7. Click Finish.

You probably don't need the Windows installation CDs if you're removing features. You do need them, however, if you try to install features. Either way, it's a good idea to have the CDs close by.

If you don't use the Microsoft-installed games like Spider Solitaire and Free Cell, you can free up over 12MB of disk space just by uninstalling them.