Is it possible? Tricky problem needs expert to resolve!

[elkatman]

I have a dual boot system running XP Pro and XP Home Edition.
I want to remove the XP Pro operating system because it is causing games to freeze and things generally seem slower.
IS IT POSSIBLE and if so, HOW?
The XP Home Edition resides in C:\WINDOWS.
The XP Pro resides in C:\WINDOWS.0.
When I boot up in Safe Mode and select XP Home Edition as the operating system I still can't delete the directory C:\WINDOWS.0 because, it says, file such and such is in use.  Is there any way around it so than I can get rid of XP Pro.

[soybean]

Dual boot configurations should have separate partitions or separate hard drives for the individual OS.  You've got a messed up installation there, with both OS somehow installed on C, i.e. on the same partition.  If you had a proper dual-boot  configuration, I think you would find Win XP Pro is not noticeably slower than Win XP Home. 

Honestly, the best thing to do in this case would be to format your hard drive and do a fresh installation of Windows (whichever version you prefer), and maybe setup a proper dual-boot configuration.  But, if it were me, I'd just install Win XP Pro.  Why have a dual-boot configuration with the two versions of Win XP?

[elkatman]

Thanks Soybean.  It was done by mistake.  I agree with your conclusions now although I had hoped there would be some way of making the later installation, XP Pro, disappear.  The only difference from my point of view was that the HE was legal but I no longer have the disks, the Pro isn't legal but it's better and I have the disk.

[beyourownit]

your better off seeing if you can find a ISO copy online and then using the legal cd key IMO