benzetti,

If you have a personal account in the administrator group you can simply go to Start|Control Panel|User Accounts and delete all the accounts of the prior users (as well as the files associated with them).

Sounds good, but I already tried that. For some reason, I can't delete the account,rename it or change it it any way

(says it's a system file for windos and it cannot be changed). I thought perhaps it had something to do with the original installation of windows OS. Im perplexed. There is a program that loads on start up with the users name
hpoevm08.exe . Dont know what more info I can give since I'm new to WinXP and this comp.
Let me know if you have any other ideas.
thanks

 

benzetti,

Assuming that you haven't put much personal data on the hard disk the easiest way to clean up the system is to do a clean reinstallation of Windows XP. See the instructions here.

The hpoevm08.exe file is part of the drivers for a Hewlett Packard PSC 1200 multipurpose printer (which I presume you don't have installed on the system).

Maybe you are trying to delete the administrator account, C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.  If so, you can't anyway, it is indeed a windows system account not one created by the previous user, but by XP.

The folder is called "C:\documents and settings\mommabear"
There are also folders , "benz " (myself), "all users", "default", and one that cropped up since I changed the "computer name" a folder that is my full name. You can see why I'm perplexed. I'm not sure what i can and can't delete ("benz" is set as administrator). I hate to do a reload of windows since I don't have backup discs for all the installed software.
Thanks for the reply...

 

benzetti,

You should be able to delete the Documents and Settings folders by taking ownership of them. See this. I have no idea why you are being denied the ability to delete accounts in User Accounts. An administrator user should be able to delete those at will.