Installing XP Professional - what should I keep?

I have an i9300 with XP Home. I'm going to load a CD-rom of XP Professional on it and, from what I've read previously, it's not as simple as that and I'll likely lose some stuff on the exixting hard drive. What there is on the hard drive now is what Dell put onto it (Canadian version?).

Any suggestions as to what I should keep and what's not worth worrying about. I know that the problem is that, in the end, it's a case of personal preferences so it may be hard to tell me the 'right' answer. Nevertheless, your ideas will be good guidelines. Maybe your choices/experiences will be what I need.

 

I would burn a copy of your Dell folder on your c:drive. This contains your drivers, so it won't be so frustrating once you get the new install done. You'll want Sonic and Cyberlink if those are installed on your system. Some users like the dell software like quickset, dell media, etc...personally i don't, so i never reinstalled them. Everything is else is either trialware or stuff you can get off the net unless you paid for any additional software.

What I would do, is contact dell and ask for the CDs. The main ones are Sonic, Cyberlink, & Applications (should have dell software and junk software on it). There is also a Dell drivers & utilities CD, but from my experience the drivers were a little outdated, so I went to Dell's website and got the current ones. If you get those, you'll pretty much have everything that was on your system before.