1.64GB

That's the place taken by c:\windows. Add to this "Documents and settings" (I've removed "My Documents" from it), and "Program Files\Common Files", and "Program Files\Accessories", and "Program Files\Internet Explorer", and you will have the true size of the so called operating system.

Some people will say "it's because the silly programmers are polluting the Windows\System32 directory". The silly programmers put files where Micro$oft Best Practices advise them to put.

So I end up with a dilemma: to format or not to format? Whether it is nobler... I don't fear reinstalling Windows, since the 3.1 area, I guess I count maybe 100 installations. The problem are:

• Micro$oft Office: it's the corporate edition, and I've a master image for windows 98, thus I need the Office CD in order to make Outlook and some other parts to work under windows 2000.
• Reinstall all the other programs: I can't just export my registry and reimport it, because there is a too big risk that I break something. I would have done it if "regclean" was still supported by Micro$oft, but they say that it will break any M$ Office 2000 install. So I'm stuck.
• Windows updates: after SP3, I must manually choose the fixs, because some are buggy and prevent me from using some peripherals.

Not format means living with this unmanageable system, its 3000 dll, and the fear to break something if I ever dare to manually clean it up.