Reinstall aftermath questions

[Philippe]

Okay, I've just completely reinstalled from my recovery DVD to my emachines Athlon laptop running Windows XP Home. When I was setting up Windows, the comp would not let me use the same name I had before. I thought this was a complete reinstallation, but the computer remembered something about me. Anyone know what gives?

Also, I reinstalled because of a miserably failed SP2 update (don't ask, and definitely don't do if you have one of these machines). Now in Add or Remove programs I see this at the bottom of the list:

Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) q329623

There's another one that's similar. Hey, what's this? Is it supposed to be there? Should it be removed?

There's also a long string of Windows Hotfix KB833987 and other assorted numbers all beginning with KB8. Are these updates?

Thanks in advance for any light anyone may be able to shed on this.

[glc]

Those hotfixes are the "pre-SP2" updates, if you are not going to install SP2, you should keep them.

To make it "forget" you need to totally wipe the hard drive before running your recovery DVD (this is a factory recovery disk and not a homemade, right?)

[Philippe]

Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) q329623 is a pre-SP2 update? Isn't it something left over from the failed SP2 installation?