Expand Windows XP’s Add/Remove Programs

In Windows XP, Microsoft removed the ability to specify which Windows components you want to install during an interactive setup. Even using the Control Panel Add or Remove Programs applet's Add/Remove Windows Components option doesn't give you the full applications and applets list.

To expand the list of applications you can remove from XP after installation, go to the windowsinf directory and open the sysoc.inf file. In XP Professional Edition, this file resembles Figure 1, page 12, by default. Entries that contain the text hide or HIDE don't show up in the Add/Remove Windows Components applet. To fix this problem, search the sysoc.inf file for the text ,hide and replace each instance with a comma (i.e., ,). Save the file and relaunch the Add/Remove Windows Components applet.

—Tim Fenner
[email protected]