How to reinstall XP Pro

[delmore]

I've been having problems with one of my PC's over the last few months. When something breaks, I fix it and then something else breaks. For example, I get error messages about the spooler, then the printer stops working, did an install over the original installation, and it worked great for a few weeks.

I want to
>format the primary drive
>install XP Professional
>restore from NT backup (system state also backed up)
I DON'T want to reinstall all of the applications. The NT Backup should have backed them up (I hope!)

This is how I was going to do it.

1. Fdisk the primary drive
2. Install the XP Pro
3. Use NT backup to restore the current backup
4. during restore, specify do not restore if file already present (I don't want to restore the garbage/corruped files in XP)

Please advise/correct as needed. Thanks!!!

[Cubsfan]

Aren't there configuration files that won't work with that method? In other words, since the registry file already exists, you won't get the restored version, and you won't have any of the registry settings for the applications?