If you are selling your old laptop and your user account is active, you will probably want to delete all your private files, Internet browsing history and everything else that can be traced back to you. The easiest way is to format your hard drive, but this may not be possible if you don’t have the Windows XP installation CD to reinstall the operating system. In this case, it’s better to delete your user account and create a new one for the future user. When you delete your account, you will delete all its associated files.

If you are the admin user, you cannot delete your own account. You will have to create a new admin account through which you’ll be able to delete your admin account.

To do this, please follow these steps:

• Go to Start, then click on Control Panel, then on User Accounts
• In User accounts, click on Create a new account
• Type a name for the new account and click Next
• In the new windows, select Computer administrator and click on Create account
• Your new account is created. Now log off from your computer
• Log on using your new admin account
• Go back to User accounts in Control panel
• Select your old admin account from the list under Pick an Account to change
• Click on Delete this account
• If you are asked if you want to keep or delete files, clik on Delete files, but make sure you have backed up any files you want to keep (copy to USB memory stick or CD/DVD)
• In the next window, click on Delete account to confirm the removal
• Now your old admin account and all its files are deleted and you’re done