Upgrading the OS

So I'm trying to upgrade my PC to XP Pro from ME. Apparently, I had a few registry entries to Outlook - which I had long, long ago deleted. The installer was confused by this mismatch, and barfed. Then the PC reboots, and I accidentally okayed a boot from CD. That was ok, because the XP Pro installer had an error in the startup script. I'm feeling better about my BottomFeeder slip ups now....