Well V1, that is a contradiction in terms, if you are keeping the windows apps, most of which set themselves into the registry and other windows core files for the programs, you cannot have both, if you don't want to format the drive, you may perform a Re-install of windows over itself.
But if you are going to truly remove windows, then you would be removing those core files, and the registry. If you are going to do that, then save the apps data files, and kill the apps as well, for you would have to reinstall them on the new windows install to get their entries back into the fresh registry.
[ 24 August 2001: Message edited by: RW-1 ]