How may I delete "Windows XP Mode" before fully installing

Very glad to find this forum.

I am a new to Windows 7 and new to forums as well so please forgive while I learn the ropes.

My problem is basically this: I want to remove "Windows XP Mode" from my system but my situation is not the one generally assumed on help pages for removing "XP Mode."

My situation is this: I have just (several days ago) turned on my new computer and done the OEM initialization of "Windows 7." Everything went fine. During the initialization I was offered a list of programs/applications that could be installed during initialization. I declined most but accepted "Windows XP Mode."

For a variety of reasons I have decided since that I do not want this on my computer.

All the information I can find about removing says go to Programs>Uninstall and simply select "XP Mode" from the list and then just choose Uninstall.

But, for me, "XP Mode" DOES NOT APPEAR anywhere in that list of programs. The reason is, I believe, because I have never opened or activated the "XP Mode" option so the program/OS has never actually been run on this machine. Hence it has never really loaded or configured itself as a part of this system (and so won't show up on the list of programs that may be UNinstalled).

I would think that at this point, if I knew where to look and what to look for, I could easily delete the main XP system file (before it actually loads) along with the installer program, and possibly any related "virtual machine" files.

I am about ready to activate and actually INSTALL "Windows XP Mode" just so it will (I presume) show up in the Uninstaller -- and then UNINSTALL it as usually directed. But this seems like a messy way to do it to me -- create a host of files and then delete them!

(I don't know whether originally accepting the "XP Mode" option (on Win 7 initialization) had any effect on hard-drive formatting or partitioning, and whether this is something I should address as well.)

Thanks so much for any guidance. Great forum.

Just to finish this off -- even though there wasn't much interest...
Thanks, Brink, for your response. The suggestion was probably a good one -- but, in the end, I did not follow it. Instead I searched out all the all the . VHD, .VMC., .VSV, and .VMCX. files that had "XP Mode" as part of their names, and deleted them. Not quite 3GB worth. Then let Ccleaner clean up the registry. No problems detected afterward. I suspect this would not have gone so smoothly if I had ever actually used XP Mode to run any programs.