Installing XP - Slipsteaming with SATA Drivers

[HyperRAT]

Hello all - a bit of an appeal today - to any of you who are pretty gen'd up on windows xp!

I've just bought a laptop, and yes it came pre-installed with Vista. I thought it was gonna be a bit bloaty, but flippin heck! Virtual DJ struggled to play 2 songs at the same time!!! So I've bitten the bullet and attempted an install of XP.

First show stopper - XP does not come bundled with SATA drivers, and as I do not have a usb floppy, I decided to sltpstream (integrate) all the drivers needed for my laptop with nLite.

My copy of XP Pro is a genuine corporate version that I bought from a company that were upgrading. As it is corporate, it has never needed to be activated. After slipstreaming, I installed XP from the bootable disc I created and it worked - the logon screen at this point was like a work of art to me...

... But, when I go to log on it tells me that this version of windows requires activation before I can log on, and attempts to connect. But, as I've not yet logged on, I have no way of setting up a net connection and the activation ap just hangs.

I'm wondering if nLite has added something in the mix to cause this activation problem. I've checked all the setting in nLite and can't see anything that may have caused it.

I know this isn't a 'run of the mill' Windows snag, but if anyone has any experience with slipstreaming I'd really appreciate the assistance! Would like to get this laptop up and running so I can focus on giving the old one a bit of TLC and have it as my spare!

Thanks all,

Steve

[TonyB]

My copy of XP Pro is a genuine corporate version that I bought from a company that were upgrading. As it is corporate, it has never needed to be activated. After slipstreaming, I installed XP from the bootable disc I created and it worked - the logon screen at this point was like a work of art to me...

Steve

I think someone was having you on because you cannot buy Corporate versions for individual use. The company will have one serial number for their own use and will buy licence's for the number of machines they install it on. A corporate licence is not transferable.

Sounds more like they have bought some PC's that came with XP and sold the disks that came with them probably because they use a different O/S such as win2000.

Does the serial number have OEM in it?

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Virtual DJ should be fine with Vista if you have enough ram and optimise the laptop.

What are the specs?

[HyperRAT]

The specs aren't great - 1GB RAM, 2MHz Celeron, but the fact that Vista is so bloated means that you have to throw more hardware at it to get it to run as well as XP. I was happy with XP for DJing - my drivers (DAC2 / U46DJ) all worked fine and PCDJ and VirtualDJ worked a treat. I know the drivers for these also work under Vista, and I did try it but the audio was affected and you can't have that, can you?!

I would imagine this version was a version that came with a system and got sold on, but I've had it installed on a non SATA drive fine and it's not given me any trouble. The only thing I have done differently is slipstreamed the laptop and SATA drivers with nLite. I might have to be done with it and borrow a USB floppy drive to get the SATA drivers over for the installation!


Virtual DJ should be fine with Vista if you have enough ram and optimise the laptop.

What are the specs?

Don't suppose there's a guide knocking about for optimising XP for DJ use? If not, would you mind giving me a few tips?

Steve

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Don't suppose there's a guide knocking about for optimising XP for DJ use? If not, would you mind giving me a few tips?

Steve

Not so much for DJ use, but certainly for music playback.

1. Set processor scheduling to background services rather than programs.

Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance Settings > Advanced Tab > Background Services




2. Set visual effects to a minimum.

Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance Settings > Visual Effects Tab > Adjust for best performance




3. Switch Off Desktop Background Image

Right Click Desktop > Properties > Desktop Tab > Background None




4. Disable Screen Saver

Right Click Desktop > Properties > Screen Saver > None




5. Disable Fast User Switching

Start > Settings > Control Panel > User Accounts > Change the way users log on or off > Untick Use Fast User Switching




6. Switch Off Power Schemes

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Power Options > Always On > Turn off monitor and turn off hard discs to Never




7. Switch Off Hibernation

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Power Options > Hibernate > Untick Hibernation




8. Disable System Sounds

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Sounds Tab > Sound Scheme to None.




9. Do Not Map Through Soundcard

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Hardware Tab > (highlight your soundcard from the list) > Properties > Audio Devices > (highlight your soundcard from the list) > Properties, and check the "Do not map through this device" checkbox.




10. Disable System Restore

Start > Settings > Control Panel> System > System Restore Tab. Tick the "Turn off System Restore on all Drives"




11. Disable Automatic Updates

Switch off Automatic Updates by going to Control Panel, System, Automatic Updates and ticking the box labelled "Turn off automatic updating. I want to update my computer manually.".




12. Startup and Recovery Options

Right click My Computer and click on Properties > Advanced > Start Up & Recovery Settings and uncheck "Automatically Restart".




13. Disable Error Reporting

Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced TAB > Error Reporting > Click the Disable Error Reporting box (Tick the "But Notify Me When Critical Errors Occur" if you prefer)




14. Disable Remote Assistance

Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Remote > Untick "Allow Remote Assistance Invitations to be sent from this computer"




15. Fixed Swap File (Virtual Memory)

Select the Advanced tab of the Systems applet and then select the Performance settings button. Then select the Advanced page. In here it is possible to customise the Virtual Memory. For custom size, this is often recommended to be 1.5 to 2 times the amount of your total RAM for both initial and maximum size. Set this to a fixed minimum and maximum value according to your existing RAM




16. Speed Up Menus

You can use this tip to speed up the Start Menu in Windows XP. You can customize the speed of the Start Menu by editing a Registry Key. Click Start, and then click Run. Type Regedit in the box, and then click OK. Expand the menu in the left panel and select the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop folder. Scroll down in the right panel and double click on the MenuShowDelay file. In the Value Data box, change to default value for the menu speed from 400 to a lesser number, such as 1. Click OK.




17. Disable Offline Files

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Folder Options > Offline Files > Untick "Enable Offline Files"




18. Disable Remote Desktop

Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Remote > Untick "Allow users to connect remotely to this computer"




19. Disable Internet Synchronise Time

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Date and Time > Internet Time > Untick "Automatically synchronize with an internet time server"




20. Disable Hide Inactive Icons

Start > Settings > Taskbar and Start Menu > Taskbar TAB > Uncheck "Hide Inactive Icons"




21. Disable Automatic Desktop Cleanup Wizard

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Display > Desktop > Customise Desktop > Untick "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days"




22. Disable NTFS Last Access Time Logging (NTFS Only)

Start > Run > regedit > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CURRENTCONTROLSET > CONTROL > FILESYSTEM Add a new DWORD value - "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate" (without quotes) and set the value to 1. Then reboot to make changes effective




23. Disable Notification Area Balloon Tips

Click Start , click Run , type regedit , and then press ENTER. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced Right-click the right pane, create a new DWORD value, and then name it EnableBalloonTips . Double-click this new entry, and then give it a hexadecimal value of 0 . Quit Registry Editor. Log off Windows, and then log back on.




24. Disable CDROM Autoplay

One of the very important (and well documented) tweaks in Windows 98SE, was to disable CDROM autoplay (auto insert notification). Disabling CDROM autoplay no longer offers a significant performance benefit in Windows XP, and therefore you do not need to disable it. Just don't insert a CD during a crucial recording.

However, if you really want to disable it then click here to expand the section below describing some different methods.




25. Disable Disc Indexing

Indexing Service is a service that extracts the information from a set of documents and organizes it in a way that makes it quick and easy to access that information through the Windows XP Search function, the Indexing Service query form, or a Web browser.

[HyperRAT]

Bloomin' great Mr. Solitaire, you the man. When I get an OS on the flipping thing, I'll plough through this!

Thanks,

Steve

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Bloomin' great Mr. Solitaire, you the man. When I get an OS on the flipping thing, I'll plough through this!

Thanks,

Steve

Not my tips, but borrowed from Music XP.

I do use most of them though.

[Richard Veal]

Very Usefull - Thanks, some of that i didnt know

[TR2K Productions]

Ok,

If you are 100% certain that this software is genuine and you have legal rights to use it,

you should be able to boot into the o/s via safe mode, F8 i think. from the list choose the networking option, you can then connect to the net & activate the product,

if memory serves this should work, (bear in mind its 5.30AM)

also you could use the activate via phone option or activate the product from another pc via microsofts website