subvertigo

I beleive that Dell is required to make external installation media available to you. They are permitted to charge you for the media. In fact Dell answered me that "in extraordinary way" they will send me a copy of XP-MCE (without any cost...almost they said nothing about it!).

Check your start menu for a Dell Media Creation tool, which will take files from the hidden partition/I386 directory on your hard drive, and create a hackable iso image... then load that up in nLite, and remove the components that you need to remove. All new Dell systems (Dating back to approximatley March of 2005) include a large 3-8GB hidden partition on the hard drive which contains a modified copy of Symantec Ghost 2003, a GHO file (Ghost image file), and a few other utilities (Gui for recovery purposes, simple hardware diagnostics, CD IMAGE CREATION TOOL). The Dell Media Creation Tool will build an ISO from the GHO file on the system. It takes anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, but when its finished, you'll have a legal copy of the OS that's currently installed on your system. Dell will charge you anywhere from $10 USD to $45 USD for the media. It's either that, or make the ISO from the hidden partition. Hell, if you go and run the dell recovery (Ctrl+F11 on bootup), you'll end up with a clean install of the OS, which will include the dell media creation tool (it gets deleted every time you run it - I guess this is some form of copyprotection, or theft-thwarting). eheh... unfortunately I deleted the hidden partition! (with the Dell utility). Now i have only a 86 Mb hidden partition... PS: I didn't have the Dell media creation tool on my system (Dell 6400 buyed in june 2006).

you have to convert the recovery-files into a real CD. This could be done by XPISOBuilder. i have no recovery files... i sent an email to Dell support to have WinXP-MCE CDs...

Unfortunately I discovered that the installation CD maked by nLite using the c:\i386 of Dell notebook is very bugged...in other words it install a very unstable system and missing some important files... If I ask to Dell to supply me the original installation CDs of XP-MCE, they will give me them (without paying anything?) ? Another way it's to download from P2P a XP-MCE OEM in Italian and then use my regular Product-Key (written in a tag in the back of the notebook). But unfortunately I can't find an OEM version...

I tried, but removing the MediaCenter components, the CMPNENTS directory remains (and nLite says only 300 Kb to remove...). Can i delete the CMPNENTS directory "by hands" withount any other thing to do? Another question... where i find the .net framework 1.0 to remove it in nLite? Thank you very much.

Hi. I have a Dell notebook with preinstalled Windows XP MCE (i bought it with XP-MCE only because it was cheper than with plain XP Prof). I have the setup files of XP-MCE on my hard-disk ( c:\i386 ). I would like to reinstall the OS, using my valid serial OEM, without reinstalling media center components (obtaining a XP similar to Prof edition). How can i do? With nLite i can create the setup CD... Have I to delete the CMPNENTS directory ? Any other things to do (like editing winnt.sif??) ?