DolphinSafe

On retail versions? Do you mean OEM versions will be different? I thought licensing was the only difference, but that might explain something, since it's an OEM disk I'm using. Are you sure it doesn't install? Yeah, pretty sure. I've installed XP so many times, I'd notice anything new. There aren't any extra progress bars or anything like that. Yes, the reason I was confused is because I've never, ever seen anything in the trimmed-down ui that was related to activation. I've never seen an activation prompt until I'm in with the full gui. There wasn't anything like this. Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the help.

Okay. I just don't remember ever seeing anything about activation there. I'll just have to look closer.

This part I understand. Thanks for helping me confirm that I at least have some clue what I'm doing I don't remember seeing anything about activating before the first full gui boot. I'll reinstall and watch things more closely. I don't suppose you'd have a screenshot url you could post that would give me a clue which screen I should be looking for? If I get far enough that IE7 installs, I'll be sure to do that Thanks again for helping

Thanks for that information. I'll look at this to see what's actually happening. I don't think I quite understand this. Are you saying there is a wizard that was supposed to pop up and allow me to activate Windows prior to first reboot and install of IE7 (followed by themes etc)? Do I need to make special preparations in setting up HFSLIP to enable this? Because when I installed from my slipped cd, I didn't see a trimmed-down UI on first boot. It just popped into full-blown Windows the first time. Thanks for your help.

Hi all, This is my first post here. I want to start by saying thank you to TommyP and Tomcat76 for a great tool. I'm relatively new to HFSLIP, and I'm having two problems (that I know of) with putting together an up-to-date XP Pro SP2 disc. Everything seems to go fine (no errors show up), but after booting (and rebooting) I notice: Microsoft Update isn't installed IE7 isn't installed I've read the basic how-to, and "Important things" and I've followed all appropriate instructions as far as I know. In "Important things" I notice mention of a plain simple interface prior to first reboot. I don't see that. The first time it boots up, it looks completely normal. I've searched the forums, but didn't find anything that seemed to be quite what I've got going on here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Attached are my HFSLIP.LOG (renamed with .TXT appended - can't upload .LOG FILES) and WU1.TXT. Thanks in advance! HFSLIP.LOG.TXT WU1.TXT