Mario1776

Kelsenellenelvian, I followed your instructions. nLite worked. The new XP Home install CD worked. My new clean install works. Thank you very much. You mentioned "service pack less i386" and it occurred to me that the installation I was using was updated, and hence shouldn't need to be slipstreamed (smacks forehead). Indeed, the new install already has SP2. Thanks to everyone involved with nLite. EDIT: Well I spoke too soon when I implied that everything had worked perfectly. When I tried to Activate my new install it said that I had entered an Incorrect Product Key in spite of the fact that I had entered exactly what was on my computer's Proof of License Certificate of Authenticity sticker. I decided to try a program that is supposed to be able to detect product keys for software that have already been entered. I ran the program in my old installation of XP Home and it found a key completely different from the one on the COA sticker. I tried entering the newly found key in to the Activation process and it said that I'd entered an Unauthorized Product Key. Now, I found that entering any random alpha numeric string of text will output an Incorrect Product Key error but only the key found by the third party key detector would cause the Unauthorized Product Key error. I am kind of curious as to the difference between Incorrect Product Key and Unauthorized Product Key. Anyway, I decided to try Activating by phone. I entered the key from the COA and called the phone number the Activation process told me to. I was put through to GAL 9000 (Microsoft's female version of HAL 9000, jk) which to my surprise ended up handling the entire Activation by Phone process (I had been expecting to be put through to a human). GAL 9000 asked me for the 54 digit code the Activation process on my computer had generated, which I read 6 digits at a time. To compensate for my habit of mumbling I made it a point to speak loud and clearly and GAL seemed to correctly understand what I had said. GAL then began a light interrogation with questions like "Is this you first time activating this copy of windows?" and "Have you replaced your computers motherboard?" which I answered honestly. After the interrogation GAL read me a 54 digit code (6 digits at a time) to enter in to the Activation process on my computer. I entered the code and was able to successfully activate windows.

Yes, I have an I386 folder.D:\WINDOWS\I386 I decided to try the nLite program using the "D:\WINDOWS\I386" directory as the location of the Windows installation. When trying to proceed I got an error saying In spite of the error I tried to continue and the program let me, so I continued. The only customizations I made were to not install IE7 and to slipstream in service pack 2 (WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe). When all was said and done nLite supposedly created a bootable install ISO. Unfortunately the ISO is 2.59GB, and I do not have a DVD burner, and even if I got the ISO burnt elsewhere I don't have a DVD-ROM to read it. Is the error I recieved a problem? If so, what should be done about it? Is there a way to either size down the installation to 700MB or break the installation up in to multiple 700MB ISOs? P.S. The contents of the ISO nLite created do not look like the contents of a normal Windows install CD. It pretty much has most of the folders from the directory "D:\WINDOWS", is that normal?

I have a Compaq Presario that came with Windows XP Home installed on it and no install CD. I would like to be able to create an install CD using my existing XP installation. I've read a few forum posts that seem to indicate that it is possible to do this using nLite but I have been unable to find detailed information about such an endeavor. Is it possible to use nLite (or any better method) to create a Windows XP installation CD from an existing Windows XP Installation? If so, where can I find detailed information about how to create a Windows XP installation CD from an existing Windows XP Installation?