Thanks for that, What does Sysprep do then, i thought it just removed all user specific info and requested the user configuration on reboot. sorry if this is realy basic but I am new to this and while I have read tutes on how to do this most of them don't accomplish exactly what i want to do which is just to create a vista setup dvd that also includes a couple of applications, including Ati catalyst control Center, Office 2007, notepad++, and powerarchiver. anyway thanks for the help and the info in this forum is the best I have found on the web Jason