jaclaz

Good , you are welcome . @St.Thomas Tripredacus Now we have a documented example , when it comes to the good MS guys, what is stated as "by design" often means "we messed up (BIG) and we try to cover our backs through mis- or under- document" a feature. More seriously, what I found "queer" is that something that was found out in 2008 or so has not seemingly been fixed till now, according also to the comments on the given blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/rdepagne/archive/2008/11/15/how-to-specify-network-configuration-in-an-unattend-xml-file.aspx I do understand how all the good IT guys use DHCP and dynamic IP addresses, and that it is rare to want to have static IP addresses nowadays, particularly in a server environment, and also the netsh workaround posted by aXeSwY would work fine. Still it seems to me like a bug in the WAIK which is worth of note. jaclaz

Sure, why not? The idea/usage paradigm is the same or very similar, though I have no idea what actually is run in those, most probably is one or the other version of a Linux (or maybe BSD) OS. The issue might be the actual resources needed, I have no idea what that needs, my "home made" one leverages (besides the excellent zeroshell software/OS) on the features of the hardware, the Futro S200/300 series is (was) a thin client kind of PC, with a few (IMHO) advantages (I had the further advantage that I had one lying around that I bought for a previous experiment for a silent PC to be used as media streamer that was later replaced by another machine): small sizebuilt-in power supply (no external "brick", thus very compact)very low power (the Transmeta may not be the fastest processor around but surely it is not a power hog)no fan (passive cooled) <- this is VERY important as it means completely silent PCel-cheapo (you can get one for anything between 30 and 50 Euros)any similar thin client used machine or passive cooled low-low power board such as good ol' Epia or the like would do nicely, while it would make (IMHO) very little sense to use a "normal" PC with fans (both for the power supply and the processor heatsink) both becayse of higher power consumption and because of the inherent less reliability (and noise). jaclaz

Or "donate" moar... jaclaz

No , unfortunately I don't have an email id , maybe I could post here my telephone number so that you (and everyone else on the 'net) could call me for assistance at any hour, day or night, every time a site on the world wide web gives issues. Naaah , on second thought it is better if I don't. jaclaz

As my mother (which is now more than a bit overweight, BTW) always tells me "during the war everyone was slim" , if you prefer up to the 60's it was more out of *need* than out of *fashion*... I am anyway sorry for the (seemingly) 57% of Italians that chose to follow the new "fashion". As often happens however the article is the usual alarmist mish-mash of badly or unreferenced data, worthless both journalistically and scientifically. The Author of the article, Alice Philipson, (just check a few of her articles, they are full of typos and misspellings): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/alice-philipson/ doesn't even check what she writes, and the referenced coordinator is a nutritionist that is known to have previously given catastrophic or "extremist" opinions, here, in 2012: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2012/03/16/esiste-ancora-dieta-mediterranea/197856/ (use google translate) he stated that only 10% of Italians actually followed the mediterranean diet, so if we have to trust this article (and the unreferenced scientific paper behind it) the amount of people eating "right" is 4 (four) times that of 3 years ago We should rejoice. jaclaz

Well, this: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html does seem a bulletin of war , Flash is actually something I wouldn't have (updated or not) automatically running on my system when browsing ... It is entirely possible that the "integrated" versions are somehow "safer", still I personally would not like them to be around. jaclaz

Well, the person featured in the article would have probably more simply stopped going to the shopping center ... jaclaz

That's seemingly a different issue from the one in the mentioned thread. It is a 403 (Forbidden Access) error. Since the contents of the site is rather static since 2007 or so, most files can be retrieved through the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.bwgen.com/presets.htm or (any file): http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.bwgen.com/presets/* The 2008 and 2012 snapshots seem like "good enough": http://web.archive.org/web/20120419082247/http://www.bwgen.com/inx_stimul_dat.htm jaclaz

Maybe of use, maybe not: http://www.portableupdate.com/ jaclaz

Yep , but that would be "fun" . The whole point that a lot of people misses IMHO is that there is EITHER a *need* for more than 4 Gb of Ram (or 3.85 or whatever the 32 bit OS will be able to actually accesss) OR there is not this *need*. Any and all "normal" activities on a PC can be carried within the 3.x Gb of RAM, and this does mean "any and all normal activities". Then, if you use a lot of high end, professional or semi-professional software and ONLY IF you use those, like as an example software for graphic processing or photos, or you do video editing or CAD/CAM (and rendering) or, say, forensics to name a few, THEN the 4 Gb starts representing a real world limitation, BUT what you really need apart the larger amount of RAM is an absolute (or at least very, very high) stability of the OS, you don't want to have a crash when 3/4th into a rendering session or halfway through a video animation. You do not really *need* to have 231 sessions of Chrome open , rarely a Word or Excel document exceeds 5 Mb (megabytes, not gigabytes) in size, etc., and IF you need to have that then you need a stable system. jaclaz

I don' t know. Maybe the issue is with putting it into the OOBE pass (it shoudl be AFAIK in specialize pass) see: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749307(v=ws.10).aspx For the rest it seems to me OK, recheck with this, I finally found the reference I remembered (what i had improperly posted before): http://blogs.technet.com/b/rdepagne/archive/2008/11/15/how-to-specify-network-configuration-in-an-unattend-xml-file.aspx (you could try setting just the IPv4 values as in the above, otherwise I am short of ideas ) jaclaz

Home-made. Actually an el-cheapo Fujitsu-Siemens Futro S220 (bought used on e-bay for a few bucks) sporting a whopping 800 Mhz Transmeta with one common Ethernet/Lan card added to it, running Zeroshell: http://www.zeroshell.org/ jaclaz

Are you implying that the old, obsolete, unsupported, OS has the same market value as a new, supported one? @Dibya Seriously, if you want to run XP, you should find a motherboard that has XP drivers, that MSI seems like a very recent one and it is unlikely that drivers for XP for it exist at all. Since there are drivers for 7, it would be much smarter to procure a Windows 7 license, it makes little sense anyway to have XP (32 bit) on a motherboard with 16 Gb of Ram (you didn't specify it, but if you have a XP x64 license then you should know how the 64 bit version of XP never was "mainstream" as at the time people with suitable machines were very few). jaclaz

Very good , though maybe a little selfish . Already pondered , and it is more the things that I am NOT doing that possibly kept me (till today) exploit-free (AFAIK). I don't run any of those browser, including Internet Explorer (though of course I am also NOT running a recent Windows OS but rather recklessly run an unsupported OS, without any added protection like DEP, ASLR or UAC . , where the latest, "safe" Internet Explorer cannot run). Also I do NOT have a hosts file on my PC (because I do NOT trust at all Windows to respect it) but have it on a hardware router/firewall, which I use to access the web. jaclaz

Have you seen any instance where re-arranging the XML does anything? By design, it shouldn't, as everything should be parsed prior to being used. Well, there is a given order on MS pages: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff715739.aspx (and BTW I just realized that I posted wrong info, my bad ) I am correcting my previous post, the order is: Ipv4Settings Ipv6Settings Identifier UnicastIpAddresses Routesjaclaz

Talking of Edge (or Chrome or both) JFYI a potentially very serious issue (actually caused specifically in this case by the NSIS installer): http://textslashplain.com/2015/12/18/dll-hijacking-just-wont-die/ The "real" issue is the (supposedly user-friendly) function of the browser that does not prompt for authorization/acknoledgment for downloading files, see: http://justhaifei1.blogspot.it/2015/10/watch-your-downloads-risk-of-auto.html Seemingly there is an (indirect) workaround for Chrome, but not for Edge: jaclaz

With all due respect to the "underlying philosophy", if you have a cracked screen, if you are smart you replace it instead of "bandaging with clear tape" and if you are smarter you pay some attention and avoid cracking it. jaclaz

The point is only that - generally speaking - people using this program (like most of the people around) are wanting to have it for free or *need* to be "forced" to donate. Of course there are exceptions (like you ), but as said you represent an exception and not the "common" or the "ordinary". As a side note, the watermark in the corner seems (to me) not that big an issue, still one every - say - 5 posts on the board revolves around how to remove it (possibly for free). And this - mind you - is not really about "money", even when/where a simple "thank you" (only if sincere and coming from the bottom of one's heart, without any explicit request for it) would have been appreciated, they are surprisingly scarce. Just as an example, check here: http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/157-install-windows-from-usb/ the "Install Windows from USB" threads have together more than 2500 replies and more than 7 millions views, yet the "Credits and thank you" thread has 17500 views and only 12 replies (from which - if you remove the posts by the "usual suspects" - only 8 are actual "thank you's), even if you count the various thank you's on the main threads you can count maybe 100 (one hundred) of them. jaclaz

Nice , but - unfortunately - not enough by itself . We need also a screenshot of your desktop WITH the watermark and a signed affidavit that you did NOT install any donation.key. jaclaz

It is possible that a completely different (not SATA/AHCI) driver is creating the error, first thing would be to stop the rebooting and understand what error it could be. The "standard" way the install of Windows XP works (through WINNT.EXE or otherwise, SETUP.EXE or WINNT32.exe, etc. ) is to create a directory on C:\ drive named \$WIN_NT$ ~BT containing the "boot" files which run the "text mode" part and then the BOOT.INI is set to automatically load the "protected mode" or GUI part of the setup at next reboot with no or minimal timeout. Usually, if you are very quick at pressing the up or down keys following reboot you can access the BOOT.INI settings, allowing you to boot again to DOS. From it you can edit the BOOT.INI adding a decent timeout to choices. Apart from this, if you tap F8 quickly at boot you will (should) enter a list of options including one disabling restart on system failure: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-xp-professional-keeps-restarting-after-a/a7226c57-63e2-4811-891c-924c1e258150?auth=1 Then, with the actual BSOD STOP ERROR data we may be able to understand what is happening. Also running the "Enable Boot Logging" may help, the result should be a plain text file in C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt, which contents (sometimes, but not always) are useful, see (example): http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN51612 jaclaz

JFYI, personally I am fond of good ol' LeechFTP, as it is simple and straightforward: http://www.leechftp.de/ http://www.leechftp.de/download.htm Don't worry the program is in English, besides German, and it is "inherently portable". jaclaz

Not really a definitive test, JFYI, Rule Eleven : http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/152625-toshiba-hard-disk-how-can-i-locate-and-isolate-bad-sectors/?p=972700 jaclaz

Yes and no. At least in XP there was a (rather complex) "voting system", see: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128378-hardware-changes-and-windows-activation/ The way it works/worked, see the source of the info: http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm a given category had more or less "weight", the two "categories" connected to hard disk are/were of "low impact" and in the case of a clone only one of the two would be affected, as the volume serial number would anyway be the same. jaclaz

Set the thingy to stop on error (instead of rebooting). I don't get the reason why you are using DOS at all, (I have to guess that you are attempting ot use WINNT.EXE to install, right? ) in any case the first part of the install is not "dos" it is "text mode" or "real mode" (before the switch to "protected mode"). How big in size is the disk drive? How big in size is the FAT32 partition you created? In any case, try (only to test) to install in "native" mode, this way we can exclude issues with the hardware. jaclaz

Well, actually it is surprising (to me). The whole idea of SLIC OEM keys was to further "tighten" an install source to a given PC/laptop, but the OEM license was "perpetual" (as long as it was installed on the same given PC/laptop and not "migrated" to different hardware). jaclaz