Greetings, everybody - and I hope you'll have some patience with a (very) insecure newbie. I'll shoot off right away and try my best to not let this post get too long. I need to reinstall my Windows XP Pro SP3 on a new machine since my old one is about to kick the bucket (10 ys. old motherboard starting to act up). I'm more or less a technical illiterate - a DAU - and it took me great pains and lots of time to get my OS run the way it is. I got rid of Windows Media Player, Windows Security, Automatic Updates, Windows Firewall, a bunch of services and other stuff. On the security site, my system fully relies on only three components: an old Sygate Firewall, Timefreeze (a tool that freezes/sandboxes your C: drive that I always start before going online), and Sandboxie to sandbox the browser. Of course, the usual suspects like SAS, MBAM etc. are there as well. You might sneer, but the system didn't see any virus/malware/whatever nuisance for three years. It hasn't seen any Windows updates for appr. the same time. Yes, I know I'm a crackpot. Anyhow, my computer has reached the end of its life span and I've got a new one, with a flashy new motherboard, a new hdd (s ata as opposed to my old ide). All I'd have to do is installing XP on it (I got a oem cd that already has sp3). I'm thinking with horror at the long times it took me to get my system to the status it is now and thought I might use nLite to get the same result with less hassles. I printed out detailed guides how to make such an ISO cd, got a XP SP3 update pack (xable) and I reckon I could get such a cd done. But I have a few questions, some (or most) of which might sound utterly stupid to you. I hope you'll bear with me. 1. What exactly do I have once the ISO thing is burned? Is it still Windows XP or is it some nLite/Windows mix? Is that new OS it creates still compatible with the original Windows CD? For example, when right now I figure I need something from my Windows CD that I never installed before, say freecell.exe or some other nonsense, I put in the Windows cd, select add/remove Windows components, and get the thing. Would that still be possible with the nLite installation? Is it still a normal, albeit trimmed down, Windows XP? Such as mine is right now? 2. The 'new' computer has Windows 7 installed. I don't want that, I want my old XP. So I'll have to wipe the hdd, format it and then I'd like to create my usual 5 partitions again - one (C:) for the system and the others for my other stuff. I've read in the webs that nLite won't partition well in an 'unattended' install. I don't really need it to install 'unattended', I won't mind babysitting it all the way to the welcome screen - but I do need my five partitions. Will it do this just as the normal installation cd does? 3. I read through the forum and noticed all the threads about 'sata' drivers etc. Most of it was technical Chinese for me, but I do understand that my new computer does have a sata hdd. Without really understanding what all those many threads were talking about, is it wise for someone like me to start on the nLite experiment at all? I just don't have the technical know-how to wise up on the whole subject. I couldn't even tell you what the difference between the new sata drive and my old ide drive is - as far as I'm concerned they both have 250 gb. Apropos hdd - in a month or two a second hdd will move into the comp, and I figure it will be a sata II, too, as according to the tech guy who helps me in case something needs a screwdriver this is the in thing to have. Could I just install it and have XP act as it always did when something new arrived? (This basically brings me back to point 1.) Oh - the tech guy won't be of much help for nLite. He told me he knew nothing about it and a normal XP installation might be the better option. And lastly, 4. The XP SP3 Updatepack from 'xable' I mentioned above - if I 'slipstream' this into the ISO cd, could I still see what exactly I'm updating? I remember the last time I've been to windows update - somewhen in 2010 - and the dang thing installed some trash on my computer (Media Player or Silverlight or whatever), and it took me ages to get rid of it. For that, they never saw me again and my computer wasn't any poorer for it. Well, sorry for the long post; and I hope it didn't come across as too dumb. nLite sounds like a wonderful idea to have a trimmed down Windows in an easier fashion than what I went through to get to my current version, but I'm not quite sure if I have the skills to handle it. I'm just not the technical wizard who looks at a code and knows all about it. And of course, my four questions above nag at me. Thanks a lot for your patience to read all this, Steampunk