suryad

Thanks for the reply Aegis. Great project you are undertaking here...hope you succeed. I still have not gotten around to reading up and trying to even acclamatize myself to all these mods that you guys seem to have already done on your OSes...all I have done is so far nLite my XP install cd to about 170 mb with SP2 installed. Thats about the extent of my modding skills in XP so far I will try and be helpful and try to contribute something worth the time but for now, I need to start reading!!...and also backing up my hard drive hehehe just in case

Wow I am so glad I stumbled onto this thread...I am kind of lost though as to the actual process of doing all this stuff but then again I have not checked out all the links and the files posted already. So correct me if i am wrong, but you guys are creating a hybrid OS with pieces of XP SP2 and 2k3 SP1 and a tad bit of Longhorn maybe?? Just taking the best and mixing and matching while making it as minimalist as possible?

I am waiting for IE 7...though I am kind of unhappy as to MS not adhering to standsards that almost all browsers that are modern are adhering to...just try the Acid2 test and you will find out what I am talking about. Haha on a side note jack99 your sig is kinda funny

Yeah I would think any binary files modified without the parent company in this case MS's express authorization would be illegal. If you talk to MS and their reps say yes it is ok...then I am sure it is not a problem.

rabster1 has said it the best. I would recommend using crapcleaner and running it occasonally and clearing out the registry and junk files as they accumulate a lot in XP. That will give you a boost definitely ...also memory is very important...the more memory you can afford to have the better. Also get System Mechanic Professional and you can comfortably tweak the startups and clean out the registry...cruft that crapcleaner misses it will get rid of...same thing with junk files from your hard drive. Try going into the windows folder then prefetch and deleting the stuff out from there as well. But the major problem I would think is the protecting it to the hilt mentality. I never have any programs like that running...I dont get viruses or spyware or malware...I only scan my computer like once a week. Also I have diskkeeper installed and set it so whenever my laptop goes into screensaver, it starts defragging my harddrive and that is a very handy feature. Hope all these suggestions in the thread helps.

My 2 cents....it depends on the user...frankly I am more used to XP and I am comfortable tweaking it as much as I can and so its a no brainer for me. It is however one of the most pain in the a** OSes out there to keep running nice and smooth. But given a professional Linux user, that user can leverage a lot more power out of the Linux OS along with a lot of performance if he/she sets it up right...problem is...then you are treading in unfamiliar teritory and the dreaded CLI! I like Linux technologically and I think it is the best OS out there period...right out of the box...but XP is more user friendly and easier for a lot of people to use no matter what Linux fanboys say...and it takes a lot of work to keep it maintained...like for example antivirus, antispware, antimalware, popup blockers and so on...so forth.

I think the move of Mac from PPC to x86 Intel is great. XP is not a bad OS at all and I enjoy using it but **** it is getting rather boring on the OS scene. I like the way the OS X looks and I like how the boxes are way different and so are the laptops than the run of the mill Dell, HP or Fry's home built box. And to make a box interesting I am not talkign about sticking in neon lights and spinner rims and a boom box...I am talking about elegance. Mac is going to kick some major butt just watch. Intel is a giant in terms of processor technology and sure Prescott blew as much as it is hot temperature wise...which is a lot...and it is not as fast compared to AMDs offerings, but if you look at all the future procs coming out like Yonah, Conroe and Merom, you will see a deviation from the Netburst architecture. That is good because the pentium M architecture is providing a crapload of performance for a little bit of power. Already Yonah sports some amazing FP improvements for gaming and multimedia apps. Intel is going to kick some butt. As much as I like the underdog, AMD, if you notice, Intel is playing catch up. Personally I cant wiat for a very nice fully decked out system...a desktop and a laptop from the x86 mac arena. These are interesting times indeed. I am looking forward to it. The only thing is, I dont know what the engineers @ Mac were thinking designing the OS as a microkernel architecture...that is why it will always be slower than Linux...and hell even XP I think!

Also try clearing out your registry using crapcleaner...also there is an option where it gets rid of junk files, you should run that...if you have a rather stable system and you are not scared of reinstalls, get rid of system restore, lets see also turn of indexing service if you dont search for your files using the builtin xp search feature much....

Hmm so transparency and so on is working in the GUI I take it?

Interesting good to know thatnks Pyr0

My Dell XPS Gen 1 laptop came with a few useless pieces of software...like Quicken and MS Money installed...and thats about it...but yeah I did uninstall most of the software that came preinstalled...ran a bunch of cleaning utils for trimming down the registry and after trimming off the fat it ran great...till I found nLite and I went ballistic and shrunk down my XP install cd from a whopping 600 mb to a paltry 150 mb with SP2 installed. Now it became quite perfect. Next time I reformat I will probably nLite my already nLited install to see what else I can get rid off..hehe

I think XP SP3 is a surefire release and there is no doubt as to whether it is vaporware or what not. SP3 IS gonna happen and that along with a whole bunch of Longhorn tehcnologies that are going to be working with XP will only seal my investment in XP for the next 3 years I would think. I am quite happy with using an nLited version of XP that just plain rocks for me. Longhorn will turn out to be great but I would wait till it matures just like XP matured. Sure there are shortcomings in XP but MS is trying to get rid of those. I think this is great time to be a Windows user.

THis thread is getting interesting I have to get home and try some of these scripts on my machine.

Well err I thought maybe you could start a post purewaveform and then the mods could have it stickied or something like that. Its pretty cool to know that a lot of things can be accomplished using the command prompt. For starters I found this link that has a reference of the command shell commands here: Command line commands

purewaveform seems like you know a lot about the Windows command prompt. The findstr function is especially like the Linux grep command isnt it? That is quite interesting. I am sure it would be of a lot of help if you could create a post and sticky it and explain all the details of what is possible with the command prompt in Windows. I know it would benefit me for sure and a host of other people who think that the Windows command prompt is not as powerful as the shells in Linux.

Hmm I hope your problem was solved. I kind of avoided installing the drivers because Dell keeps releasing newer versions of the drivers regularly. So I took it to myself to slipstream SP2 and some hotfixes which are constant...and then the rest I can get on my own. So I ahve a constant install and if I need to upgrade the drivers all I do is get on the net and install them. Works easier for me. Maybe you could avoid drivers being added into your unattended installs if your above fix does not work. Windows is a complex thing after all.

I am pretty sure graphics card update will be a must. If you read the WGF 2.0 specs that Longhorn will be compatible with it becomes more and more obvious that to get the most out of the OS you will need the new hardware. I think also on a different note Longhorn will be delayed again. It probably wont come out till 2007. Just a hunch.

MAybe a new version of nLite for 64 bit XP is in order.

Hey purewaveform, great post thanks a lot man. I will play around with it. Once again thanks for pointing me in the same direction. And anyone in this forum who attempts it and gets it to work please post...some of us are kinda slow eheheh.

I think the added problem is that XP tries to be the be all end all for every computer hardware out there so it is only to be expected that SP2 might have issues with a variety of hardware especially corporate machines where there is a variety of software that is quite complex installed as well. And for best SP2 install, a clean install is required and I doubt corporations would want that...M$ is forcing SP2 down everyones throat and while my machine worked fine with the upgrade not everyones is going to. I think the customer should have a choice.

SP2 includes SP1 and all its patches along with the new ones is what I heard. That would make sense since my unattended install cd with SP2 slipstreamed is 130 mb and i made the CD from an OEM Dell cd with SP1a slipstreaed that was originally @ 550 mb. So when SP3 comes out I believe it will include all the stuff....I could be wrong though.

Well the topic title says it all. I have been using the command prompt a lot and while I have a lot of functionality going on as is possible in the Linux shell prompt, like completion of file/directory names by pressing tab and so on, I was wondering fi any of you knowledgeabl fellas know how to mod the command prompt so I dont get the huge path of the directory I am in but all I get is just the name of the current working directory I am in, for example instead of : C:\Documents and Settings\username\blah\b;ah\mydir:> I want C:\mydir> I hope that makes sense. Cheers.

Bootvis does speed up the boot process at least for me it has. Defragging is the best option imo without requiring to tinker with services and registry files for he uninitiated. So get software like Executive Diskkeeper...brilliant program. I have it set on screensaver mode so that is the time when it starts to defrag on its own and the hdd stays all clean and organized. Mac OS X does not require a separate defragging softwre it does it on the fly. Thats where I got the idea of setting up a screensaver mode.

The virtual desktop manager is already downloadable and I have been using it for a while on my Dell iXPS Generation 1 laptop and it has been a useful little tool to use whant programming. 4 virtual desktops completely independent of each other. IT is kinda unstable and buggy but it gets its job done and so I dont have too many things to b***h about. If you search for microsoft powertoys I am sure you will be able to find it. Cheers.

Yes I believe xbitlabs IIRC did an article on the performance difference betwenn XP and the then beta XP64 bit and there were performance increases both on 32 bit and 64 bit apps...very nice numbers actually.