GrofLuigi

Should you need one, I have still a few 10 feet custom designed ones, cider, sturdy, metal end, quite effective: http://www.msfn.org/board/Multiboot-Vista-...7.html&st=3 A bit heavy, though. I tried with 5 feet ones, but they were too d@mn short, so I went for midway, ending up with 7' 1/2 ones: http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-Vista-US...6.html&st=3 jaclaz No, thank you. I actually installed trial version on this new laptop I'm toying with, that has the advantage of having blank HDD. While I can see that some people can get away with it and actually use it for something (when it lets go off their hand ), it's definitely not for me. Being a tweaker as I am, I went straight for prefetch/superfetch and brought it down to its knees. Slow as molases. So I decided not to waste my time any more and wiped the hard disk (several times, for good measure ). But enough OT.... GL

I didn't intend to argue, just stating my (OK, taken to the extreme) opinion. GL

Hi johnc, Thank you for your reply. I have used NLite many many times and I consider myself quite experienced with it (of course, I might be wrong ) and I tried to help new users many times. But I'm sure I haven't made any mistake regarding this issue (maybe with other components , but that's not important for this). I guess I need someone with the same processor to confirm what driver gets installed. The processor can be higher (from the same generation - P8400, etc.) and the OS can be XP (I don't think there is much difference between the two OSs regarding this). I planned to make another test run with UnNlited (yeah, a new word ) source soon, but I need to find some (more) free time. GL

Installed a nLited Windows Server 2003 with SP2 on a new laptop (please don't ask why - I'm trying all OSes in order to find the best/most comfortable one; so far, this is the one; about the legality - it's trial). Everything works fine, but the processor isn't detected. In nLite, I removed AMD and Transmeta CPU drivers, but NOT Intel driver. I've attached cpu.inf for comparison. It seems nLite adds many entries - why? Are they taken from some other inf? I can't think of a way to easily find where are they taken from (originals are compressed). With nlite's inf, I couldn't get the processor to install at all. It gets detected as two unknown devices with identifiers: ACPI\GENUINEINTEL_-_X86_FAMILY_6_MODEL_23\_0 ACPI\GENUINEINTEL_-_X86_FAMILY_6_MODEL_23\_1 Tried installing from a separate folder with the inf, processr.sys, intelppm.sys and p3.sys inside - no go. Also with pasting the above strings, both with and without the trailing numbers - same. With the original cpu.inf, they get installed as two Intel® Core2 Duo CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz (which is correct), but processr.sys gets installed, not intelppm.sys which I read is needed for power management. Am I wrong about that? And if not, is there a way to install it? Maybe some inf guru can check the attached infs if there is a bug in nLite processing, or if I have wrong conception of things. Or Server 2003 itself is missing some components? The motherboard is Intel GM45 + ICH9M; Intel mass storage driver was integrated with Nlite (no problems here), and the general Intel chipset drivers were installed afterwards. GL CpuInf.ZIP

If I could get drivers for today's hardware, I'd still run windows 95. I don't need any services (as in favors) from the OS. Just to boot and get out of the way. I don't need to be blinded by the 'experience' - then I'll forget to do any work. And for every task I intend to do there's a program (often freeware). GL

I just found another one: MediumCache. It's huge on every PC I've seen* and can be deleted with no ill effects. But it gets rebuilt often. I really should publish my finds somewhere. GL *don't have long enough pole to touch Vista

Another thing I discovered about service dependencies: WIA (stisvc) says it depends on Shell Hardware Detection (ShellHWDetection) and nLite hides it in compatibility mode. If ShellHWDetection is removed, stisvc doesn't start. But if ShellHWDetection is deleted from the registry multi-string: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\stisvc\DependOnService , stisvc works fine. Tested on a laptop with built in webcam. Everything works. Of course, it may be different for different devices/functionality. GL

Is Bad boy Warrior your employer by any chance? GL

Don't worry, I'm sure many people will be happy to explain that: 1. it isn't slow actually (you're imagining things) or 2. it's your fault (you haven't installed it on today's equivalent of Cray with RAID array of 100 SSD drives in parallel - you're hanging on to yesterday's hardware - and I mean ACTUAL yesterday). Just kidding of course. GL

On W2K Pro, "ms comic sans bold" is still reported missing during setup. (the actual name is shorter). No (extra) fonts were removed. It allows to continue by pressing esc, this is very early in the setup stage (copying files to HDD I think). I remember this issue present since forever. Is this a bug in nLite or my source? (I think the source is OK). (About the attached file, there was a first NLite pass before it, integrating SP4 and Windows2000-KB891861.EXE only). GL

See here GL

I think it chooses the disk with highest amount of free disk space. Maybe try with permissions for the entire drive (give write rights only to yourself). But that can be very risky if your installation b0rks or you transfer the disk to another computer. There must be other ways - but I can't think of any right now, sorry. GL

I tried to be short. Not strange but more """""secure""""" after SP2 (the quotes express my feelings about that kind of security ) GL

I never set "blank password" in nLite, I always define a password (windows has some minor annoyances if you don't set a password - acts strange on network, for example). I don't touch anything else. When I do this in nLite, XP doesn't ask me for a password on first (or any other) boot. Most of the options on this page are windows options, i.e. registry tweaks. What I'm trying to say is, nLite doesn't do any special/complex work, but windows itself is picky if you pick the wrong ones. From my experience, the less you mess with the settings here - the better. Start checking/tweaking things only if it doesn't work. GL

What could have gone wrong: 1. It hanged for some other reason. After restart it found itself in "unfinished" environment (that JOE wasn't created yet is the least of its problems). You need to determine the reason for the hang. Maybe just give it (much) more time? 2. (You didn't reach this part) The first time it asks you for an username, it if you don't enter JOE it will create another account. 3. Your version of XP requires activation and you removed OOBE or set "skip OOBE". 4. Define a password (just in case). GL

You only need to set this: (assuming JOE account is already created). If not, click on ADD - it will create "New User" and you rename it to JOE. Everything else you do (properties of that account, of administrator or any other account) has no influence over AutoLogon. Just in case, set JOE's "Password Expiration" to 0. GL

Why are you bothering so much? Obviously system files are damaged. Rescue the documents (if any) and format/reinstall. IMO repairing it isn't worth this much trouble - it will never be 'proper'. And BTW mnmdd is Microsoft NetMeeting Display Driver (a mirror driver for NM ). Legit Windows file (and maybe by disabling it you broke the display chain additionally). GL

Paranoia in a sense that it doesn't trust the user (or his browser). My comment was directed to the authors of the software. It seems everybody is taking that route these days. Instead of securing a (comfortable) feature, they toss it away altogether. But you're the boss. GL

And I thought it's my customized Opera config again. Poor thing - I blame it for all sort of stuff, and it's innocent. Opera doesn't even suggest "wand" password. It seems login info is stored/managed in cookies only. This is not security, it's paranoia. Please change it. GL

The first two are warnings, nothing important, Windows (WMI) feels obliged to notify you of something it doesn't like. VSS is volume shadow copy. You removed it, but some other program is trying to call/notify it (I've seen Defrag do it, probably Backup and other programs). It's also nothing serious. For the last error you need this, but ideally you should find the real cause. Often (always?) it happens during shutdown when there is a hung ("not responding") program or driver. From the timestamp of the events you may try to remember which programs you were running at that time. GL

Wanting both ways? That's as half-harted as it gets. But it still isn't so important, if they don't try to justify another problem (bloat) as a solution to this problem (dll hell) which they created themselves in the first place. I wouldn't know, I stopped using macs around OS7. But they changed architecture a lot (68000/PPC/Intel) so maybe that was the reason? (I really don't know for sure) I agree, but we who think differently (or at all ) suffer. (I'm not trying to offend 'the majority', just saying that: 1) most often they don't know or care to know about this; 2) don't make decisions when buying computer/OS; 3) don't have a choice (OEM)) Let's put it another way - explaining why it works that way is OK, but it doesn't solve the problem. GL

Half-hearted, isn't it? Prohibit both (+ the API) or prohibit none, I don't care. Just don't make a big deal out of it. This way, it's seen as another unneccesary and ineffective prohibition Microsoft has came up with. Standard windows APIs - yes, in dlls in system32. Those that came with the OS/service pack. Everything else - outside. Even Visual*.* and especially .Net*.* So why WinSXS can not be lazy and do its work (virtualize/redirect) WHEN a particular system .dll is replaced, instead of just keeping predefined tons of .dlls that I doubt will ever be used on a single system? OK, this is different in XP/Vista, and I'm talking more about the XP concept - which I am more familiar with, but I see it nowhere close to improvement. Anyway, that's the bloat and babysitting that most people complain about. And yeah, my argument was contradictory, and I was aware of that, but that's because I responded to a contradictory premise as well - Microsoft's curse if you will - to keep compatibility from one side and to invent new things so ppl would buy their new OSs. GL

Hmmm... Again those discussions that I try to stay away from, but from time to time I just can't stand it... No hard feelings I hope, just an exchange of opinions... 1. Not green - uses more electricity to move HDD heads further up/down/left/right. Or in general to do things that nobody needs except the OS. If that feature was not implemented in the OS, no program or user would ever miss it. 2. Dll hell was created by Shared DLLs - when RAM was scarce. Shared Dlls are still in use today for compatibility reasons, but that contradicts the argument and philosophy of the OS - to waste RAM and HDD. 3. How to solve Dll Hell? Very easy. Prohibit shared DLLs. Today, RAM is cheap and HDD space is cheap - let all installations put their dlls in their own directory. For old applications, put some kind of virtualization (redirection) in place - preferably during installation. 4. I buy HDDs and RAM for me to use, not Microsoft for their bureaucratic purposes. I'll stop here... GL

Yeah, they replaced "Dll Hell" (in my opinion, a small problem, but they didn't like to be nagged to do tech support) with "Bloat Hell" (a big problem for users in so many ways - let's say just as something that obviously isn't right). 10 times the code, a lot less functionality than 10X. Inefficient. Waste. Not "green". Now that I vented off , here is a potentially useful link: What is the WINSXS directory in Windows 2008 and Windows Vista and why is it so large?. The information I didn't know before is that the files are stored in there and outside files are linked to them (I thought it was the other way around, like Dllcache folder on previous Windows versions). GL

Set permissions on the ENUM key. Give yourself or your group full control. If you want to use it programatically, use cacls or similar. That's Microsoft's idea of security. This was changed in XP SP2 and later OSes. To try to prevent a thief from entering your house, they leave the front door slightly closed, but double lock all inside doors. (The worm/virus that would install itself as a service here is already inside your system and running, so this would stop nobody except legitimate users.) GL