Dreadnort

I was also burned by Vista, I got it at launch intending for it to replace XP (primarily for it's DX10 support). As I had 4Gb of memory I installed the 64-bit version. I struggled with it for about 2 months battling regular blue screens caused by the infamous nvlddmkm.sys before giving it up as a bad job. Up until 2 months ago I was still on XP but decided to make the switch to Windows 7. I'd already preordered a copy as it was being sold at a discount to U.K. residents for a limited time. My experience thus far with it has been an utter joy to be honest. Windows 7 is everything Vista should have been, i now have a fast, stable 64-bit O.S. with no complaints at all. The UAC is left on it's default setting and is a far far better implementation than the it's overly paranoid Vista brother. I've had no problems running any of the apps I used in XP. In short Microsoft have got it right, even if it did take just under another 3 years to do it. As -X- said if you aren't too sure, download the 90 day trial and see what you think. I'll admit that I was skeptical about Windows 7 at first, the old addage of once bitten twice shy hung over it, but I am happy to say it has so far proved itself in every way.

As I'm sure you know all non-corp versions of Windows XP require you to activate the product within 30 days. Without activation, you wouldn't be able to use Windows Update or download/use MS software like IE 7 and Windows Defender unless you used a WGA hack. This line goes in the Unattended section of the Winnt.sif AutoActivate = "Yes" What it is supposed to do is to to activate Windows over the internet, providing that your Network/Modem drivers have been installed, thus saving you from doing it yourself.

Don't those of us with XP Pro/Home still need it to activate Windows online ? Yes I know we could just call but who really wants to waste money phoning MS just to activate. I have Autoactivate set in Winnt.sif, surely without Oobe or at least some part of it, this would fail ?

In all likelyhood you have removed Terminal Services from the Services section of Components. If you have not removed that, then you may have simply disabled the service in the Tweaks section. Either of these 2 is most probably the root of your problem.

I have an interesting "bug" I've found with Alanoll's Winamp. I've eliminated as much info as I can to safely say that I'm sure it isn't a Windows problem. It seems that I am unable to listen to streaming radio using his winamp installer in Internet Explorer. I've tested using a Full install of all features, to ensure it isn't anything I may have left out. For example if I navigate to eve-radio.com and click on the winamp link, the following appears in the playlist. 1.Documents 2.and 3.Local 4.Temporary 5.Internet 6.listen[1] I've found that I can download the radio.pls file and that when I right click on it under the General tab, at the bottom is a security message. Namely that the file came from another computer and may be blocked. Clicking unblock allows the downloaded pls file to play streaming radio. However if I use firefox to go to the radio website and click the link, it works exactly as it's supposed to. In addition, installing the original Winamp installer from the winamp homepage, results in normal streaming operations in I.E. Is there a possibility that the winamp installer is parsing a pemission of sorts to I.E., that Alanolls isn't. I'm a fan of Alanolls installer and use it much as most of us do. For it's inherent flexibility in allowing us to choose which parts of the program best suit our needs. Alanolls Winamp has been tested on numerous Nlite installations of Windows XP SP2 with varying reduction and customisation and on completely untouched virgin installations as well. If anyone can offer a solution to this problem (other than simply saying "just use firefox" or "download and unblock the pls's as needed"). Thankyou.

Well with a controller like that, the PS3 is sure to be a HUUUGE success in Australia. I think it's best to reserve proper judgement on The Revolution's new controller until it can be seen used in actual applications. Although the sheer scope it can encompass is very promising. FPS games may actually become truly playable on consoles. I could never get to grips with 99% of them, because using 2 analog stiks felt clunky and unwieldy, although the 1% that I could play were all courtesy of Nintendo: Goldeneye and Metroid Prime 1 & 2. But that was down to the excellent layout of the joypads.

Nlite for me is a fantastic tool that alows me to be extremely flexible about what is and isn't installed on my system. For example, Windows installs games, sounds, wallpapers and screensavers. Before Nlite I would just have had to put up with these, as I NEVER use any of them. I prefer Windows to be seen and not heard, the games hold no interest for me and I normally use a blank screen as my background. With Nlite, I can remove all these annoyances directly from the source, thus freeing up some space and lessen a little aggravation. Then we move onto drivers. I have an Nforce 2 motherboard which XP doesn't actually support natively (i.e. no drivers). I also have an Nvida GFX card and Audigy 2 sound card. Whilst there are drivers within Windows that do support them, they are horribly outdated. By default Windows has drivers for a wide range of products, most of which I don't have or never will have. Once again Nlite steps in and can strip out all those useless drivers for hardware I don't have any use for. SATA drives are now becoming very much the standard HDD, however if you want Windows XP to install on one, you need to have a floppy drive handy with the drivers on a disk. More and more computers these days are ditching FDD's because writable CD's & DVD's have made them pretty much obselete. Nlite can integrate these and drivers for all my hardware into XP, meaning that it is kept bang up to date and I never have to install any additional drivers. The numerous hotfixes that come out monthly can all take up alot of space. I had a friend who recently had to reinstall Windows, using his PRE SP1 retail copy. After he'd done all the hotfixes and updates, his Windows folder alone was 2Gb+. With Nlite you can keep your Windows source prefectly updated either by integrating Service packs and hotfixes individually or using the ever popular RyanVM update packs. Either way the end result is the same, A much more efficient and less bug ridden Windows installation. Next we move on to software. MSN Messenger, the Windows Firewall/Security Centre and Defrag may be perfectly fine for the average joe user, but many of us use far better software or in the case of MSN Mesenger updated software. Therefore why do we need to bother having these programs installed with Windows, if we are simply going to install our own choices. The answer is, we don't have to. Nlite allows us the freedom to choose what we want and what we don't want. It seems that with each new version of Windows, we have had less control over what is installed. For example Windows 95 & 98 allowed us a fair amount of freedom over what we could install during installation, but this seemed to be massively curtailed when XP was introduced. It became simply a case of take it or leave it and we could only remove items AFTER windows had completed installing. Even then, many things were hidden, that could only be uncovered by editing entries in sysoc.inf and how many people REALLY knew about that back then. In essence Nlite is all about being able to take back control of Windows and tailoring it to suit your needs, and not what Microsoft thinks are your needs. Couple Nlite with automated unattended installation of my favourite software and I end up with a system that is ready to be used straight away, no messing about installing any extra drivers or having to download Winamp or Winrar or whatever. I get all this power and versatility and it doesn't cost me a penny. XPLite, Nlite's closest rival does the removal part, but if you want the full range of features, you have to pay. Also it does it's removing after Windows has been installed. Something I think has far more potential to cause problems then Nlite's method.

When selecting the drivers on the floppy, does Nlite ask you if it is a text mode driver ? If not that could be your problem, in which case find out if there is a TXTSETUP.OEM file on the floppy.. If it does, then check that iastor.sys is also in the I386 dir as well as the I386/NLDRV. It seems that RAID/SATA drivers need to have the core file in the root as well as in NLDRV, otherwise they will not work and will come up with that error.

Definately option B. Less work for you for starters and it'll save a lot of hassle. Besides for now 5.08 is working fine.

JohnS, I too had the same problem, the contents of the directory were deleted, but the directory remained, even when I added an additional RD command just as you have. Finally rather than beat my brains over it, I decided to make it work for me. I use a DL Manager as do millions. By default, downloads are sent to My Downloads directory, so I simply decided that if I couldn't remove the Firefox temporary directory automatically, I might as well make it work for me. I just changed it's name to My Downloads in the setup.cmd and voila, one less directory that needs to be created. If you use a DL Manager, then may I suggest this as an alternative solution.

I want to get my IP info added to my NIC. This was easy to achieve on my old Nforce 2 and worked flawlessly. However my Nforce 4 is a more awkward beast. XP installs a 1394 Net Adapter and the Nforce 4 Network Controller. All other internal connections for the motherboard have been disabled in the Bios, including the native onboard Firewire Device. However I do also have a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS, which I believe has it's own onboard Firewire connection (which AFAIK cannot be disabled) and it is this that is installed. I've looked into the basic principle of adding 2 NIC adapters, with my aim being to try and add the IP info to the Nforce adapter with no success. I know that adapter identification can be based on the INFID, MAC address and/or PCIBus No. Heres al the info I've managed to glean so far. Maybe someone can help me to work out what I'm missing out or doing wrong. [Networking] InstallDefaultComponents=No [NetAdapters] Adapter1=params.Adapter1 Adapter2=params.Adapter2 [params.Adapter1] ConnectionName="1394 Net Adapter" INFID=V1394\NIC1394\510A4CCD23C01 [params.Adapter2] ConnectionName="NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller" INFID={1a3e09be-1e45-494b-9174-d7385b45bbf5}\NVNET_DEV0057 [NetClients] MS_MSClient=params.MS_MSClient [NetServices] MS_SERVER=params.MS_SERVER [NetProtocols] MS_TCPIP=params.MS_TCPIP [params.MS_TCPIP] DNS=Yes UseDomainNameDevolution=No EnableLMHosts=No AdapterSections = params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter1,params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter2 [params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter1] SpecificTo=Adapter1 DHCP=Yes IPAddress= SubnetMask= DefaultGateway= DNSServerSearchOrder= WINS=No NetBIOSOptions=0 [params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter2] SpecificTo=Adapter2 DHCP=Yes IPAddress=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx SubnetMask=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx DefaultGateway=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx DNSServerSearchOrder=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx WINS=No NetBIOSOptions=0 This doesn't seem to work, any ideas ?

I actually tried this myself. I NLiten'd Reduced Media Edition with all the settings I wanted, and then reduced XP Pro with the same settings. XP Pro came out at a smaller size than RM, making it a bit of a let down in that regard.

***removed, coz the solution was already found***

Currently using WMP 10, but plan on ditching it asap and going back to WMP 9. WMP 10 has an annoying knack of playing 3 video files and then shutting down whenever a fourth is loaded. WMP 9 never did this, plus it doesn't have the stupid now playing blue bar permanently stuck on it. WMP 10 is the biggest waste of space I've ever had the misfortune to download and install.

No, it would still be needed, because the copy protection would be broken, because it was no longer an original disc.