Millie

No, you don’t necessarily get what you pay for. When I was trying to make my mind up on which way to go with an "integration" utility, I read many messages and was written many posts/emails on various forums and newsgroups that it was not wise to go the XPCreate commercial route because the author is well known for disappearing and/or going awol for months on end leaving the support and backing of the commercial product and its paying customers in limbo. It was with those revelations and subsequent recommendations that I chose nLite which has been serving me well as has its author who sticks around to support his product. If you are going to pay for something…. Do some research first to find if there have ever been any questionable voids in the products support. Regards, Millie

That answers one of my questions concerning the commercial version. From what I have read around the internet about XPCreate, with the author of this program being AWOL you can't get it (commercial version) any more and those that did pay for it and get it way back when are not getting the benefit of a maintained support Auto-List which was the reason for paying for the commercial version in the first place. I'm not flaming here, just pointing out what I have been reading during my search/research around the Internet concerning this program. With respect to those that are really trying to put a positive face this... Maybe you are the ones that should be in control of the program, program support and program infrastructure, which are full time necessities when you have commercial products out there with paid customers expecting..... Well, you get the idea. Thank You, Millie

Well, that's a shame . Anyway, I would like to thank those of you that were kind enough to answer my questions. Have a great one , Millie

Thanks for the reply Ryan. Okay, that answered most of my questions except for one. Quoted from your link it says: "XPCREATE connects to an Internet server to obtain a list of hotfixes that must be downloaded for your Windows version. This list will be used to determine which files must be downloaded from the Internet, and which files are already present locally." Okay, one of the initial questions still stands, does the fixes that it finds already installed on your computer require that those fix's installation files still be present on the HD (which mine are not) for XPcreate to properly work? Thanks again for the reply, Millie

Before I even get into this program, I need to know a few things. 1. Does this program acquire the hotfixes from your HD that you have already downloaded and installed from the M$ update site or does it get them from M$? The reason I ask is that after I download, install and give a few days to see if there are problems with any M$ Critical, Suggested or Driver Update from their update site, I delete the installation files for the fix using a utility called xp_remove_hotfix_backup.exe by Doug Knox to keep clutter down on the HD. So, if this thing needs to find the files on the HD, I’m out’a business. 2. I have used AutoStreamer (http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=223562) to create an XP-SP2 disk out of my XP-SP1 disk. Is this the same type method used to slipstream these M$ fixes to make an updated CD? I’m not much of a programmer or one to be messing around with config files and such so, you know what I mean. In other words, will I be getting in over my head with this? 3. I’m assuming this thing creates an image file (.ISO file) containing all the hotfixes you need for your specific setup that will be slipstreamed with the existing XP-SP2 disk, right? I have about 100 more questions but lets get past these first 3 for right now before I decide to go through this process needed to get the program. Thank You, Millie