visa tapani

This is actually quite possibly the reason for my initial problem. Anyway, after a few trials and errors I finally got the installation to work & properly activated, and now I'm working on my newly nLited XP. Thanks for the help!

Thanks for the comments. I hadn't tried a virtual install before, but now I installed MS Virtual PC 2007 and the problem was fully reproducible there. However I did like untermensch and redid the ISO with almost no changes. And this time it works! Or works until it comes to the point where it asks a serial, because apparently it doesn't accept my OEM serial for Virtual PC. But I guess I'm now confident in trying this ISO on my laptop as a real installation. Maybe this was a nLite bug? I have to take this virtual installation thing as a habit before installing for real, will save some time and headaches for sure. Which one of those three you mentioned - VirtualPC, VirtualBox or VMware Server - is recommended? Would any of them allow installing an OEM XP? Thanks!

Hmm that's interesting. Are you having the exact same problem, with the restart happening at the same stage of the installation and with the same error message? What kind of things have you done with nLite? Do you have any suspicion what settings could cause this? Actually, could you post your nLite session .ini file, so that I can compare the similarities between our settings? By the way, are you installing on a laptop or a desktop? In any case I guess it's reasonable safe to conclude that since we are both bumping into this problem, it's something we've done in nLite, rather than a hardware/BIOS/whatever issue. However, since at least in my case the installation get's stuck so early (the actual installation just barely starting), I think most nLite settings shouldn't have an effect so early on... At least I'd assume that the component/service removals wouldn't have an effect so early on, do you agree with me? Similarly the tweaks and patches seem like something that are applied at the last stage of the installation... So maybe it's something in the 'unattended' -page?

Hello all! I already posted this in the nLite forum, but I then realized that this problem has possible nothing to do with nLite. Sorry about that. Could some moderator delete the other thread? So, I've been trying to reinstall XP with my newly created SP3-slipstreamed and junk-reduced installation disc. Installation goes normally so far that I've partitioned my hard drives, chosen where to install XP and system has copied the installation files to HD. Then installation enters the stage with light-blue background, mouse cursor appears and *boom* computer restarts. After a while I get a message like "Continuing Windows XP installation.....", mouse cursor appears and the same happens. Again and again. Usually it doesn't give an error message before it happens, but sometimes a message flashes quickly on the screen before the reboot: "Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API". I'm doing this installation on an Asus M6VA laptop. Because the computer itself comes only with recovery discs, I've used this method to activate a retail hologram XP Pro CD with my product key. I've used the exact same method before and it has worked without any problems. Then the cd has gone through semi-heavy nLiting: I've slipstreamed SP3 and post-sp3 hotfixes and done a lot of removing and tweaking. See the attached .ini file for exact details, quoting it here would make this thread difficult to read. I then tried installing XP from my recovery discs. This worked without any troubles, so I guess it's unlikely this would be a hardware issue? I'm only moderately Windows and nLite literate so I have no idea what could cause this problem. If you need more info pleace ask. Any help is greatly appreciated! Last_Session_debug.txt

So, I've been trying to reinstall XP with my newly created SP3-slipstreamed and junk-reduced installation disc. Installation goes normally so far that I've partitioned my hard drives, chosen where to install XP and system has copied the installation files to HD. Then installation enters the stage with light-blue background, mouse cursor appears and *boom* computer restarts. After a while I get a message like "Continuing Windows XP installation.....", mouse cursor appears and the same happens. Again and again. Usually it doesn't give an error message before it happens, but sometimes a message flashes quickly on the screen before the reboot: "Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API". I'm doing this installation on an Asus M6VA laptop. Because the computer itself comes only with recovery discs, I've used this method to activate a retail hologram XP Pro CD with my product key. I've used the exact same method before and it has worked without any problems. Then the cd has gone through semi-heavy nLiting: I've slipstreamed SP3 and post-sp3 hotfixes and done a lot of removing and tweaking. See the attached .ini file for exact details, quoting it here would make this thread unreadable. I then tried installing XP from my recovery discs. This worked without any troubles, so it's unlikely that this would be a hardware issue. I'm only moderately Windows and nLite literate so I have no idea what could cause this problem. Any help is greatly appreciated! Last_Session___FINAL.ini

Yep, I'm using the same drivers. I just reinstalled my LAN and bluetooth drivers (I used the same version, though) but nothing changed. In safe mode or safe mode with networking I do not get the problem. I'm thinking it has maybe something to do with WLAN or Bluetooth, as when I toggle them on and off I sometimes do not get the problem when shutting down. However I can't perceive a logic which component it is and when exactly the problem disappears...

I did as you suggested and did a fresh install without touching the 'remove components' part of nLite. It's working well now, except one of the problems still remains: Everytime I shutdown the computer, I get the message: "shutdown program: available networks". After a while it shuts down, but it takes a long time. No services are disabled now so that can't be the reason. Networking seems to work otherwise as usual, but this bugs me. Any hints what I could try to get rid of this problem?

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I probably have gone further than I should have in removing things. The problem with the 'data fax modem' installation is probably because to the modem component removed. However, I haven't actually removed almost any services, save a couple of the ones I thought were quite safe. The services listed earlier are just those I have disabled - they can easily be turned back on. Because the list is long, I was just hoping someone could point out which ones I should try first. Also, I don't think I'll ever need the modem component, so the only problem there is that Windows keeps bugging me about it, and I'd like to stop that...

edit: The original post is now only partly relevant, so I wrapped it in quotes and rewrote the error description here: I just installed XP from scratch to my Asus laptop. I did it with a FPP retail XP Pro cd where I had overwritten the dpcdll.dll, oembios.bin, oembios.cat, oembios.sig, oembios.dat, setupp.ini, pidgen.dll, setupreg.hiv files with those from my recovery disc in order to preserve OEM pre-activation. The I incorporated SP2 with nLite and burned to disc. An irritating problem however is bugging me: Everytime I shutdown the computer, I get the message: "shutdown program: available networks". After a while it shuts down, but it takes a long time. Why could this be? Which of these could have a connection with the problems I'm having? I'm using normal networking (firefox+thunderbird), some torrents and p2p software, some audio-software and a bunch of normal home computer stuff. Should I re-enable some of those services? Thanks in advance

Thanks, yes I'm confident now that the problem had nothing to do with nLite but was my own mistake. Sorry if I sounded like I was blaming nLite for the problems, that wasn't the intented tone. It seems that in addition to the oembios files and the winnt.sif file, I need to replace the setupp.ini file of the retail XP cd with the one from my recovery disc for it to accept OEM activation...

Ahaa, I see now, thanks. Got a bit mixed up with terms as I wasn't really sure what an OEM CD is... But if I copy the setupp.ini file from my recovery disc it should work even with the retail XP cd?

Thanks for the tip! However, after nLite is finished, the proper OEM key *is* in the winnt.sif -but it still doesn't work. This is how the winnt.sif looks after the whole thing is done: This is how the winnt.sif looks like after generated by the getfiles.bat by Bezalel's method: So it just seems nLite has added some extra parameters, but hasn't broken anything important. Also I just looked through the OEMBIOS.BI_, OEMBIOS.CA_, OEMBIOS.DA_ and OEMBIOS.SI_ filesizes of the finished nLited XP installation and they seem to be equal to those generated byt the getfiles.bat, suggesting that nLite hasn't modified them... Could it be that I need to overwrite/modify more files of the FPP retail XP I386 folder than those aforementioned 5? In this thread jdboeck said that if you want to make a OEM preactivated XP cd from a FPP retail cd, you need to copy these 8 files from your recovery disc: "dpcdll.dll, oembios.bin, oembios.cat, oembios.sig, oembios.dat, setupp.ini, pidgen.dll, setupreg.hiv". So in addition to the files discussed here I'd need dpcdll.dll, setupp.ini, pidgen.dll and setupreg.hiv, is this true? For example regarding the setupp.ini I found this in a guide once: "So if you wanted a retail CD that took retail keys, the last line of your setupp.ini file would read: Pid=51882335 And if you wanted a retail CD that took OEM keys, you'd use: Pid=51882OEM" Could this be the reason why my installation disc refused the OEM key I gave it - it is customed to only accept retail keys? This is how the setupp.ini of the final cd looked like: [Pid] ExtraData=7573666361697474646DC3545CBB62 Pid=55697270 In contrast, this is how the setupp.ini of my recovery disc looks like: [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76409OEM I'm getting a bit confused by all this... If I'd just copy dpcdll.dll, setupp.ini, pidgen.dll and setupreg.hiv from the I386 folder of my recovery cd to the I386 folder of the retail XP I'm installing from (in addition to the OEMBIOS.BI_, OEMBIOS.CA_, OEMBIOS.DA_, OEMBIOS.SI_ and winnt.sif files gotten with Bezalel's getfiles.bat) would it just solve my problem? Any help is greatly appreciated!

I have an Asus laptop with just recovery discs and I'm trying to do a clean install without the bloat coming with them. For this I got a retail Windows XP cd of the same type and language as the one shipping with my laptop and extracted it to my HD. I used Bezalel's method to overwrite the OEMBIOS.BI_, OEMBIOS.CA_, OEMBIOS.DA_ and OEMBIOS.SI_ files in the I386 folder of the XP installation directory and to write a winnt.sif file there. Then I ran it through nLite, added SP2, removed a couple of components, and filled the unattended page. Now, I'm wondering did the unattended setup in nLite maybe overwrite the OEMBIOS.BI_, OEMBIOS.CA_, OEMBIOS.DA_ and OEMBIOS.SI_ and winnt.sif files again, 'cause it at least warned that: "Previous unattended settings were detected in your installation and will be overwritten. Disable 'Unattended' page if you want to keep your previous settings". I though this just affects the unattended configuration and is not a problem to me. However, when I was trying to install Windows from the disc it not only asked for a product key, but refused the key written in winnt.sif. I also tried the key from the bottom of my laptop and the generic OEM preactivation preserving key, neither of which worked. So I reinstalled from my recovery discs and am now typing this. Should the Bezalel's method even work in my case? Would it work if I skipped the 'Unattended' page in nLite? Am I being clear in my problem description? Is there any other way to install fresh from a retail XP Pro and retain the OEM activation information embedded in my laptop?

I tried this yesterday and couldn't get it to work, I'd really appreciate some help here. I have an asus laptop with just recovery discs and I wanted to install clean without the bloat coming with them. So I got a Windows XP disc from a friend (a proper hologrammed retail version afaik), the same type (Pro) and language as the one shipping with the notebook. I copied the content to HD, overwrote the OEMBIOS.BI_, OEMBIOS.CA_, OEMBIOS.DA_, OEMBIOS.SI_ and winnt.sif in the I386 folder with the files gotten from the method described by Bezalel on page 1. After this I ran the XP through some nLiting, incorporated SP2, removed some content, filled the right details in its unattended page, did other small adjustments and burned it to disc. However, after I had wiped my HD clean and started installing, everything went fine until to my surprise it asked for product key! Even worse, none of the keys I could think of worked. First I of course tried the real product key of my laptop facotry installation (the one that the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder reports and which was written to the winnt.sif) but it didn't work. Then I tried the product key on the bottom of my laptop and the product key found on this webpage, neither of which worked. What have I done wrong? Could it be that the nLiting broke the installation somehow? When entering the 'unattended' stage it reported that there is previous unattended information in the installation which might be lost. I figured that this only refers to the unattended configuration, and does not break it. Should it work if I skip the unattended stage of nLite or have I misunderstood something about the whole process?

Hello again and thanks for the replies. Good tip Kryogenius! However I think it is easier for me to just start from a scratch with clean XP discs and just modify it a little bit to get it activated on my royalty oem machine. Also I looked into the WinFuture-XP-ISO-Builder 3.0 but am a bit suspicious if it would work since my recovery cds work from a image. Maybe it would actually, but it would still probably be more complicated than what I'm trying to do here. As long as I could just set straight the conflicting information I mentioned in last post. I mean, after all I just need to copy a handful of files from my current installation and that's it? EDIT: I also read a bit about setupp.ini but am a bit confused about one thing. From a guide I found: "So if you wanted a retail CD that took retail keys, the last line of your setupp.ini file would read: Pid=51882335 And if you wanted a retail CD that took OEM keys, you'd use: Pid=51882OEM" Which one should I use with my modified FPP XP installation disc?