I'm sure there is a fair number of you out there that have set up machines for business use...

At the moment I am in the process of creating a base image install for our new office (100+ machines), and the install is from the ground up.

As this is the first time I have done something like this, I am looking for some tips or tweaks for XP that you have used in the past when doing this.

For example, setting the default theme to the 'classic XP' theme, for all users.

anything else that you can think of? If so please give details of how this is done (like the above, because I cant seem to find a way of doing it!!)

Thanks in advance

The above can be done by applying registry tweaks. Monitor your registry while you make the changes to find out which keys get changed.

Make sure they all are set to require Ctrl+Alt+Del to log on, and hide the last username. You might want to put links to common applications on the default desktop, maybe set the homepage to your company's website, set up the support info for the system control panel, stuff like that. Maybe brand IE, put in a custom logon image in the logon dialog, etc. Really just think about what YOU want them to be like - and what your company wants them to be like. Oh, and all updates up until now installed of course.

One of the best tweaks I know is to go into the registry under HKCU (or users/default if you catch it early enough) \Control Panel\Desktop and set MenuShowDelay to something like 2. This causes menus (e.g. Start Menu) to appear and expand instantaneously as opposed to waiting the stupid half-second they normally do. I find it gives the perception of a much faster system and I've never had anyone complain about it.