faster installation?

[esp]

Would Windows install faster when one would decompress the more heavier files like OEMBIOS.BI_ (12 mb), ... THEN burning them to a dvd?

I mean, I386 is full of compressed files and we use a whole lot of files that we modify and next putting them back uncompressed. Like the winnt.si_ or svcpack.in_, ...

There is a whole lot of room on a dvd. Or would the uncompressed files just take longer to copy in the textmode stage?

[kenedy]

What's there to discuss - it requires experiment.

I think that there will be no speed improvements.

File copying (and extraction) is only 5-6 minutes long anyway. Even if you gain 20-30 seconds, it's just not worth it.

[esp]

Hey, just asking..

[nARkwS]

To speed things up I use Symantec Ghost to do a partition image of the HDD after it's first text-mode run.

This of course is only possible with an installation started from winnt.exe

The HDD contents will always be the same after the first section of text-mode, regardless of what hardware is in use, and unpacking a 380Mb compressed image from contiguous CD space is much faster than suffering the first text-mode each time. Ghost (like other software probably) lets you unpack partitions to any size of HDD without having to do any disk preparation.

It all helps.

-nARkwS-

[kenedy]

nARkwS

Have you tried it on multiprocessor and older PC's?

I thought things like BIOS type (APM,ACPI) and number of processors is detected in text-mode phase.

And what about SATA/RAID drivers?

[MHz]

@esp

If you want to speed it. Then you could use the Gosh method which is a sticky in this forum. Take a look here.

[esp]

Tried that once, got too many unexpected stuff happening back then. Abandoned this method, but thanks anyway.

[nARkwS]

kenedy

I don't ever install XP on systems with a lesser spec than 466Mhz+128Mb RAM.

I haven't tried it on a multi-processor system, but I have installed on SATA. The SATA driver is loaded (by pressing F6) at the very beginning of the second phase of text-mode. I'm pretty sure that the SATA driver could also be integrated into the installation, but have never tried that.

I've deployed Home + Pro OEM on hundreds of systems with varying hardware using this method. I've also did it with Corporate on around 30 systems. The only issue I ever encountered was with a particular 160Gb Hitatchi ATA133 drive, which was probably a bad firmware revision or something similar, as the drive passed DFT and took an attended installation of XP no problem.

-nARkwS-

[kenedy]

nARkwS

at the very beginning of the second phase of text-mode.

What's the second phase of text-mode?

[nARkwS]

When you install from Winnt.exe /s: the first phase of text-mode is copying from the media. It then reboots and performs th second phase, which is equivalent to doing a normal boot of the CD (or floppies).

BTW I added an edit to that previous message (telling of an issue I encountered with a 160Gb).

[kenedy]

So, in fact, you are installing Windows from HDD?

Is it really that much faster?

[nARkwS]

Can't say for absolute certain how much faster it is, but HDDs are far more reliable than optical drives, and whenver installation problems occur, then the optical drive and media are out of the equation already. I install Windows around 3-6 times a day, and it's the most hassle free method I've found.

-nARkwS-

[vertigosity]

nARkwS

Have you tried it on multiprocessor and older PC's?

I thought things like BIOS type (APM,ACPI) and number of processors is detected in text-mode phase.

And what about SATA/RAID drivers?

I think it is, but it still has a lot of leeway... it might get redetected again in the GUI portion. I've done an install or two of Win2k and WinNT 4.0 on a laptop without a CD drive, and the only way to do that was to use a 2.5''>3.5'' adaptor to put it in a much newer and much larger desktop machine that was available to me... So between a 2.2ghz NF2 Athlon system and a P/100 ALi system, there might not be much difference, but there might be more differences between a HT P4 or some other MP system. But the APM/ACPI bits should be alright doing a ghosting of the text-mode phase.

[nARkwS]

So between a 2.2ghz NF2 Athlon system and a P/100 ALi system, there might not be much difference

You'll get away with imaging after the final part of text-mode on any current NForce based system (I think), simply because the NForce drivers aren't native to Windows, so generic ones are installed.