Newbie Help

[Ctwizzy]

Hi,

My pc has been real slow of late, and is overdue a fresh install. So I have been researching and found out that its best to have seperate partitions on your HDs so that future reinstallations are faster and I wont have to backup everything again.

So I have manually created partitions on both of my HD's. As current I have an HD1: 80gig with a 2mb cache and a HD2: 160gig with a 8mb cache.

The 80gig HD is the master atm, and the 160 the slave. The 80 gig also hosts windows atm.

I have the following Drives.

A: Floppy

C: Windows XP Pro + program files 70gigs on HD1

D: DVD-RW

E: CD-RW

F: Storage drive (hosting all files I want to back up on here) HD2

G: Virtual DVD drive

P: For all my web development, has a Subversion repository on here etc HD2

S: Future Swap disc on HD1

T: Future Temporary disc on HD1

U: Future driveimage backup disc HD2

I have a legit XP cd key that came with my DELL dist of windows XP pro. As this vers is jam packed full of dell crap I dont want, I am using my friends XP cd. Which is a Windows XP Pro SP2 cd.

What I ultimatly want to do, is have windows XP pro install on the faster HD as C:.

HD1: 160gig

C: Windows XP Pro 2 SP2 - 5gigs

D,E,F will be cd drives?

G: all my Documents and stuff on - 90gigs

H: installations and common files on E: (or visa versa between E and D), 50gigs

I: temp files -1gig

J: Swap Disc -2 gig (for Photoshop)

If anyone can recommend a better setup or more partitions to further organize my system that would be great.

HD2: 80 gig

k: Basically a storage drive, keep backups etc - 40gigs

N: network drive to be shared between my home network - 40gigs

So I have read the guide, Im going to have it install a few programs for me that are neccesary and small enough, bigger apps like Photoshop and stuff I wont bother with.

Drivers for my vid cards, and for audio/video. And some registry tweaks to make the system run faster.

This is for personal use, so I dont see the reason putting the effort into making it install Apache, MySql etc when I can do this by my self.

So Im basically looking for a few answers.

1. Is it ok that I have the partitions allready created, and how do i tell windows when it install thats the new default install dir is on a dif drive as well as the data files? Im assuming this would be in the answer file, and is relativly easy to have it map it.

2. Whats the advantage of having the unatteneded install programs for me? Wouldnt it be safer for me to install them myself once the system is up and running?

3. How do I make it install windows on the slave drive for now (once its done i will switch it to be master), this I am unsure of.

4. Is it safe for someone like me (a novice) using nLite to make the windows installation lighter? There is a lot of junk it installs and id rather not have it.

I have a program called XPLite Pro, tho unsure about this.

Thanks, and this is an amazing forum/community. I hope to learn a lot here.

[Cartoonite]

A lot of what you are trying to do with your partitioning is confusing me , but I will do what I can to answer your questions.

1. Is it ok that I have the partitions allready created, and how do i tell windows when it install thats the new default install dir is on a dif drive as well as the data files? Im assuming this would be in the answer file, and is relativly easy to have it map it.

If you are using a complex partitioning system, I believe it is better to have the partitions created prior to beginning setup. I'm not sure I understand the rest of this question. As far as I know, you can only automate installation to the first partition on the first harddrive. If you want to install elsewhere, it is best to manually choose the destination at the start of the setup process and then have the rest be unattended. Does that answer your question?

2. Whats the advantage of having the unatteneded install programs for me? Wouldnt it be safer for me to install them myself once the system is up and running?

The advantage of having the programs installed unattended is exactly that: They are installed unattended. I suppose you could argue that it would be easier to install them manually to ensure that you get the exact settings you want, but the same can be said for installing Windows itself. The uA process is comepletely customizable; you can automate as much or as little as you like. I believe most of us opt for complete automation simply because it makes our lives easier, but ultimately the final decision rests with each indivisual project maker.

3. How do I make it install windows on the slave drive for now (once its done i will switch it to be master), this I am unsure of.

I'm not sure it is possible to set this up automatically. I'm also not sure it's a good idea. I recommend having your hardware configured as you intend to run it before begining setup. (i.e.: Swap the drives first, then install Windows.)

4. Is it safe for someone like me (a novice) using nLite to make the windows installation lighter? There is a lot of junk it installs and id rather not have it.

I have a program called XPLite Pro, tho unsure about this.

Yes and no. The main thing to keep in mind is that, while you might break your uA CD by tampering with it using nLite or XPLite Pro or even just manually hacking files, you will always have your original CD that you can use to start fresh. If you don't already have it, I advise getting a virtual PC program such as VPC or VMWare that you can use for testing your uA CD every step of the way. That way, if you do break something, you will hopefully have a very narrow scope of changes to examine to determine exactly what you did to generate the error.

I hope you find this information helpful. Welcome to our site. Enjoy your stay.

[hasi001]

BTW. Read this message. Point Nr. 12 could help you.

[Ctwizzy]

Sorry for the bad title name, I wont do it again in the future. If a mod could change it so something suitable that would be fine.

Catoonite thanks for your answers.

If you have the time id appreciate some more advise.

Is there something wrong with my complex partitioning idea? Do you know of something better?

So I have to switch drives so the drive i want windows to be on is the Master, and the drive windows is currently on is the slave? Will Windows boot from my slave for now then if I do this? Also how do I make sure that the front of the destination drive is free for a windows installation? Should i create a C: drive on that drive or let the unattended installation create it for me?

I think to make life easier for me I could do the following:

Leave drive1 with windows on it for now

make my unattended CD

change all current drive letter names to letters I wont be using

Switch drives Master -> Slave (Drive 2 becomes the Master now)

Create partitions that I want on the Master for Program Files and Docs

Use Unattended CD on new Master, this creates a second installation of windows which has the configuartion I want.

Boot up windows check out everything is fine, then format the original windows installation freeing up the room on the second HD.

Then I should be done. Does this sound easier/possible?

Also you said that I should look into getting a VPC so I can check my uA cd, is there not a guide somewhere on components I can safely remove?

http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/space_saving_tips.htm

I checked out this link and realize that this is just a tip of the iceberg, im looking for something to slim it down even more, I mean there has to be more junk that Windows Installs that bogs my system down?

Im trying to make my system better for testing Web Applications as a Dummy Server. (Tomcat for J2EE apps) and also for video editing/graphics and games.

Thanks for your help and Happy Holidays!

[Ctwizzy]

this has fallen from main page, just giving it a bump

[Cartoonite]

this has fallen from main page, just giving it a bump

Not necessary. We are still looking, it just takes us a while to get back to you sometimes, that's all.

Please keep in mind that all of my opinions are just that, my opinions only.

Is there something wrong with my complex partitioning idea? Do you know of something better?

I wouldn't say there is anything wrong with it, I just wouldn't choose to make my harddrive partitions that complicated. I don't know that I have ever suffered much in the way of performance loss by having only 2 or 3 partitions across my 2 harddrives. Maybe I have and I only don't realize it because I have never put the effort into setting up a more complex system, but I think my life is complicated enough without over-complicating my harddrive partitions.

So I have to switch drives so the drive i want windows to be on is the Master, and the drive windows is currently on is the slave? Will Windows boot from my slave for now then if I do this? Also how do I make sure that the front of the destination drive is free for a windows installation? Should i create a C: drive on that drive or let the unattended installation create it for me?

I think maybe I explained this poorly. I wouldn't suggest moving hardware around within the PC until you are ready to reformat and install your new Windows OS. Once you have your uA CD completed to your specifications (this is where virtual environments come in handy), then you can disassemble your PC, move parts around, and repartion the drives as needed.

I suggest making a backup off all the data on the 160G drive that you want to keep, so that you can repartition it cleanly without having to worry about destroying any data. Once the 160G is partitioned you can copy data to be saved off of the smaller drive onto one (or more) of the larger drive's partitions and then repartition the smaller drive to it's new specs. What you will end up with is two harddrives partitioned however you want, with no OS installed on them. You can then boot your PC from your uA CD and (providing you configured it to do so) it will install Windows to the first partition on the first harddrive without any further input from you.

Just to be clear: Do not follow the steps outlined above if you are not sure your uA CD is in working order unless you are willing to take the time to install Windows manually if the uA fails.

Leave drive1 with windows on it for now

make my unattended CD

Good idea. If you want your fresh install to be done using your brand new uA CD, don't kill the current one until the CD is ready.

change all current drive letter names to letters I wont be using

To the best of my knowledge, drive letter is completely OS-dependant. This step should be unnecessary.

Switch drives Master -> Slave (Drive 2 becomes the Master now)

Create partitions that I want on the Master for Program Files and Docs

Use Unattended CD on new Master, this creates a second installation of windows which has the configuartion I want.

I fear this might cause you undue headaches with your clean install. I think, ideally, all your partion information should be configured before you install Windows. I don't think it would cause any actual errors, but adding drives/partitions once the OS has been installed may result in you having to manually assign drive letters in order to have them set up the way you want.

For example: When I added a DVD burner to my system, it was given the first available drive-letter, which came after my virtual drives. I had to manually reassign the drive-letters to them so that the DVD burner would be listed after the CD-R but before the virtual drives.

Boot up windows check out everything is fine, then format the original windows installation freeing up the room on the second HD.

My advice is still to test in a virtual environment before taking your project "live." That way you will know before you even begin the process of moving to the new install that it will (theoretically) work out the way you planned. I say theoretically because there may always be slight variances in the way things behave between your virtual system and your real one. Device drivers are a prime example.

Also you said that I should look into getting a VPC so I can check my uA cd, is there not a guide somewhere on components I can safely remove?

Safely is a relative word. You can "safely" remove Outlook Express from your Windows installation using nLite or something similar. However, should you then decide, at a later date, to install Outlook, it will fail. While Windows in and of itself does not require the OE components, Outlook does. I've never tested this myself, just took it out of the nLite documentation. What this suggests to me, however, is that there may be other hidden dependancies that have yet to be found and so you may fiind that removing a "safe" component causes your system to crash simply because your specific situation required that component. Beyond that, there are times when the guides are just wrong. (No offense to the authors.) Like everyone else, the people who write the guides are human, and they, too, can make mistakes. The real reason I suggest testing with VPC or VMWare or whatnot is that only you know the specifics of your situation, so only you know what will or won't work.

I checked out this link and realize that this is just a tip of the iceberg, im looking for something to slim it down even more, I mean there has to be more junk that Windows Installs that bogs my system down?

You are absolutely right. The steps provided on that page are a great place to start. So is the [components] section of the WINNT.SIF file. However, there is much more "junk" installed by Windows that you can't get rid of by these conventional means. To return to my previous example of Outlook Express: There is no simple file or folder to delete to remove this. Nor can you opt out of installing it via WINNT.SIF. You can choose not to install the shortcuts from here, but the program itself will still be installed. Removing it completely requires manually hacking it out of the cab files, or using a tool like nLite that will do it for you.

A lot of this really boils down to personal preference. I personally prefer not to implement something unless I know it is going to work; hence I choose to test extensively in virtual environments. (I'm still working with my "old" Windows environment because I decided a couple weeks ago that I wanted to set up an uA CD to do my clean install. That project still isn't complete, though I could have manually reinstalled Windows several times by now.)

Hopefully you are still finding my feedback more helpful than antagonizing.

Good luck with your project, and Happy Holidays to you too.

[Ctwizzy]

Ok Initially I wanted to create an Unattended CD that would install a bunch of Registry Tweaks, Applications, Drivers and Codecs etc.

I am no longer seeing the point in this because I mean Im using this CD once, and in the future Id have to recreate the cd with newer apps, when I could just as easily install them manually have the control I need.

I have created a D, and E on the destination HD, D is for Program Files (installations), and E is for Documents and Settings (is this where My Documents is kept?) As of right now they are empty with enough space allocated to them for now. There is no OS on this drive. Now I have my XP CD with the following answerfile.

What I am hoping for as the outcome is for it to create C: on the drive, set program files on D, E is Docuents and settings. SO in the future when I install apps they default into D:.

This allows me to have Windows/Installations/Data seperated. This simple unattended CD allows me to format C: in the future w/o worrying about losing windows apps.

Basically the goal of my unattended CD is to have the 3 partitions on the one drive, where the info is seperate, and if I ever need to just format C I can w/o losing installs or Data. Am I right in thinking this will do the trick?

Answer File:

;SetupMgrTag

[Data]

AutoPartition=1

MsDosInitiated="0"

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

AutomaticUpdates=yes

[unattended]

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

OemSkipEula=Yes

OemPreinstall=Yes

TargetPath=\WINDOWS

UnattendSwitch="yes"

Repartition=No

WaitForReboot="No"

AutoActivate = Yes

ProgramFilesDir="D:\My Program Files"

CommonProgramFilesDir="D:\My Program Files\My Common Files"

KeyboardLayout="Canadian English (Multilingual)"

[GuiUnattended]

AdminPassword=*

EncryptedAdminPassword=NO

AutoLogon=Yes

AutoLogonCount=1

OEMSkipRegional=1

TimeZone=35

OemSkipWelcome=1

ProfilesDir="E:\Documents and Settings\"

[userData]

ProductKey=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

FullName="Chris"

OrgName=""

ComputerName=Chris

[Display]

BitsPerPel=32

Xresolution=1280

YResolution=1024

Vrefresh=85

[TapiLocation]

CountryCode=107

[RegionalSettings]

LanguageGroup=1

[branding]

BrandIEUsingUnattended=Yes

Home_Page=www.google.ca

[Proxy]

Proxy_Enable=0

Use_Same_Proxy=1

[identification]

JoinWorkgroup=HOME

[Networking]

InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

[Components]

msmsgs=off

msnexplr=off

zonegames=off

[WindowsFirewall]

Profiles = WindowsFirewall.TurnOffFirewall

[WindowsFirewall.TurnOffFirewall]

Mode = 0

Now time for Questions!

- Is there anything else I need to specify to do what I want?

- Will windows installing on the new HD create C at the front of the disc automatically?

- Do my D and E partitions have to be empty?

- Will it auto designate letters to my CD/DVD drives?

- Can I keep my Windows Installation on the other drive for now and just change the drive letter, to make sure this works as planned? This means id have 2 windows XP installtions on 2 dif HD's one master one slave. I will clean the old one once im sure the installation went as planned.

- If I change the drive letter of the current windows installation on the smaller drive to say Z:, and then make that drive the slave, install windows on the new drive, if it all fails, can I just swap the master slave back and it will boot from Z:? or no?

- If anyone has any futher sugestions, advice, or improvements on helping me do this ASAP I woudl appreciate it.

[Cartoonite]

In the future, please use the Code tag when posting stuff like the contents of your answer file. It makes it easier to distinguish when we are reading it over.

As to your setup itself: I think you may want/need to create the primary partition (C: Drive) where Windows is to be installed before beginning, but other than that it looks great.

On to your questions:

- Is there anything else I need to specify to do what I want?

- Will windows installing on the new HD create C at the front of the disc automatically?

Possibly just creating the primary partition for Windows, as mentioned above. I'm not sure. I don't think it will, and so I suggest creating it (formatting optional) manually beforehand. Consider: For all subsequent installs it will already exists anyway, so why not keep the same pattern for the first run?

- Do my D and E partitions have to be empty?

No, I don't believe so. They will, however, have to be formatted. (Can't have blank, unformatted partitions.)

- Will it auto designate letters to my CD/DVD drives?

Yes. They will be assigned letters immediately following those assigned to the harddrives.

- Can I keep my Windows Installation on the other drive for now and just change the drive letter, to make sure this works as planned? This means id have 2 windows XP installtions on 2 dif HD's one master one slave. I will clean the old one once im sure the installation went as planned.

Maybe a better idea would be to leave the second HDD out altogether while performing your base install? Once you know the new installation is running properly, then you can add the second drive back into the system and clean it up. You will have to do some fiddling with drive letters once you add the second HDD back in, but it will ensure that there is no conflict between the existing installation and the new one during the uA process.

- If I change the drive letter of the current windows installation on the smaller drive to say Z:, and then make that drive the slave, install windows on the new drive, if it all fails, can I just swap the master slave back and it will boot from Z:? or no?

Again, I believe drive-letter is OS-dependant, so changing it won't really accomplish anything. Simply changing the boot order in the BIOS should be able to switch between the two installed OS's. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this...

Something just occured to me concerning your partition structure. What program are you using to partition your drive? More importantly, how are you configuring your partitions? Windows assigns drive-letters along very rigid guidlines, which is something you must keep in mind when designating alternate partitions for Program Files and Documents and Settings folders. I believe they are as follows, begining with C: Drive and assigning each drive-letter in sequence:

1. All Primary partitions, in sequence, on the first HDD
   
2. All Primary partitions, in sequence, of any other HDDs, in sequence
   
3. All Extended partitions, in sequence, on the first HDD
   
4. All Extended partitions, in sequence, on any other HDDs, in sequence
   
5. All optical drives
   

What this suggests to me is, in your particular case, D: Drive will be assigned to the single-partition secondary HDD rather than the desired second partition of the first HDD. If all three partitions on the first HDD are created as primaries, this may not be an issue. Nor will it affect you if you remove the second HDD during your test phase. However, it could still be a possible issue during future reinstalls if the drives are not partitioned "properly." I'm not sure what the best solution would be; either designating E: and F: in the place of D: and E: (and removing the option of testing without the second HDD in the system) or setting all three partitions on the first HDD as primary and chancing that I am wrong about how Windows determines drive-letter. If I get a chance I will try to run some tests on this and get back to you with the results. In the meantime, be aware of this potential pitfall and do some testing/research of your own.

Good luck. Keep posting back with your progress/setbacks.

[Ctwizzy]

Ok so the partition for windows, that should be specified in the answer file right?

How would I do this?

Also do I leave the partition unformatted? Formatted? Im thinking NTFS Primary?

What im going to do is this.

Create uA cd, then create the partitions needed, make sure formatted. Store everything I want backuped on the current Windows HD. Remove the current windows HD. Install windows on the new HD, once done and all is working, re plug back in my old HD move all files back over and reconfig windows. format old HD, and voila im done.

So am I right in assuming that once I have C: Windows D: Program Files E: Documents, that if i format C: all my Program files will still be there and working when I format C: in the future? So i wont ever have to reinstall again?

Also can I specificy where the temp dir will be in the answerfile? or is this post installation?

[Cartoonite]

Ok so the partition for windows, that should be specified in the answer file right?

How would I do this?

You have already done it.

[Data]
AutoPartition=1

This code in your answerfile tells Windows to automatically install onto the first partition with enough available free space and no previous installation of Windows. (The second part is important to keep in mind for future installs with this cd.)

Also do I leave the partition unformatted? Formatted? Im thinking NTFS Primary?

With the answer file you have created, it shouldn't make a difference. Windows defaults to formatting the system partition with the NTFS file system unless you explicitly tell it otherwise using the FileSystem line in the [unattended] portion of the answer file.

FileSystem

Specifies whether to convert the primary partition to NTFS or to leave it alone.

Since you have not set this in your answer file, the Windows default of formatting with NTFS will be applied.

So am I right in assuming that once I have C: Windows D: Program Files E: Documents, that if i format C: all my Program files will still be there and working when I format C: in the future? So i wont ever have to reinstall again?

Not exactly. There is a lot more involved with installing programs than just creating the files in the Program Files folder. For starters, many programs require registry settings to be modified, and/or created/deleted. These settings reside in the registry files on the system drive, and will not be preserved when you reformat. One solution to this is to use a registry tracker to monitor the installs, and then set up registry files to import the needed changes after the reinstall. This solution may not be an optimal one, however, if you are not already familiar with the Windows registry. The registry files are very sensitive. They contain all the information that tells Windows how to run. Incorrectly modifying these files can cause many errors, including rendering the PC unable to boot.

Also can I specificy where the temp dir will be in the answerfile? or is this post installation?

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking to do. The default temp folder is %userprofile%\Local Settings\Temp. This will set your default temp folder as E:\Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\Temp. If you have more than one user, you will have more than one temp directory. I'm sure there is a way to modify this if you want to, but I don't know what it is. Sorry.

Hope this helps. Sounds like you've almost got your project completed. Good work. You seem to be making much faster progress than I am. (Maybe I should stop playing video games for a while and actually do some more work on it. )

[Ctwizzy]

lol, dont worry im playing games too, just beat Prince of Persia 2, and now onto Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories on my EMU, or maybe ill finish HL2 lol. So many games so little time.

If only I had the time to play World of Warcraft

Ah well thanks cartoonite, im prob gona get this underway this weekend

Happy New Year. Ill keep ya posted.

[prathapml]

Nice discussion happening ....

I just had 2 points to add here:

1. From what ctwizzy says, making a uA install is not really top priority. The only reason uA is relevant to him is because of the winnt.sif file being able to specify alternate locations for ProgFiles and Docs&Settings. So yeah, don't worry too much about uA stuff found on this site, just make all the partitions you want, install XP from the uA CD and enjoy!

I am mainly seeing partition talk and such stuff here.... From what he says, windows install is very much a one-time occurrence (probably first-time!) on the PC. Whereas, uA installs are mainly of interest to people who pretty much keep re-formatting and installing the OS every second day.

2. Keep in mind, that having Docs&Settings on a different partition can complicate things. When you re-install windows, the old profiles *CANNOT* be used. Your MyDocuments, etc. would all be in the old profiles. Windows will leave alone

E:\Documents and Settings\ctwizzy

and instead when you create a new user called ctwizzy, that will be placed in

E:\Documents and Settings\ctwizzy.000

So I recommend that you just keep all the required files elsewhere by yourself. For example, when you *KNOW* that some word documents in MyDocuments folder are needed, just go and put it in some folder (Eg: E:\importantDocu) yourself. Personally, I leave Docs&Settings folder on C: itself, and follow a policy of moving any required files to partitions other than <C:>. And any temporary files that I'm working with at the moment, I leave it on MyDocs or anywhere else on C: (like, some game which wasn't particularly nice and I'd be too lazy to uninstall it). So that way, when I next format C: (two days later ), no precious data is lost and all the junk is washed away.

I hope I was able to put the above in words that make sense... If you have any questions, just ask! Cartoonite's doing a great job (longest posts I've seen)!

[Ctwizzy]

Prathapml - Yeah I im more up for the once in a while installation.

uA interested me because I want to specifiy windows default directories.

I always seem to run into the problem where after x months my PC has gone from being fast and responsive, to a deaf old lady so i have to reformat and star from scratch. I do this prob 3-4 times a year,

Its a P4 2.4Ghz 512MB of RDRAM pc800 (Samsung Ram). So I mean there is no reason why it should take near on 1 minute once closing an app for me to regain control of my pc, especially when exiting a game. I used to be able to alt-tab from war craft 3 to check MSN msgs in no time, these days its taking a minute to get to the desktop, and even then its unresponsive.

So of course I have come to the conclusion that I need to format my pc and organize it, hence the partitioning system.

Now I know everyone is going to say well in order to stop your machine from getting slow defrag it, run adaware, dont install spyware apps etc. Well I run Diskeeper all the time, along with adaware, norton, system cleanup, reg medic, and a bunch of other stuff to keep my pc running as smooth as possible. My PC isnt off much, but I doubt thats the problem as even after i reboot or turn off for an hour the pc still gets slow again quickly.

Now formatting takes a huge amount of time, gota make sure everything is backed up, then format, then rebuild the pc from scratch. So its something I really dont want to do often, so im basically looking for the best way to keep my PC organized and running fast w/o heartache. And partitiong things onto dif drives I thought would be the easiets of solutions, no one has yet to tell me otherwise so Im gona run with this.

Anyways I just thought id let you guys know what im basically trying to acomplish here. You guys seem to reformat like every 2 days, I must be missing something as I dont see the point?

Ah well.

Happy New Years!!

[S0mE0nesMiNd1]

Its a P4 2.4Ghz 512MB of RDRAM pc800 (Samsung Ram). So I mean there is no reason why it should take near on 1 minute once closing an app for me to regain control of my pc

I woudnt really say that..... Believe me, 512 Ram on Windows XP which hogs way too much RAM in that itself....I woudnt be so confident with some crappy samsung RAM running On XP.

EDIT:

On a different note, you are somewhat showing yourself the advantages of formatting often (I do it every 1-5 months depending on stability). You PROVE the effectivness of it in your previous post when you said at one point you could alt-tab and do something else. Formatting just fixes stuff. Its not even much you can explain, crap just builds up, its from Mircrosoft, and a nice fresh Format fixes those problems, and increases stability. Its not a pain to do, people like you make it SEEM that way.....

Funny....Im about to restart my computer to format my own....See you in ~1 Hour later....

[Ctwizzy]

Format PC takes lets say 1hr, now reinstallaing all games/apps takes another 4-5, moving all files back to their locations from backup partition or disc 2hrs. You see thats 8hrs of my time.

Now i know your gona say my uA does it while im sleeping, but see, what if in the future i dont want an app on my pc thats on my uA, or say there is a new version, then I gota remake my uA cd, seems to be like a pain.

I see uA as more as an admin tool for building pcs for an entire office.

Maybe If i could build some super uA to do this all for me so everytime i format its like i never did, and just update the apps every month. But how long would making a uA cd like that take me, and how much reading and testing would I have to do to do this, see either way im gona have to spend huge amounts of time.

Lets see some peoples opinions.