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Nlite Noob Help


suryad

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Hey guys, I tried to use nLite and followed the directions and created an XP Install CD which was shrunk down to the size of around 220 MB from the original 520 MB.

Well I was gonna do a fresh reinstall of my machine anyway now that the quarter is almost over and so I thought i would check out how my install worked. Well no surprise the install did not work because I would not be here asking for your advice if it did.

I have an Inspiron XPS and so I have an OEM Dell CD with SP1a included in it. When I reinstalled the nLite version of the XP, it installed fine with no errors but then all of a sudden it started to ask me for the Windows Product Key which was quiet surprising considering that the install never asked me that previously and I thought that nLite recognized that there already existed an unattended install that was already provided by Dell.

Anyway after booting into the now loaded up XP which took up around 1.92 GB of space, I thought of installing SP2 and when I tried to do that, SP2 ran but reported errors of not being able to find a particular inf file and a logagent.exe file or something like that. And so I doubt the SP2 install went correct even though the machine had Security Center and IIS and evyerhing running normally.

Well to make a long story short here I am asking for advice. If someone could provie screenshots of all the options they selected and options they deselected that would be great! It would really help me a long way into having a non-resource hungry fast lite XP on my machine. Thanks I hope you guys are able to help this snoob (super noob) out. :no::thumbup

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As far as I know, it has yet to be determined how to get nlite to work with dell oem cds. heck even slipstreaming sp2 is nearly impossible on them!

Honestly I would say that the benefits will not be worth the rewards for this endeavor. Sorry!

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Well I have another copy of XP which does need to be activated after install and so I was going to give it another shot. THis is a non OEM CD and is a direct purchase from MS. So if you guys have any tips as to what options to select, what drivers and so on that would be great.

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As far as I know, it has yet to be determined how to get nlite to work with dell oem cds. heck even slipstreaming sp2 is nearly impossible on them!

Honestly I would say that the benefits will not be worth the rewards for this endeavor. Sorry!

Please tell me that is not true. I tried this with my SPI OEM CD for my Dell Desktop. I thought I messed up with my choices but after three ISO's that did not after they were burned and complete (click on setup.exe and nothing happens) I guess it is true. :(

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Well I got it working. Though not on the Dell OEM CD though. I had a copy of XP Home and I slipstreamed SP2 and some hotfixes in it no problem. I even tweaked the install added hotfixes and added information for an unattended install and it worked like a charm. My original XP CD was 550 mb and my current XP install cd is around 139 mb. Quiet a drop. Originally installing XP was a long drawn out affair and now the longest thing in the install is the process of reformatting the disk!!! :thumbup nLite worked like a charm. I dont have a lot of the crap that XP originally came bundled with. If I remember correctyly, the XP install took up around 1.9 gb of my hdd space after tweak. Previously it was around 2.5 gb so I saved 600 mb of bloatware not to mention countless security loopholes being avoided. I am very happy with my install right now. The process is extremely easy. I too burned and damaged a few good cds beforegetting a version that just works and rocks!! Thanks all.

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Ok, just thought I'd share this.

I have a non-Dell laptop running XP Home that only came with a recovery CD but which I wanted to nlite'n using a valid Key for my laptop.

I have access to a Dell OEM XP Home sp1 CD via the company I work for.

To create an nlite ISO ...

I copied the Dell cd to my HD and removed the following:

\$OEM|

\DOTNETFX\

\I386\SVCPACK\

\WIN51IC.SP1

\I386\WINNT.SIF

\I386\UNNATEND.TXT

\I386\SVCPACK.DL_

\I386\SVCPACK.INF

\I386\XPSP1RES.DL_

\I386\Q*.EXE

I then edited the following and changed the .1106 to .0 to change to non-sp1

\I386\DOSNET.INF

I then used nlite to slipstream SP2 to the modified source

I then copied the following from either the INF or SYSTEM32 directories of my currently installed XP Home sp2 system to \I386 in the modified source:

SVCPACK.INF

SVCPACK.DLL

SVCPACK.PNF

I then used nlite to tweak, unnatend, etc... then create ISO

So far it has installed and run fine from within VMWARE

The above should be correct although there were numerous faltering steps during the process so I could always have forgotton something.

HTH

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  • 1 year later...
As far as I know, it has yet to be determined how to get nlite to work with dell oem cds. heck even slipstreaming sp2 is nearly impossible on them!

Honestly I would say that the benefits will not be worth the rewards for this endeavor. Sorry!

I can only surmise that this issue, posted over a year ago, has been resolved. I find it hard to believe I succeeded where others have failed. Unless it's because I used a virgin Dell OEM XP Home disk (ie version '0' - initial XP before SP1) and used nLite only to splistream SP2 and RyanVM's Post-SP2 Update Pack and WMP 10 AddOn, (plus a few other choice addons). To keep the OS activation I did have to copy a few files (I can't remember exactly which ones at the moment) and place them in the $OEM$/$$/System32 folder as described here. I found some useful threads in the Unattended forum. (I'm at work right now so I can't double check for you). Or it may have something to do with the fact that I was reinstalling on the same OEM PC.

Edit: When i said i used nLite only, I meant I didn't use a combination of nLite and the RyanVM Integrator to do my slipstreaming (I actually had problems when I did that). Of course I used nLite to removed, tweak, etc.

Edited by Mr Reorg
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