How to make Out of the Box experience OOBE smaller

[Madhits45]

Nuhi-- I have found a way to save an additional 2 megs for users of out of the box experience (OOBE). This wont apply for everyone but whoever uses the experience will hopefully find this useful.

There are a number of jpg files the OOBE uses to build the image of those few screens. There are about 68 files I believe. What I found is if you replace them with a 1 pixel image OOBE is all black except where the like 1 pixel dot is. You can still figure out where everything is but it makes OOBE smaller. Perhaps this should be an option under OOBE in nlite. Call it no image OOBE.

I figure if people are still using cd's like me this will be useful. I can give you the list of files if you think this is valuable.

Edited October 24, 2006 by Madhits45

[Madhits45]

alrighty.. no one cares.. ahh well

[emodel]

Whats the point of keeping this anyway ? Why not removing completely ?

[Madhits45]

Well I hate having to create my user accounts later on after I install. Basicly thats the only reason I use it. I figured others were using it for that reason also. I remember a few threads a while back with people talking about using OOBE for setting up all there accounts in one shot. I still do it that way so I figured someone might find it useful.

Edited October 24, 2006 by Madhits45

[rado354]

You can create your user accounts with nLite

I remove OOBE because it's useless now.

[MGadAllah]

remove OOBE because it's useless now.

totally agree

[Madhits45]

yeah but I setup a lot of people systems and like to use my disc for those also. So creating them on the fly is nice. ahh well. If anyone is interested you can PM me. Its a simple process and makes OOBE less then 1mb.

[Dreadnort]

Don't those of us with XP Pro/Home still need it to activate Windows online ?

Yes I know we could just call but who really wants to waste money phoning MS just to activate.

I have Autoactivate set in Winnt.sif, surely without Oobe or at least some part of it, this would fail ?

Edited October 25, 2006 by Dreadnort

[Halogen]

Don't those of us with XP Pro/Home still need it to activate Windows online ?

Yes I know we could just call but who really wants to waste money phoning MS just to activate.

I have Autoactivate set in Winnt.sif, surely without Oobe or at least some part of it, this would fail ?

What exactly do you mean you have autoactivate in winnt.sif? I know you can put the key in, but beyond that I don't know what you refer to.

Also don't you need the oobe for calling as well?

[Dreadnort]

As I'm sure you know all non-corp versions of Windows XP require you to activate the product within 30 days. Without activation, you wouldn't be able to use Windows Update or download/use MS software like IE 7 and Windows Defender unless you used a WGA hack.

This line goes in the Unattended section of the Winnt.sif

AutoActivate = "Yes"

What it is supposed to do is to to activate Windows over the internet, providing that your Network/Modem drivers have been installed, thus saving you from doing it yourself.

Edited October 26, 2006 by Dreadnort