Slipstreaming Windows XP

Robert Hallock May 22, 2008 1:00 AM ET in Tech

Hard-Wire Windows Tweaks

In the tweaks section, you can alter a myriad of settings that most people turn to the registry to enable once Windows XP has been installed. Rather than explain each setting in detail, we’ll show each category configured with some common choices that eliminate annoyances and speed up the operation of XP.

Fig. 7-1: These settings will accelerate startup and shutdown

Fig. 7-2: These settings will accelerate the access of network and internet resources.

Fig. 7-3: These settings will accelerate system responsiveness, particularly in Windows Explorer.

Fig. 7-4: These settings disable some of XP’s most commonly-irritating “Features.”

For the remainder of the tweaks and settings contained within the categories, they are largely up to user preference. Mousing over each one will generally reveal a small explanation about that setting’s particular role.

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58 Comments:

1. Qeldroma

   Veteran Icrontian

   
   23 May '08, 10:17 am

   I liked this especially because of the thorough handling of of the drivers and options issues. I remember cobbling together my own slipstreams with Nero- this answers a lot of the questions, gotchas and inconveniences.

   Well done, Rob- and thanks.
2. QCH

   Guru

   
   23 May '08, 11:54 am

   I do slipstreaming all the time at work. I've always done it the manual way which takes more time and lot of screw ups along the way. When nLite started a few years ago, I tinkered with it but never gave it a serious thought.

   Rob (Thrax) has done a great job walking us through the process and, much to my chagrin, made my way of slipstreaming obsolete.
3. Shorty

   Sniping teh enterpwise!

   
   27 May '08, 10:29 am

   Rob,

   You have outdone yourself. That's slick. Shall be following that in the week when I reinstall my desktop (finally!). Cool read
4. zarlon

   Bane Killer

   
   17 Jun '08, 5:18 pm

   Your article is amazing and very useful. You are the only who puts detail in their article that is actually useful. Keep up the good work.

   The only problem I had was getting the article printed out without all of the ads & comments. Not finding a print option on the web page I used print preview, paged through until I found "about the author" and used that to print out the pages up to that for each web page of the article.

   I am asuming that you play Tabula Rasa since your forum name is Thrax. Zarlon is my toon name when I play.

   Thank You

   Zarlon
5. Robert Hallock

   Cad

   
   17 Jun '08, 5:21 pm

   No, I don't play TR. My name is actually inspired by a high score on the Autumn Valley track in 1994's The Need for Speed.

   I'm very glad I could help you with one of my articles, Zarlon! Thanks for commenting.
6. jared

   Howdy Damnit

   
   17 Jun '08, 6:24 pm

   I'll poke our web guru with a big stick to see if we can get a "print" button that will render a printable page in the future.

   Nice suggestion.

   cheers
7. zarlon

   Bane Killer

   
   20 Jun '08, 6:42 pm

   This may sound like a dumb question but here goes.

   You indicate that we can add programs by downloading them into the Addons directory. Do they just go into that directory or subdirectories?

   I am building two versions, one an OEM (for me at home) and other is a VLK for work. Knowing how they go into the Addons directory will save me valuable time both at work and with my family/friends.

   Thank You

   Zarlon

   PS. I am in the process of looking at all of your articles. Man you are a fountain of information & procedures. You are
8. Robert Hallock

   Cad

   
   20 Jun '08, 7:53 pm

   You download the .CAB/.ZIP/.RAR/.7z files to that directory. It's just a storage folder, really, to keep things organized.
9. BeeWorker

   New to the neighborhood

   
   21 Jun '08, 11:28 pm

   Hi!

   after a very long sleepless weekend, hours of foul language and one big pile of newly burnt useless winxp installation cds - I am left to discover that all hope is lost and despite my heroic efforts to manually (and later with nlite) slipstream blooming windows xp - so it could acknowledge the existence of my very real (just ask Fedora) WD80 SATA drive on my crappy ASUS P4S800D MOBO - the forces of money grabbing evil (i.e SIS hatred, Micro[on global scale]Soft Evil and the rest of the lot) have once more prevailed! for it seems a "txtmode" version of the SIS 180 or 180OB - which according to section 5 of the slipstreaming article is needed for the rest of the just battle - is no where to be found on the World Wide Web - so it seems the only solution will be to write this weird forum S.O.S!

   guys where's that driver in txtmode anyone anyone at all!?!?!

   p.s
   thanks for the article btw if I didn't stumble upon in it (round 4 am or so but still) I would keep burning copies of winxp containing cursed PNP drivers for ever!
10. BeeWorker

    New to the neighborhood

    
    22 Jun '08, 12:03 am

    ok think i got it now just had to drop the .oem file in the same folder as the drivers - this will be a good time to blow my brains off for being so dumb after all someone should hold responsible for all the suffering
11. wildthing423

    The Avenger

    
    16 Jul '08, 8:27 pm

    can you tell me how to create this from the files stored in my recovery partition?

    m.
12. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    16 Jul '08, 8:35 pm

    It's not possible. A recovery partition is a proprietary piece of technology and generally cannot be harnessed to do anything outside of its intended purpose.
13. Panduka85

    Question Bank

    
    17 Jul '08, 2:26 am

    I have maybe the dumbest question... when i add the wmp11 exe to the addons, it says to either install wmp11 slipstreamer or to copy the installed .exe to the nlite root folder. and all the other addons are running the installations while nlite is processing the final steps. why is that ?? do i really have to re-install all my exe s to the pc ?? please help....
14. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    17 Jul '08, 2:33 am

    Where are you downloading the version of WMP11 you're using for nlite from?
15. Panduka85

    Question Bank

    
    17 Jul '08, 2:49 am

    microsoft site...
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/B...n&categoryid=4

    and can you help me with the 2nd and most critical problem ?? why do all the exe s prompt as if i have to install them ?? and when i cancel them, nlite says that the addon is not the expected type...

    Cheers...
16. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    17 Jul '08, 3:54 am

    The executables that can be integrated with nLite are not the same type of executable you can download from any website. In the application integration section of my guide there are three links to sites that have software specifically repackaged for the slipstreaming process. All of these sites carry WMP11 repackaged to work with nLite, and you must make sure that all software you're trying to integrate also comes from these three sites.
17. Panduka85

    Question Bank

    
    17 Jul '08, 3:58 am

    Thanks Buddy.. i should be able to carry the process from here onwards.

    Cheers...
18. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    17 Jul '08, 4:00 am

    Thanks for stopping by, Panduka.
19. walnutz

    New to the neighborhood

    
    25 Aug '08, 10:10 pm

    THANKYOU! THANKYOU! THANKYOU! I am one of those jerks that never posts comments, but I could not let this one go without expressing my gratitude. I am technical, but by no means a computer builder. Your Slipstreaming Forum was still able to walk me through step by step on how to bring myself out of 3 days of utter computer he((.

    I appreciate the help that even the tech at the computer store could not give me. I will tell everyone I know that may be interested in this article all about it, and I look forward to reading more of your work.

    You are a life saver. Keep it up.
20. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    26 Aug '08, 1:07 am

    Thanks, Walnutz. I appreciate your comments.
21. Bandrik

    I love golllllld!

    
    25 Sep '08, 5:13 pm

    Bookmarked. While I'm not ready to reinstall my XP builds, I'll sure be wanting to use this when that time comes. Thanks for putting together this how-to guide! =D
22. Buddy J

    Dept. of Propaganda

    
    25 Sep '08, 5:20 pm

    Welcome to Icrontic Bandrik. Stick around for the fun
23. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    25 Sep '08, 5:51 pm

    Quoting Bandrik

    Bookmarked. While I'm not ready to reinstall my XP builds, I'll sure be wanting to use this when that time comes. Thanks for putting together this how-to guide! =D

    No problem, Bandrik! Thanks for commenting!
24. davelis

    Guest

    
    10 Oct '08, 2:08 pm

    great article
    it is the first i m integrating components and drivers into a winxp cd
    thanx a lot
25. Jvince

    New to the neighborhood

    
    3 Jan '09, 4:01 am

    Fantastic article. I've fooled with slipstreaming before but never has it been made so easy. That being said I'm having one issue .

    I pretty much follow the recommended slimming of the XP install, adding SP3, firefox, AVG, a few small hardware drivers, etc. Nothing radical. However my install is lagging out when it starts to install network devices. I do have a blown LAN port on my motherboard, replaced with a PCI lan. Other than that it's fairly straightforward. Any ideas where I went wrong to be lagging out here?

    Thanks in advance,

    -V
26. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    3 Jan '09, 1:26 pm

    How is it lagging out?: during the actual installation of Windows? On a specific screen?

    Can you take a camera picture of that screen?

    Welcome to Icrontic!
27. Jvince

    New to the neighborhood

    
    3 Jan '09, 2:06 pm

    I didn't have a camera handy, and I've reverted back to SP2 for the moment, but here are a few more details:

    During the windows install, after it's installed all the system devices, I hang up at "Installing network components". The blue progress bar gets to about 30% then it will hang there forever. I let it run overnight just to be sure. My normal XPsp2 install cd works fine, and that's the one I used as a source with nlite.

    I tried another slipstream version this morning with the same results. That's odd, considering the very first time I tried this as a test on my test laptop everything worked great.

    A few other notes:
    -my first test showed the modern XP install screens, not the classic. No matter which option I chose last night and today I'm getting the classic install prompts.
    -possibly related? My blown onboard LAN started working after a fresh install, but when I installed SP3, it went dead again. Maybe SP3 has an issue with this particular lan?

    Thanks for the response and I look forward to browsing your forum daily!

    -V
28. primesuspect

    The Icrontic Guy

    
    3 Jan '09, 3:45 pm

    Welcome to Icrontic
29. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    3 Jan '09, 10:14 pm

    It is possible that SP3 is quirky with that LAN card. It's fussy with my Linksys WiFi drivers, so there's some corroborating evidence to prove that it's possible.

    Did you slipstream your network drivers when making an SP3 disc?

    Quoting Jvince

    I didn't have a camera handy, and I've reverted back to SP2 for the moment, but here are a few more details:

    During the windows install, after it's installed all the system devices, I hang up at "Installing network components". The blue progress bar gets to about 30% then it will hang there forever. I let it run overnight just to be sure. My normal XPsp2 install cd works fine, and that's the one I used as a source with nlite.

    I tried another slipstream version this morning with the same results. That's odd, considering the very first time I tried this as a test on my test laptop everything worked great.

    A few other notes:
    -my first test showed the modern XP install screens, not the classic. No matter which option I chose last night and today I'm getting the classic install prompts.
    -possibly related? My blown onboard LAN started working after a fresh install, but when I installed SP3, it went dead again. Maybe SP3 has an issue with this particular lan?

    Thanks for the response and I look forward to browsing your forum daily!

    -V
30. Jvince

    New to the neighborhood

    
    4 Jan '09, 12:18 am

    Nope, the Realtek Lan on my motherboard is detected fine with a normal XPsp2 install, so the drivers must already be there. However now that I think of it I might have removed some of the old "dead weight" drivers from the source disk.

    If the slipstreamed XPsp3 disk doesn't support a driver will it hang like that? I always thought it just skipped over unknown devices and left the lovely "?" in device manger.

    Either way I took the long route and did a Sp2 install and spent the day installing updates and obscure drivers :P. I'm definitely going to make a custom Xpsp3 disk again for this machine as well as my others but without testing it further I get the feeling that tracking down this particular issue might be tricky.

    I'm thinking of starting fresh with another slipstream, this time only taking out a few things (not drivers this time) and adding the essential drivers I need (m.b., audio, video etc). Hopefully I won't need it anytime soon, but my data backup is current and I can always take the long route again if needed.

    An alternate idea is to troubleshoot this on my older machine. I don't use it for anything other than studio recording so it's super easy to test on. Maybe I'll try another custom install and see if I can replicate the network issue. If not I'm guessing it's the driver conflict with sp3.

    -V
31. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    4 Jan '09, 12:47 am

    One thing you might try is to find a newer driver for your card and slipstream that onto the disc. Also go out of your way to be sure that you've not removed any networking components. Though if you followed the guide exactly as indicated, it should be okay. I still use a very similar setup for my discs, and I'm able to use a wired network connection w/ DHCP without issue.

    TLR -- I suspect an SP3/old-ass driver conflict.
32. Jvince

    New to the neighborhood

    
    4 Jan '09, 1:27 am

    Thanks, I'll be sure to check into that. If there is indeed a conflict with Sp3 and the onboard lan there has to be a driver upgrade out there (well, maybe ). I did follow the guide pretty much to the letter, adding firefox, avg and some unattended setup stuff. That exact install worked on another machine of mine, so I'm leaning towards that lan drive issue as well.

    Thanks again for the great original post as well as the prompt responses on the thread!

    -V
33. David K

    Guest

    
    10 Feb '09, 1:44 pm

    After following the instructions, the resultant CD gets to "Setup is inspecting your hardware", then screen goes blank and nothing happens. I slipped the INTEL folder into windows. Left everything else defaulted. Burned to a CDRW.

    However, I installed Windows 2k successfully, then "upgraded" to XP also successfully.

    I would much prefer a clean XP sp3 install.

    Hardware = DELL precision t5400 with 2xQuad processor.

    Any advice?
34. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    17 Feb '09, 1:59 pm

    Are you familiar with what chipset that SMP quad rig is using? The AHCI controller may be slightly different than the reference version supplied in our package. Go to this post and download the drivers at the end. Slipstream the drivers from the flppy32 folder for 32-bit OSes, or the flppy64 folder for 64-bit OSes. That should get you going.
35. Jonathan C

    Guest

    
    15 Mar '09, 4:20 am

    I just found this website after needing to install XP on a PC with no floppy drive. The drivers on the Microsoft CD would not boot, so I used your software to add them to the installation CD. Worked a treat once I got all the correct drivers! Thanks for a great tool.
36. QCH

    Guru

    
    15 Mar '09, 5:31 pm

    Glad we could help you, Jonathan. We have a ton of cool articles and tips.
37. the_technocrat

    Veteran Icrontian

    
    16 Mar '09, 9:28 am

    Just FYI, I've used this guide 3 times in the last year. Works every time.
38. Kevin

    Guest

    
    4 Apr '09, 2:35 pm

    I have one question How do I include .net 2.0 framework in my install
    Thanks in advance
    Kevin
39. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    4 Apr '09, 3:08 pm

    Unfortunately nobody seems to have made an nLite addon for the .Net 2.0 framework.
40. mel-uk

    New to the neighborhood

    
    6 Apr '09, 4:01 pm

    My Windows XP has only SP1 on it, (SP2 crashed the computer very badly when I tried to install it when it came out years ago, so ended up rolling back to SP1). I'm about to do a refomat to sort this and get up to date. However it would appear that I can't use the slipstreaming method as nLite needs net2.0 framework, and that appears to need SP2. Is this correct?

    Thanks

    Mel
41. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    6 Apr '09, 4:07 pm

    Microsoft .NET 2.0 will install on Windows XP SP1, it's just not a supported configuration. Microsoft isn't very clear about that.
42. mel-uk

    New to the neighborhood

    
    6 Apr '09, 4:37 pm

    Thanks, that was quick!

    By the way, great website, great information, very clearly written and very thorough.

    Mel
43. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    6 Apr '09, 7:09 pm

    You're very welcome, Mel. Hopefully you'll stop by again in the future. I'm glad we could help.
44. confused_newbie

    Guest

    
    28 Apr '09, 7:39 pm

    I am new to slipstreaming and trying to get my Dell Studio 1737 to dual boot Vista and XP Pro. I am stuck on which SATA drivers to use for my Mobile Intel 45 Express Chipset. Is what I need in the 8.3.1.1009 folder? Stuck with nLite on adding the correct driver. thanks in advance...
45. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    28 Apr '09, 7:41 pm

    Yes.
46. confused_newbie

    Guest

    
    28 Apr '09, 11:47 pm

    rob, thanks for your help and the guide. try the install tomorrow.
47. Robert Hallock

    Cad

    
    28 Apr '09, 11:55 pm

    Absolutely. Let me know if you run into any stumbles.
48. craig cahill

    Guest

    
    5 May '09, 11:27 pm

    hi,
    i get this to work no problem when inserting a single driver, but as soon as i nominate a folder, i get the blue screen saying windows has shutdown, hard drive corruption etc.
    i have an intel x38 chipset and select the iaStor sata .inf.
    1.can i take the iaahci ones out of the drivers folder?
    2.how many files do i need when trying to integrate a particular driver? just the .inf file?
    any help appreciated.
    btw i am installing onto a raid 0/1 volume and as i say it works no problem if i just select single driver/iaStor, but im hoping to slipstream my graphics, chipset driver, LAN driver and some other addons.
    cheers
49. Leonardo

    F@H Reign of Terror is back!

    
    6 May '09, 12:18 am

    The RAID driver won't be dependent on the chipset (Intel northbridge and southbridge set in this instance) drivers, rather the particular RAID chip that is installed on your motherboard. Have you looked at the manufacturer's site for their drivers list for your specific motherboard model?

    What brand and model motherboard are you using.
50. craig cahill

    Guest

    
    6 May '09, 5:54 am

    its a gigabyte X38-DQ6.

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