Slipstreaming Windows XP
Automating Windows Setup
In the unattended section, elaborated upon in 4A through 4J, you can supply answers to boxes and prompts that Windows generates during the graphical portion of the XP installation process. This means that any page you have fully filled out in advance with nLite will no longer require your intervention; the answers will be automatically entered. No more selecting your time zone!
Step 4A: General tab
Here in figure 5-1, we have configured the page as we would use for my own PC. Here is an explanation of each option:
- Unattended Mode: Determines how Windows should react if an answer is not supplied for a box during the graphical setup portion. The question mark explains each option in detail, but “Hide pages” is generally best.
- OEM Preinstall: Determines whether or not XP should look for your floppy drive or the XP CD when loading SATA drivers. Leave the function set to enable, as we have slipstreamed drivers.
- Program Files path: The location of your Program Files folder. Unless you’re particularly compelled to alter it, the default is suitable.
- Data Execution Prevention: Enables or disables the use of a CPU’s buffer overflow protection
- Product Key: Enter your Windows XP license code here.
- Computer Type: Determines what HAL Windows should use. In this case, Windows really does know best, and this option should be left at its default.
- Turn off Firewall: Disables the firewall introduced to Windows XP in Service Pack 2. If you are behind a router, it is recommended that you turn this feature off to save yourself considerable trouble.
- Skip OOBE: Bypass the last stage of Windows XP setup where you create user accounts. Disable this, because this will be taken care of with nLite.
- Turn off Hibernate: Not a fan of hibernation? Disable it from day one right here.
- System Restore Service: The system restore service takes snapshots of critical Windows components and stores them on the hard drive. The idea is that these snapshots can be used to restore XP’s functionality in the advent of a catastrophe. Unfortunately, it rarely works as advertised and often ends up hogging disk space. We turn this off.
Fig. 5-1: Our settings for the general tab.
4B: RunOnce Tab
This tab allows you to launch applications or run commands the first time you get to your desktop. To the average user, it’s not terribly useful, but if there’s any command you can’t live without on the very first desktop access, this place is for you.
Fig. 5-2: The RunOnce screen in its simple glory.
4C: Users Tab
nLite permits you to pre-configure user accounts that are immediately available after Windows has been installed. Different users will have varying requirements, however I have configured figure 5-3 as appropriate for my own system.
Fig. 5-3: My account configured as desired.
4D: Owner and Network ID Tab
On this tab you can define the parameters of your computer’s identity on a local network you may have. This screen also dictates some of what will be displayed when check the properties of the “my computer” icon on any Windows desktop; figure 5-4 shows the correspondence.
Fig. 5-4: The ID of the network and PC has been configured.
4E: Regional Tab
With this tab, you can completely skip the screens that prompt you to select your language, keyboard and timezone. If you’re using a US English copy of Windows, configuring the window (Adjusting for your timezone) as seen in figure 5-5 will set you right. Users of other languages or keyboard layouts will want to select the options appropriate for them.
Fig. 5-5: No more timezone screen.
4F: Network Settings Tab
If you elected to add PNP network drivers during step 3G, you can customize all the settings for that card now. Sadly, this tab isn’t terribly useful for WLAN devices, so we have configured ours as though it were wired.
Fig. 5-6: No more timezone screen.
4G: Themes Tab
If you have ever installed a custom theme for Windows XP, or are currently running one, hitting insert all local will automatically add your custom themes to the Windows CD. You can then determine which one is the system-wide default for your first boot to desktop.
Fig. 5-7: Slipstreaming the Royale Vista Compact theme.
4H: Automatic Updates Tab
As a matter of preference, I prefer to manually obtain my updates rather than Windows phoning home to do it for me. Under this tab, you can decide how to best manage Windows updates. These features set the options for the automatic updates tab as seen in figure 5-4.
Fig. 5-8: Windows XP will no longer manage update retrieval.
4I: Display Tab
If in step 2B you also chose to slipstream your video card drivers, you can set the properties your display will use at boot under this tab. If you have not slipstreamed a video card driver, this tab will have no effect.
Fig. 5-9: Display settings of the video card have been configured.
4J: Components Tab
Unless you intend to run your machine as a web server, which we strongly advise against if you’re running XP, it’s best to leave IIS disabled on this screen.
Options and Patches
These settings are the mundane sort that generally affect responsiveness and “Behind the scenes” elements of Windows. More advanced users can feel free to change the settings, but what we have provided in figures 6-1 and 6-2 are a solid solution for virtually anybody.
Fig. 6-1: The bolded options are changed from their defaults and accelerate installation.
Fig. 6-2: These settings enhance mouse responsiveness, accelerate internet connections, and let you use custom themes as in step 4G.
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.
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.
Rob,
You have outdone yourself. That's slick. Shall be following that in the week when I reinstall my desktop (finally!). Cool read
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
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.
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
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
You download the .CAB/.ZIP/.RAR/.7z files to that directory. It's just a storage folder, really, to keep things organized.
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!
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
can you tell me how to create this from the files stored in my recovery partition?
m.
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.
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....
Where are you downloading the version of WMP11 you're using for nlite from?
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...
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.
Thanks Buddy.. i should be able to carry the process from here onwards.
Cheers...
Thanks for stopping by, Panduka.
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.
Thanks, Walnutz.
I appreciate your comments.
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
Welcome to Icrontic Bandrik. Stick around for the fun
No problem, Bandrik! Thanks for commenting!
great article
it is the first i m integrating components and drivers into a winxp cd
thanx a lot