Windows XP Install Woes

[MetalheadGautham]

I have windows XP professional SP2, and I am facing lots of issues installing it. I am used to the one click install offered by linux, but now, since I am installing XP for my family, I am getting pissed off by the rather unwilling to work OS.

I need to install 10 essencial softwares, all of which need a reboot, I need to install intel driver CD which forces the comp to reboot 5 times during install, I need to install webcam drivers again needing reboot, I need to install keyboard/mouse drivers, yet again needing reinstall, I need to install nero from my dvd-ram drive package, which needs both a reinstall and a bit of tweaking to get rid of this spyware called nero scout, I need to edit the registry in about 10-20 different entries, I need to install a bunch of themes and sound files, and finally, I need to create and customise a few user accounts.

And yes, I forgot SP3 installation and the bothering with activation and CD key entering.

I finally finished the install in about 5 hours, while I am used to making a formerly non installed OS fully ready to use in 20 minutes.

Can someone tell me how I can create an installation DVD of windows from its current installed state in my first (primary) partition, C drive, and make it install windows to its current state ?

[dhanusaud]

try nLite
goto asvg.com for brief tutorial.

[Cyrus_the_virus]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

Can someone tell me how I can create an installation DVD of windows from its current installed state in my first (primary) partition, C drive, and make it install windows to its current state ?

Your answer lies with Norton Ghost.

Once you're done with installing all your stuff and drivers and customization and once you get to the point where you feel, ok, this is where I would like to be everytime after a reinstall, then use Norton Ghost to create a disk image onto a DVD or another partition of your hardrive.

Whenever you need to redo the entire thing.. just copy the image back onto the drive using Norton DOS Backup Disk and voila! you have the exact same thing in less than 15mins

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by Cyrus_the_virus

Your answer lies with Norton Ghost.

Once you're done with installing all your stuff and drivers and customization and once you get to the point where you feel, ok, this is where I would like to be everytime after a reinstall, then use Norton Ghost to create a disk image onto a DVD or another partition of your hardrive.

Whenever you need to redo the entire thing.. just copy the image back onto the drive using Norton DOS Backup Disk and voila! you have the exact same thing in less than 15mins

you mean something like HDD image ?

I was thinking of something on the lines of a minimal linux (DSL ?) based environment that can be booted off a DVD and a single script run to extract the contents of the drive image to the drive...

[Charan]

^^ Cyrus has given you the best solution for your problem. This solution is similar if not the same technique used by PC manufacturers for restoring the PC/laptop to factory settings.
Do a clean install , install required drivers and applications, take the image of the partition. restore the image if you want to reinstall without going thro the pain of "restarts"

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by Charan

^^ Cyrus has given you the best solution for your problem. This solution is similar if not the same technique used by PC manufacturers for restoring the PC/laptop to factory settings.
Do a clean install , install required drivers and applications, take the image of the partition. restore the image if you want to reinstall without going thro the pain of "restarts"

But norton ghost is not free. I have no intention of spending a hell lot for it.

And I want to create a one click installer. I don't want to first install windows, then ghost, then again extract the drive.

[adithyagenius]

@MetalheadGautam
what hard disks do you have? I mean seagate or wd or hitachi?

[Charan]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

But norton ghost is not free. I have no intention of spending a hell lot for it.

well ... norton ghost is not the only cloning software
Link

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

And I want to create a one click installer. I don't want to first install windows, then ghost, then again extract the drive.

nlite may be the solution for you..

And buddy.... windows != linux

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by adithyagenius

@MetalheadGautam
what hard disks do you have? I mean seagate or wd or hitachi?

Samsung 80GB SATA.
One of the Miserable Edition models available back in 2005.

[adithyagenius]

sad..
Seagate provides acronis truimage.
Anyways..
You can use nlite. Or.. since you are linux user you might want something more official.
If you want official microsoft tools:
1. Copy XP CD content to a folder like c:\xpcd
2. Download network install of XP sp3 and run <pathofsp3> /integrate:C:\xpcd
3. Download XP SP3 deployment tools. Extract deploy.cab and read the documentation and decide how you want to deploy. If you want to create unattended autmated install cd, run setupmgr.exe and answer all the questions. Save the file as winnt.sif in C:\xpcd\i386
4. edit winnt.sif using notepad and change oempreinstalled or something like that from no to yes.
5. If you have inf files of your drivers, copy them to C:\xpcd\$OEM$\$1\drivers
6. Go through ref.chm in deploy.cab to find the settings which sets oempnp driver path and add it to winnt.sif under appropriate section with path=%systemdrive%\drivers
7. Also copy your essential programs to C:\xpcd\$OEM$\$1\Install_temp
8. Find out the silent switches for your programs. Generally they /quiet. For winrar its /s. Also note the disable restart swtiches incase those programs cause system restart. Generally its /norestart. You might want to find out more speeding up switches like for IE7 /updates-no prevents IE7 from trying to find updates.
9. In winnt.sif add a sections [guirunonce] under that add installation commands as command#="%systemdrive%\Install_temp\<programname> <list of switches>"
replace # with serial no.
10. Download microsoft's CDimage.exe. Also extract the boot.img (bootimage) of xp cd or download it from trusted source. Use CDIMAGE create iso.
11. Download MS Virtual PC and test iso if you want. Create a fixed 4gb virutal hard disk first before creating virtual computer because virtual computer by default created dynamic hard disk which slows down the virtual computer.
12. Burn iso enjoy

You can do lot more things of course.

[MetalheadGautham]

^^practically impossible on this system.

as I asked before, isn't there any custom installer software, or a linux commandline tool which can extract ntfs hard disc images to a partition ? Even a DOS based software will do...

[adithyagenius]

practically impossible on what system?

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by adithyagenius

practically impossible on what system?

I have little or no HDD space, RAM is too little, CPU is too weak, etc so VM experimenting, etc won't be possible.

[dhanusaud]

get hdd replaced buddy, there mustn't be reason for to play with less capacity hdd. really man try nlite, it will solve your problem.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by dhanusaud

get hdd replaced buddy, there mustn't be reason for to play with less capacity hdd. really man try nlite, it will solve your problem.

I am not intrested in tweaking the hardware to run software.
I tend to do the exact opposite.

I seriously don't know how to use nLite.

Till now, I had to painfully configure the whole OS. Guess windows XP does mean pain after all. XP for eXperience Painful.

[adithyagenius]

@metalheadgautam
you dont have 384mb ram, 4gb free space on hdd?
well then you will have to test the normal way of burning a cd and installing.

if you want to do spoonfed easy method, go nlite. Unless you dont read the tips provided by nlite, you shouldn't screw up. Hence you can skip testing.

Since I have seagate hdd. I dont have to worry at all. I get all my apps, tweaks and essential games in max 14 mins if something goes wrong. Acronis FTW! Maybe somebodyelse can help you out with partition backups.

[adi007]

There are several excellent alternatives to Norton Ghost
Try this http://www.macrium.com/ReflectFree.asp

[hullap]

theres already sysprep, a utility from microshaft

Originally Posted by wikipedia article

Desktop deployment is typically performed via disk cloning applications. Sysprep can be used to prepare an operating system for disk cloning and restoration via a disk image.

Windows operating system installations include many unique elements per installation that need to be "generalized" before capturing and deploying a disk image to multiple computers. Some of these elements include:
Computer name
Security Identifier (SID)
Driver Cache

Sysprep seeks to solve these issues by allowing for the generation of new computer names, unique SIDs, and custom driver cache databases during the Sysprep process.

Administrators can use tools such as SetupMgr.exe (Windows XP) or System Image Manager (Windows Vista) to generate answer files that Sysprep will process on new computer deployments.

go here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577