This tutorial will show you how to slim down your Windows XP install using the program nlite. A few people have followed this tutorial and I haven't heard any reports of people having problems installing drivers or software afterwards so it's pretty safe to do. Completing this tutorial will shrink your XP installation down to 687mb from the usual 1.5 gigs.
You can click on the images to download a higher res version if you are having problems seeing them.
1. Download nLite from http://www.nliteos.com/download.html . I’m using version 1.4.
2. Download hotfixes from http://www.nliteos.com/addons/. I’m using “Xable's XP post SP2 lite update pack”. The direct download link is http://udp.xable.net/files/XUpdatePack_v3.0.3.7z .
3. Also you can find a lot of addons in http://www.nliteos.com/addons/. For more addons, you can find them from here http://www.winaddons.com/.
4. Install nLite.
5. Create a folder and copy XP installation files (everything) from CD to that folder.
6. Run nLite, in the welcome window, click Next to Locating the Windows installation window. Click Browse button to locate the folder that you created. Click Next, nLite will check the Windows version infomations.
7. Click Next to Preset window. In the first run, you don’t have any preset ini files. It will show empty here. Click Next.
8. In Task Selection window, select all except Service Pack and Drivers. Because we don’t have any service pack that newer than sp2. If you select driver, nLite can embed the drivers into XP installation. I think it is not good idea to add EEE drivers into XP installation, because we need run ACPI before install EEE drivers.
9. Click Next to Hotfixes, Addons and Update Packs window. Click insert to insert hotfixes and addons. I didn’t add Adobe Acrobat Reader, Windows Live Messenger and Divx addons, somehow these don’t work well for me.
10. Click Next to Components window, and popup Compatibility window. This is just for preventing accident remove some important components for selected function. Don’t need select anything and click OK.
11. In Components window, you can select the listed items that you feel don’t need for EEE.
Here is my selections:
Applications:
I think Defragmenter is no use for 4G SSD, but I keep Defragmenter anyway, no biggee.
Drivers:
Select all to remove cause we have EEE driver CD.
Hardware Support:
Keyboards:
Select remove all then recheck the ones you need.
Languages:
Select all to remove except the language that you need.
Multimedia:
Network:
I kept windows messengers because Live messenger has annoying ad bars. It is not good for 800x480.
Operating System Options:
Services:
Directories:
12. Click Next to Unattended window. In General tag, put you XP serial number here, then it will not ask for it during installation. Also, check Turn off Hibernate.
Users tag:
Owner and Network ID tag:
Regional tag:
Desktop themes tag:
Display tag:
For other tags, you can leave as is.
13. Click Next to Options window. In general tag, don’t need to change anything.
In Patches tag, choose Disable SFC.
14. Chick Next to Tweaks window.
Here are my settings in General tag:
Boot and Shutdown:
Desktop”
Explorer:
Internet Explorer:
My Computer and Network
Performance:
Privacy:
Start Menu:
Taskbar:
Visual Effects:
Windows Media Player:
I didn’t change anything in Services tag:
15. Click Next, nLite will process changes base on these customization.
It will take a while. After it is done, it shows the new installation files size.
16. Click Next to Bootable ISO window. Click Make ISO button to generate ISO file.
17. Use Nero to burn ISO file, and then you are ready to install Windows XP for EEE.
Once you have the ISO created you can install from usb flash drive if you want or from a cd, if you decide to go with usb check out the install xp from usb flash drive tutorial.
Source: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=1923
Monday, December 3, 2007
nite your XP installation for your Asus EEE PC
Posted by Nick at 1:32 AM
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25 comments:
"Drivers:
Select all to remove cause we have EEE driver CD."
How do you install the EEE drivers if they are on a CD and you want to install from USB ? Can they be added to nlite ?
You can copy the entire XP drivers from the Eee DVD to a USB, then pop the USB drive in after XP installation, hit Setup, and you're golden.
Just want to say that you should leave the Printer drivers otherwise you will not be able to install many printers over a network. When I tried connecting to my friends network printer it tried to install the drivers but couldn't (because he runs linux) so a message comes up saying insert XP disk to find the generic drivers. However when I point to my USB drive it can't pull any off of it because the whole printer drivers were taken out during nlite.
I have used nLite to shrink the XP installation and am trying to run it from a flash drive using the instructions here: http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html. When I try to access the CD made from the nLite ISO or the folder made by nLite with USB_prep8 , I get a message that it doesn't contain the Wondows Source Files. The instructions mentioned above say 'If you use the program Nlite be sure to keep the manual installation files as the USB_prep8 script relies on these files.'. Can you tell me what files they are and how to get nLite to keep them as I suspect this may be my problem. If I point USB_prep8 to a fullinstall CD it accepts it OK. Thanks
Yup i think you may be onto something. I succesfully followed the instructions and install XP via USB onto my EEEPC. But i tried to be to clever and 'slipped' the eeepc drivers in. It screwed up the install so i started again leaving them out this time and got the same thing 'cmcloughlin' did.
Is there something left behind in the usb-prep stage that may make subsequent nlited installs fail?
3rd attempt same prob. But pointing to original distro works?
Hi Nick thanks for the great guides... all Nlited now and USB installed. Couple of 'gotcha's' that i found may be worth considering. If you are going to feed the nlited version straight to USB via the USB PREP method you may need to mount the final ISO with DAEMON tools or the like so you dont get the 'doesn't contain the Wondows Source Files' message.
Also its worth adding that PeToUSB does not like large USB flash drives (over 4GB). I ended up cheating with my 16GB by using a util that came with it to create secure partitions on it. I made a 14GB secure partition leaving only 2GB recognisable for PeToUSB to deal with.
Thanks again for all your great work
Swigman
Ya im having the same problem with the "dose not contain windows source files" message. what exactyl do u do with DAEMON tools to get it to think that it is the source for windows?
Anyone get USB Prep working with an NLite ISO? USB Prep just keeps saying doesnt contain source files.
Drew
Just wanted to add one important information, that did cost me about 5 hours of work :)
I deleted the stock linux and where running eeeXubuntu - and I reformated the ssd to be just one big partition.
The problem was, that my windows install CD never showed the blue setup screen (right after booting the cd).
The solution:
After giving up - I decided to restore with the asus dvd - which reformats the ssd. -> I tried the windows cd again - viola it works.
So there must be something special with the initial partition layout ;)
To keep Manual Installation files uncheck "Manual Install and Upgrade" in Operating System Options in the Components window.
Mr. Anonymous Sir, THANK YOU!! I tried at least 10 times different things, and it's the uncheck "Manual Install and Upgrade" that did the trick. Finally got the Source Files it needed.
Whoever writes these fantastic guides really should mention to uncheck that one and it will save tons of headaches. Literally. My head is killing me.
Real good guide , I had full blown xp install earlier through usb_prep .
DO I go through the same process with
Nlited XP , I see comments like does not contain windows source files has anyone solve this
For those having problems with the "no windows source files" message, I found that if you actually burn the cd, this message does not appear. It did for me if I just navigated to the folder, but not when I burned the cd and navigated to it.
Hi I just got done installing Windows XP on my Asus EEE 4G Surf and its working like a charm now.
I followed his tutorial to the tee but failed when I did some other guys suggesting by keeping the original partition layout, well in my case he was wrong because I had to delete all the partitions and make one large one after that I got rid of the "cannot find ntldr" error message.
hope this helps.
To those people who are getting the "does not contain windows source files" error:
The easy way around this is to mount your original XP image with daemontools or whatever, and then select your drive. THEN change the image in the drive. This has worked multiple times for me with different nlited XPs.
I found this guide very helpful, however I have one thing to add...
I advise not to disable the autorun of cd drives etc, as when you shove in the three mobile broadband modem it does not auto install the relevant drivers etc and there is no way to access the drivers on the modem.
Regards,
Paul
hello all! I have a newbie question. So were you guys able to install nlited XP from a flash drive?
For those of you with the question of how to do the nlite usb drive there was one step omitted from the directions that I think is valid.
1.burn your ISO to cd
This will ad you greatly in the fact that the program cannot read from the harddrive files but will read from the files if its burned to disk. Strange as it may sound mounting them to a virutal drive only lead me to have more troubles with it. I use this to load many different types of computers and it works wonders when you dont want to use alot of CDs to make images... Hope this helps.
I followed all the steps in this tutorial (and the tutorial about installing windows from USB) however I have a big problem....I choose to boot from USB drive and a get a black screen and a blinking cursor and then it hangs...
Does anyone knows what could be the problem and how can I fix it ?
I would just like to confirm the problem with the USB method mentioned on a guide on this page.
The program wont find the windows sources if you try to point it to a directory on your HD will produce an error and quit.
Instead, let nlite make an iso, mount it with a program like daemon tools or magicdisk and point the usb prep program to the virtual drive.
That will allow the procedure to proceed.
Krom,
http://www.kingdom-grounds.com
Nice, still it curently didn't work to slipstream sp3 without having the problem that my official serial wasn't accepted.
Also a problem with the multitouch drivers from asus after changing the programm files folder to the other partition (D:\programm files)
They simply not work and there seems to be no way to make them work. It seems that there is some fixed paths somewhere hidden in the driver code. I miss the multitouch on my E900 :(
I was so incredibly frustrated with all this. I was trying to use nLite, then went to the tutorial on how to install from a USB flash. Everything seemed to work out well, and I got all the confirmations I should get, but after two days of working on it, I could never get the install to stop sticking in the install. I finally did a full install and skipped nLite and got futher along, then got stuck with a message that said Windows has a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
I advise anyone who wants XP on their Eee PC 901 to just buy it already installed. It isn't worth the headache. I'm sending mine back to exchange.
i folowed the tutorial (and the USB one) step by step and now XP "nited" is running on a brand new (for me) EeePC 900. Thank you very much.
ANYBODY CAN HELP ME?
I make a lot od nlited versions but everytime that i point to image apears a message "does not contains XP setup source files" a try to burn in a cd and emulate the image, nothing works. Then i try to trick and i change the image after the prep_8 accept the complete image. this works!! but wen i go to install appears the crash blue screen. I don´t know wathever i can do. anybody can help me?
Guys, I just got an Intel 901- you MUST leave Multi Processor CPU unticked in the hardware support options otherwise you cannot install the ACPI driver and the annoying pop up wont go away.
Other than that the guide works fine.
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