Max Glenister

re-installing windows xp is, to be blunt, a pain in the ass.

on microsoft’s own back, there are so many flaws in the software that updating it with patches takes more time than I’m willing to allow myself to devote to..

.. being the kind of person who likes to personalize the look of their desktop to such extremeties as replacing system icons, resizing dialogues, modifying visual styles (applied with the help of a certain modified system file) - i have screwed up a couple of times, and rendered the operating system unbootable.. i’m not one for using system restore - pah, 4gb of wasted hard-drive space if you ask me!

anyways, i sought out some methods (although not new to a lot of people) for making my reinstall’s less of a time/internet hog.

Service Pack 1

although most people say they don’t like service pack 1 (sp1), theyre mostly people who have “acquired” the operating system through methods which don’t involve the handing over of £80 of well earned cash).

Get sp1! - the drivers that come with it suck, but thats not a problem as long as you have, or know where to get the drivers for your hardware. this also covers over 50% of the updates.

Got sp1? Slipstream!

all copies of windows xp supplied nowadays actually come with service pack 1 “slipstreamed” onto the cd, this is where the files that get installed are all the new, updated service pack 1 files, as i just mentioned, this may not be too good for hardware drivers, but if you have windows xp sp1 on cd, the chances are it came with a new pc, such as a Dell or whatever.. so your hardware drivers will be with the bundle, in that case.

for those of you with an older copy of windows xp, non sp1, you can slipstream service pack 1 onto a backup of your install cd yourself, its really simple too, but mind out, its a 125mb download for the re-distributable service pack 1 install, which is needed to do this.

The latest updates on CD

it amazes me how often a patch of bugfix is released for windows xp, just the other day, before putting together my sp1 cd, i had done the full windows update, and then two days later find there are a further couple of patches to download - reassuring isn’t it, on such an “industry standard” operating system. like that bike tyre you have which has loads of patched holes on it, it’s not gonna last for long!

over at neowin.net a group of developers, hobbyists, and generally nice people, have been working on something called “Auto Patcher XP” - this is from the current method of releases, a monthly (or less frequently) updated download which contains all of the most recent (at its time of release) windows update files, windows software files, windows tweaks, addons, and some little extras like screensavers and wallpapers. at a 270mb download it IS gonna take a while to download, but say you download the current version, it should be good for about three months, until either A: they release a newer version. B: you decide to do windows update. - that and they also have “lite” versions, so providing you have a recent version installed, you can get the latest version, well, just the parts you dont have, at a much smaller sized download.

burning the files to cd is the best way to have this, and it also comes with case inserts - it’s the little bits that count.