Operating System / Software Installation Guide

[Mr Steveo]

Originally posted by jjvb
I was wondering why you need to place the blank floppy in drive then take it out and reboot to the cdrom. If your boot order is floppy, cdrom, hard drive, wouldn't it skip over the floppy drive directly to the cdrom if there was no floppy present. Or am I missing something (probably)??

Thanks.

Theres no techncial reason at all for the blank floppy. It is a simplicity step to halt the boot process long enough for you to put the XP CD in the drive .



Donup - I have heard of some other people reporting SCSI boot problems. If the boot order change in the BIOS doesnt fix things, you may have to wait for Asus to offer a BIOS fix.

[jjvb]

Thanks Steveo. See I knew there was something I was missing.

[PeterT]

Mr Steveo,

I'm currently running XP on my C/TUSL2, but am considering getting a P4PE & P4 2.4B. This guide will be a great asset!

Thanks for all your effort! It's member's efforts, like this guide, that make this such a great place!

Cheers!

[Mr Steveo]

Thanks for the kind words Peter. Im glad to do my part and help out.

[Mr Steveo]

Announcement

The Guide has been updated to reflect the installation procedure for ATI All In Wonder Cards.

There has also been an UPDATE added to the end of the Guide for people with ATI video cards who want to use Sun Java. I apologize it has take me a few days to test this fix, but apparently it works like a charm. So if you have an ATI video card and are planning to install Sun Java, please read the last post called UPDATE at the end of the Guide on page one of this thread.

[Hardball]

Mr Steveo-

Excellent guide! I followed it for my XP Pro install and it went great.

I do have one question I hope you could help me with. I have read that it is better to run day to day in a user account as opposed to the Administrator account. When I go to create a user account, my only option is to create an Administrator account, as the limited account option is greyed out. How do I go about creating a user account (limited)? I currently only have the one account (Admin) that was created during the install of XP.
Thanks

[Mr Steveo]

Originally posted by Hardball
Mr Steveo-

Excellent guide! I followed it for my XP Pro install and it went great.

I do have one question I hope you could help me with. I have read that it is better to run day to day in a user account as opposed to the Administrator account. When I go to create a user account, my only option is to create an Administrator account, as the limited account option is greyed out. How do I go about creating a user account (limited)? I currently only have the one account (Admin) that was created during the install of XP.
Thanks

You need to first set up a personalized Administrator account. Once you do this and reboot then you will be able to set up additional user accounts.

When you go to set up additional user accounts you have more options than just Limited and Administrator. To set up other types of accounts first create a limited account. THen go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management

Click on the folder called Local Users and groups and find the accoutn you just created. Click the "Member Of" tab and "Remove" all selections in the box. Then click the add button. In the Windows that pops up, click the "Advanced" button. In the next window that pops up, click the "find Now" button.

You should now see a list of all possible user account types. Choose the one that best fits your needs, highlight it, double click, then click the OK button. HTen in the remaining window, click that OK button. You now have your new user as a member of that group designation.

HTH

[Hardball]

Mr Steveo-

Thanks for the quick reply. If I understand your instructions, I actually need to create a second Admin account (personalized) before I can create a limited or other user type account? Will both Administrator accounts, as well as the newly created user account, be visible at the Welcome screen upon boot-up?

I'm a little confused as to why two Admin accounts are needed. Does it matter which of the two I use to make any system type changes in? Does the original Admin account fade into the background or become hidden after the new personalized Admin is created?

Also, I have already renamed and passworded the original (and only one so far) Administrator account. Does that constitute "personalized" status? Was the original Admin account supposed to stay with the original "Administrator" name and no password?

Did I mention I'm a little confused on this issue?

[Mr Steveo]

Originally posted by Hardball
Mr Steveo-

Thanks for the quick reply. If I understand your instructions, I actually need to create a second Admin account (personalized) before I can create a limited or other user type account? Will both Administrator accounts, as well as the newly created user account, be visible at the Welcome screen upon boot-up?

I'm a little confused as to why two Admin accounts are needed. Does it matter which of the two I use to make any system type changes in? Does the original Admin account fade into the background or become hidden after the new personalized Admin is created?

Also, I have already renamed and passworded the original (and only one so far) Administrator account. Does that constitute "personalized" status? Was the original Admin account supposed to stay with the original "Administrator" name and no password?

Yes, you will first want to create a second Administrator account before setting up user accounts. Why does Windows work this way? I have no clue LOL

Will all accounts start showing up on the Welcome screen? Probably. The only way I have found around this is to set up an account name when prompted during the customized setup screens that appear at the end of XP installation. Doing this will bring you into Windows, log you into the named account you created and not bring up a welcome screen.

One caveat: AHLNut reported that his slipstreamed XP did not offer the final screens that let you set up user names at the end of XP installation. So if you have a slipstreamed copy, you may be stuck with the method I outlined in my last post.

As for making system changes, this can be done from any administrator account.

Finally, as for the passwording of the original Administrator account, that was probably a smart move from a security point of view.

[Hardball]

The fog is finally clearing! Thanks again Mr Steveo.
One final question if you don't mind. I've been trying to figure out which background services/ startups/ etc... I can shut off to optimize my system, as well as to try and tighten up anything security-wise. I saw the following tip and wondered what you think:

from TweakXP.com...

5. If you do not need to connect to your computer from a remote machine, be sure to turn off this functionality. Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Local Security Policy\Local Policies\User rights Assessment\ "Access this computer from the network" - remove all users and groups. This should be blank "Deny access to this computer from the network" - this should include all users and groups. Double click on the policy, click Add User or group, click Advanced, click Find Now, highlight all the accounts and click OK.

[Mr Steveo]

Thats a good method to start with for helping to secure your setup. But obivously everyone reading this thread may not find it beneficial - especailly people with networking needs.

What you really should consider doing is taking about 24 horus to test your setup with burn ins and benchmarks before starting to tweak Windows. Make certain you have a stable configuration first. ANd be sure to write down your baseline benchmark results.

Then as you be gin to tweak for security and performance, be sure to test each setting one at a time. Put your system through a variety of operations to make sure all is well before moving tothe next tsweak.

As for other suggested tweaks, I really cannot comment. Every peorsons network, computer, and software bundle is different. If I start helping you inidividually tweak your system to meet your performance and security needs; then I will have to start doing it for everyone in this thread. And as much as Id like to help as many people as possible I dont have that kind of time I hope you understand.

[FB]

HardBall,
i highly recommend http://www.blkviper.com he has all of the services described real well and then you can decide which you need and which you don't

[Hardball]

Mr Steveo (and brschmid),


Thanks again for all the help.

[FB]

no problem, i fixed my link too, if it wasn't working.

[Mr Steveo]

For those of you with ATI video cards who are using SUn Java, there is no more need for the work around discussed earlier in this thread. A new version of Sun Java that fixes the issues with ATI drivers is now available from Sun.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html