Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Blogging, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware
Windows XP Virgin Install Part One
by Victor Agreda, Jr. Aug 11th 2005 at 8:02PM
Inspired by Scott McNulty's virgin install of OS X (documented at TUAW), I wanted to try the same on another machine. But not OS X, Windows XP. Anyone who has purchased a PC from any major manufacturer will no doubt tell you about all the useless or painful apps that come bundled with the PC. My VAIO came with offenses to the great GUI Gods that Sony will have to answer for someday (SonicStage makes babies cry). It's that "gunky" stuff I was happy to avoid. I happen to have a basic Dell Optiplex, and a fully genuine copy of XP Pro (SP2 naturally). So what's it like having a fresh, clean, gunk-free install? In a word, nice.Over the next several weeks I'll be installing a number of things on the PC to see what happens. Mostly this will be freeware, and I might be setting up some web services to extend my presence... Hacks, scripts, mods, etc. what's the worst that could happen? But so far I did one thing wrong: I installed McAfee's Security Center/AntiVirus.
All I really wanted was AntiVirus. When I installed the software things
went swimmingly. Especially compared to the bungled installs I've done
over the years with Symantec (why does LiveUpdate kill the entire
program, why?). Unfortunately I allowed the McAfee Security Center to
overtake the Microsoft Security Center. Oh no, here we go again. Listen
McAfee, all I wanted was AntiVirus! In the little dialog box there
portends great doom and furious anger if you don't use their
security center. So I did. Then I wised up and uninstalled both. My
machine actually boots much quicker now. That McAfee antivirus is outta
here... Personally, I prefer MS's tools.
Back to a purely pure install, and time to download some goodies. What's neat about a clean install of XP is that you can immediately see what Microsoft gives you to begin creating stuff. Keep in mind I have NO Office installed. No Word, Excel, etc. I do have a text editor, a paint application, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express, and Internet Explorer. Let's not forget Media Player, and apparently Movie Maker and Frontpage. Frontpage? Somehow I wound up with version 3 on here. No matter, as it (along with Outlook Express and MSN Messenger) will never be touched. If I get frisky I'll try to uninstall them later.
My first priority at this point was to get antispyware and antivirus apps. I went with Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta (which is the best beta ever IMO), and Grisoft's AVG to handle viruses. Now I feel more secure.
Next up: the tools I need to blog about all this. As a personal preference I installed Firefox, then GIMP for image manipulations, RSSOwl for news, and OpenOffice for all those DOC's I'll be working with. I soon discovered I needed to install Java, which is annoying but understandable...
Well that gets me up and running for yummy blogging goodness. Stay tuned as I check out the best and worst of whatever free apps catch my fancy. As usual, if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them in via our tip form.
Back to a purely pure install, and time to download some goodies. What's neat about a clean install of XP is that you can immediately see what Microsoft gives you to begin creating stuff. Keep in mind I have NO Office installed. No Word, Excel, etc. I do have a text editor, a paint application, MSN Messenger, Outlook Express, and Internet Explorer. Let's not forget Media Player, and apparently Movie Maker and Frontpage. Frontpage? Somehow I wound up with version 3 on here. No matter, as it (along with Outlook Express and MSN Messenger) will never be touched. If I get frisky I'll try to uninstall them later.
My first priority at this point was to get antispyware and antivirus apps. I went with Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta (which is the best beta ever IMO), and Grisoft's AVG to handle viruses. Now I feel more secure.
Next up: the tools I need to blog about all this. As a personal preference I installed Firefox, then GIMP for image manipulations, RSSOwl for news, and OpenOffice for all those DOC's I'll be working with. I soon discovered I needed to install Java, which is annoying but understandable...
Well that gets me up and running for yummy blogging goodness. Stay tuned as I check out the best and worst of whatever free apps catch my fancy. As usual, if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them in via our tip form.
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
JinFX said 10:26PM on 8-11-2005
i do virgin installs like once 3 months at the most
wat about ur drivers setup? r 3rd party drivers any good? i heard about something for SBLive b4...
Reply
Victor Agreda, Jr. said 10:38PM on 8-11-2005
JinFX, that's a good question. I have the good fortune of having all the necessary drivers for my box on a customized CD-- just the drivers. At least, those not installed by MS. For instance, the video card is a fairly decent ATI, so I've got the necessary drivers for that, which allow me to rotate my view (among other things).
Don't think I have any *funky* 3rd party drivers in there, but I'll get to that eventually...
Reply
Revo said 4:53AM on 8-12-2005
Thats not a virgin install! A real virgin install would idealy be a uA(un Attended) setup, with the option of doing silent installs of your apps. Also if your serious about theese clean fresh installs which I usualy do every other month I would suggest nLite. Taken from site:
nLite is a GUI for permanent Windows component removal by your choice. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install doesn't include, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.
This can do everything from service pack integrations to hotfix integrations to driver integrations and componet removal, complete unattended setup and you can even do every tweak you can imagine before even isntalling the OS!
Now lets say you wanted a completly uA XP Pro Corp that would work on any machine you threw it at. Ill outline it quickly step by step.
1) Goto http://www.nliteos.com/ to download nLite
2) Run nLite and put cd in to extract files in the menu choose what you want to do like componet removal hotfix integration driver integration ect.
2.5)If SP2 is not slipstream then do it using nlite
3) Integrate RyanVM's Windows XP Post-SP2 Update Pack this includes lots and lots of updates and extra goodies and updated componets. Grab it at http://ryanvm.msfn.org/
4) Remove all the componets and drivers your not gonna use, I remove things like msn, messenger drivers to things i dont use all languages except engluish componets i dont use ect.
5)Just follow the rest its self explantory
6) As for drivers your best bet would be to either include on the cd or integrate B?rat the Sneaky's Driver packs just about every freakin driver released for windows EVER it comes in different flavors like chipset pack, graphics, LAN, Audio, Mass storage and WLAN. You can grab it at http://www.btsunattended.net/Projects/DriverPacks
Theres also so much more that you can do like add silent installs of all your programs durring the T-13 stage of the install meaning everything would be the way you want it right out of the box! If you have any more questions or would like to discuss this more feel free to ask here or leave your email. Happy customizing!
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hafa said 12:41PM on 8-12-2005
its amazing to see somebody get paid to just write this
Reply
JinFX said 1:46PM on 8-14-2005
thats tight, Revo, i got to do that!
Reply
JinFX said 1:46PM on 8-14-2005
thats tight, Revo, i got to do that! Thnx
Reply