AfterTaste

XP is far superior to win2k. And with alittle tweaking you can strip that os down to nothing if u like. I am an audio engineer and i have become quite fimular with stripping down xp. I found a GREAT site dedicated to stripping down xp for audio processing and what i found out was almost everything you do with an audio box you'll want to do with any normal or gaming machine. Aside from a few things like setting your processor scheduling to background services and such like that. I also don't fool with as many services on my normal and gaming machines either. If any of you guys were to just glance at any of my 5 machines they all look like they are running 2000 aside from the way the Recycle Bin icon looks on the desktop. Now my main audio recording machine might as well be win 95 facetiously speaking. I have just about every service and un-needed app ripped out or turned off that you can think of. And if any of you are fimular with Cinima Craft Encoder I am getting over 3x with de interlacing turned on. It boots up faster then any machine i have ever seen in my life. Now if you guys are like me you probably re-install 6 times a year or more. And your probably saying "damn you have to do all that every time you re-install your machine. Well yes and no. I have set up many reg tweaks that only take a double click to perform. I'm gettig quite fast at installing machines stripped down that it doesn't even phase me anymore. Good Luck and always get rid of what you don't need. A few good places to start http://www.musicxp.net http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

cool one more question where can i get the other updates aside from the sp1. Does MS offer a ftp site or something where i can get the rest of the updates

ok installed the slipstream copy of xp i imagine it worked fine but i don't see the service pack installed in the add remove programs lists. i imagine it wouldn't be there anyways sense it was part of the install.. and btw I LOVE IT not only is it quicker but i bet it will work better sense your not actually patching windows after you install everything.

after listening to all this garbage its really nice to know i'm not allowed to take my engine out of one car and put it in another without a bunch of headache. F#@K MS. If i want to put a pontiac engine in my cutlass then damn!t i'm gonna do it.

ok i did some research and understand how to slipstream. It says they only recommend doing it if u have an extra machine and u need to upgrade fast. Is there something wrong with slipstreaming. Is it gonna be just as good as upgrading through updates. Seems to me everyone would want to install windows this way. And if not i'm curious what the disavantage to doing it this way

not sure what u mean by slipstream it ????

also when i try to run the sp1 standalone and i get an error. It desplays a message in at the bottom right hand corner of the screen saying "Microsoft Windows XP for testing perposes only build 2600" the next time i reboot..

I have a very strange problem something NO ONE seems to have an answer for. I just bought the new ASUS A7N8X mobo with the nForce 2 chipset. I install a fresh copy of XP and when i go to get my windows updates it tells me there are none available for this machine at this time. I have three other systems and i do not have any problems installing or finding the updates. It has to be something with this mobo cause thats the only thing i have changed in the computer. Everything else is the same. All the other components existed with an asus a7v333 mobo and i had no problems installing sp1. If i try to install the sp1 standalone it gives me a Cryptographic Service error. My Cryptographic service is running and i tried to run a fix that MS offers on their troubleshooting page with no luck. Oh, also when i try to scan for updates it doesn't do a scan it automatacally goes into saying their are no updates available. I have never seen that before even when u get all the updates available and do a scan for updates it still scans and gives you zeros next to the 3 options. In my case it grays out windows and show the critical updates and the driver updates with a zero in blue. It also grays out "view installallation history" does anyone has any idea whats going on