Feature: Improve Windows XP and boost performance

Slipstreaming Service Pack 2
By now, most of you will probably have installed Service Pack 2 (SP2) on your XP system, although your original CD may only have Windows XP with or without Service Pack 1.

In practice this means that every time you install XP, you also need to re-install SP2, which is irritating and very time consuming. To save this hassle you can integrate SP2 with your new installation CD. This process is known as slipstreaming.

You can download SP2, all 270MB of it, from the Microsoft website - this the downloadable network install version. This will give you every update until August 2004 including those contained in SP1 and its patches, bug fixes and extras.

It’s not necessary to slipstream SP1 first. In the main Tasks menu of Nlite, choose Service Pack Integration and click on Next to proceed.

Click on Find and enter the path to the location where you have stored the SP2 executable file (WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe if you followed the link above).

Confirm your choice by clicking on Open. Nlite will then decompress the file and add the components to the installation folder.

You can check that the slipstreaming has succeeded by returning to the Choose Windows Installation Files or Installation CD dialogue and clicking on the Update icon. In the information area, the version should be given as Build 2180.

Integrating the latest hotfixes
While you will only have to slipstream SP2 once, the integration of the latest hotfixes is a recurring task. You’ll have to update your customised install version of XP at least once a month when Microsoft releases its regular patches.

To do this, in the Nlite 1 menu, click on Hotfix Integration and click on Next to proceed. Click on Insert and then select all the hotfixes that you want to incorporate.

After selecting the hotfix files, click on Next and then on Yes to start the integration routine. As this procedure uses a lot of system resources, it’s advisable to set the process priority to High from the dropdown menu.

After the process is done, close the tool by clicking on Finish. To check whether Nlite has really integrated all the hotfixes, change to the folder to which you copied the XP CD and look in the i386\SVCPACK directory.

The number of files in this folder must be the same as the number of hotfixes which you selected.

Integrating drivers
Integrating updated drivers, like adding hotfixes, is a recurring task. This is even more the case if the PC is used not just for work but also as a games machine, video-editing system or TV replacement.

In this context, it is important to know which hardware components your system contains but, particularly with off-the-shelf systems, it isn’t always clear which makes and models of hardware have been used.

To help find out you can use utilities such as Sisoftware Sandra 2005 SR2, Dr Hardware 2005 6.5.0d or Everest Ultimate Edition.

Nlite does offer some help with driver slipstreaming, even if it is a bit limited. It can only install drivers with the help of an inf file.

In the menu, click on Driver Integration/Next and then in the next dialogue choose Insert, browse to the driver’s inf file and click on Open to add the driver to the list of components to be integrated. These steps have to be repeated until all the drivers with their own inf files have been selected.

It’s more difficult to integrate text mode drivers, such as those required to use Raid and Serial ATA (Sata) controllers. If there is a text mode driver among the control software, Nlite pops up a warning message.

In the next dialogue, activate the Text mode driver option, select the device under Text mode integration options and confirm your choice with OK.

Once all the drivers to be integrated have been selected, click on Next and confirm the ‘Use changes’ dialogue by clicking on Yes.

If Nlite has incorporated the drivers, close the utility by clicking on Next/Finish.

However, Nlite does display some weaknesses: there are problems if the driver does not use an inf file but instead uses its own installation routine. A further challenge for driver slipstreaming concerns control software for chipsets.

Just selecting the complete driver package is not enough; it’s more often necessary to store the drivers for each component in their own subdirectory.

Nlite isn’t yet in a position to automatically install applications integrated with drivers, such as the ATI Control Center. You’ll have to write a special batch file to do the job.

The amount of effort involved in this is out of all proportion to the benefit, which makes driver slipstreaming into something more suited to dedicated professionals or enthusiasts with plenty of time to spare.

Nlite’s developers are aware of these problems and advise users that if no inf files are available, they should only incorporate those drivers into the installation CD which are absolutely necessary for smooth operation.

Throw ballast overboard
Apart from the integration of service packs and hotfixes, Nlite’s most important functions are concerned with removing Windows components and applications that aren’t required, such as Outlook Express, MSN Explorer and Internet Information Services.

The advantages of a slimline XP structure like this are that an installation CD made with Nlite remains small, the setup routine runs noticeably faster and the slimmed-down operating system is quicker and more reliable in day-to-day use.

In the Nlite main menu, click on Remove Components/Next. The first task is to tell the program which functions you absolutely require and what the PC is mainly used for.

The purpose of this exercise is to prevent accidental deletion of components upon which something you do need depends. In our example we are using a ‘typical’ computer on a local wireless network (WLan) which is used for video editing.

In the Compatibility dialogue, select the Camera and camcorder, drivers, Ethernet DHCP Functionality, Printers (Local, Network and PDF) and Windows Update Website.

A click on OK takes you to the Remove Components dialogue in which you can mark for deletion, in an Explorer-like tree, all the XP functions and applications you don’t require.

To make selection easier, the components are split into nine categories: Applications, Operating system, Services, Hardware support, Multimedia, Network, Languages, Drivers and Additional folders.

There is a brief description that tells you about the uses and dependencies of each entry. If you don’t want to carry out the selection process for yourself, you can use one of the two predefined settings.

You can load them using File/Load/Safe/Remove components (conservative settings) or File/Load/Recommended/Remove components. The advantage of using one of these presets is that all the XP components are already selected, so all you have to do is to deselect the bits you wish to keep. If you’re unsure about a particular component, keep it.

Start the process of removing the Windows slack by clicking on Next/Yes. When the process has finished, Nlite informs you of how much hard disk storage space you have clawed back.