Windows 10: Win XP - Post SP3 - SP5 with AHCI, SATA, SCSI, Net3.5 etc etc , nlite

Hi folks
I'm having a lot of fun (also with a lot of others) keeping this venerable old OS alive and decently fit to run on modern hardware . It's so much faster than current W10 and depending on what you need to do its still 100% safe if you incorporate everything until the EOL.

There's quite a lot of info in scattered areas of the web -- good place to start
HOWTO create a XP SP4 DVD with all DriverPacks and some apps - RyanVM.net Discussion Board

The trick is of course to start with a decent XP iso, install nlite and slipstream all the drivers you need - driverpacks are still available.

I know some will say why bother - but this is quite fun and you do get to run a really fast slick version of Windows as a VM that customises nice and easily. Office 2003/2007/2010 runs like a charm on it -- unless you need the latest features of office -- usually the collaboration stuff these versions of office are probably good enough for 99% of typical "Officy tasks" - and even if you don't want office - outlook express is still IMO the best simple email client that I've ever used (and supports imap).

Firefox esr runs perfectly OK on it too. You don't need IE -- just slipstream it into the install.

Once I've done that and got it working - I'll switch to W2K3 server -- even faster OS !!!and apply the same modifications.

I'll try and make a decent project text for this (as well as running W2K19 server as a desktop Virtual Machine)

I've got a bit of time these days --and I do find it quite fun.

I'm finding messing around with W10 not so interesting any more -- doesn't seem to be much challenge in it - since new builds always seem to be breaking something and if one were to use nlite or equivalent it's difficult to know what components to leave out.

I might also look at WinXP 64 bit too -- a bit more complex though.

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

Windows XP SP3

Well if your laptop is like mine, it has a sata hard drive. Your problem is not that the hard drive is locked, its just that xp doesn't contain sata drivers. If your laptop has a floppy drive, ya can press f6 at the start of the install to install the additional drivers. Or research slipstreaming your sata drivers into your xp cd. There a program called nLite that makes it easy, though i hear it has problems with sp3 slipstreamed, might wanna do sp2 and then just run sp3 standalone.

 

installing win 7 & xp on laptop

If he wants to use XP then he may need to use nLite to slipstream AHCI drivers to his XP install. His laptop is new enough that the XP disc might not recognize his HD.

 

Windows XP SP3

lies, I've installed XP on MY serial drive many times