Steps to a happy XP experience

I have not become confident(or knowledgeable) enough to try all these bios and/ or registry changes yet, so I still use third party software to help with a happy XP experience. Auslogics's disc defragmenter has resided on all my computers for a while and has made a noticeable difference. But this morning I downloaded their SpeedBoost 4.5 program which can be found here:

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/boost-speed

It optimizes and defrags registry settings, and does the same for internet connections and memory allocation; however it is a trial(15 days). I could see a considerable improvement in the performance of my netbook and loading up of Firefox, games programs, etc were much quicker. It's kind of pricy at $29.99(US$) but is very tempting for the difference it made.

Texascoyote out-------------

AAO-D150, 160hdd, 2GB Kingston(KVR667D2SO/2GR) :ugeek:

 

How is that version of XP working for anyone who has tried it?

 

Flashfire is working great for me. Just downloaded it yesterday.

Very quick boot up time now and the computer is much more responsive.
A lot more responsive!

No tray icon but you can check and see if it working by running the exe from the command line.

Did a reinstallation of XP SP 3 from the supplied restore disks after trying Netbook Remix and Kuki for a while.
Remix was very nice but the Atheros WIFI driver was dreadful. Kept disconnecting during downloads and at random times when surfing. There were a few other hiccups like occasional hang ups and reboots. Probably the heat.

XP SP3 on the 8GB SSD really needs Flashfire or something similar to satisfy.
Also had to update the Atheros Windows driver to avoid crashing my D-Link router.

All is good.

 

Wow...
Flashfire is truly amazing.
I can use Google Chrome again...
I can't get over how quick it is.

 

Flashpoint paired with my new SuperTalent SSD make for a comp that is faster on most tasks than my desktop PC.

 

Anyone offer feed back (good or bad or use xyz instead...like the ones listed below) on using FlashFire on a A0A150 that has a 160 gig HD?

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=17601

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=17591

 

Ok, but how do I do that? I'm desperate to get rid of Vista and I have an XP Pro disc to base the install off of. Sorry for being new, but I'm REALLY motivated to learn.

 

I wouldn't worry about that at all.

If you have a clean copy of XP, just install it and then download the updates. Depending on your connection speed, by the time you download SP3 from Microsoft, you probably could have just installed the copy of XP you already have - SP3 is about 400MB when downloaded from MS's website and not thru windowsupdate.

nLite simply enables you to integrate updates, service packs, drivers, whatever you want, onto the install disc, saving you time from downloading them later.

By the time you figure it all out and actually do it, you could have just installed whatever copy of XP you have, then let it sit overnight to automatically download & install updates.

nLite is actually very easy to use, but again, there's just no need for it here.

 

Hi guys and girls,

I didn't read all the posts but there is an application out there called diskkeeper. It is optimizing ssd drive and i have to say, that my performance went up about 50% ... the same goes for normal drives (im using diskkeeper for 2 years now). If u didn't try it, then download the trial version/full version and give it a try. Diskkeeper pro 2009 has the option for ssd. I will try to post some results here, do u know what is the best tool to measure the speed of the drive??

 

Thx!

 

After many months of happily running Windows 7 on a variety of computers, I can confidently tell you that, for a happy XP experience, switch to Windows 7. It is a very worthwhile upgrade. XP is pushing 10 years old and it's time to let it go.

 

Step 1. Replace XP with Window 7. :mrgreen:

 

All joking aside, it really is the answer. Windows 7 is a great operating system and its time to put XP to bed.

 

Personally, if it wasn't for the incorrect battery reporting in Windows 7, I'd take XP out the back paddock and put a round in it's head. Win 7 is fast, stable, and most hardware on the AAO is supported out-of-box.

 

My AAO 150 120GB came with Linpus. This may have been a UK option, but that's the way it is.

While this is lightweight and built on Fedora, I wanted to dabble in putting XP on as I keep getting asked to rebuild netbooks and I haven't yet invested in an external USB drive.

I wanted to keep Linpus though as I like Linux, it has quite a few applications that I have installed, I have it set up the way I want it and it is quick and easy. It is a shame that most people are actually scared of it, as the Windows licence price is pushing up the price of netbooks. I digress.

Firstly, I booted the machine, in Linpus installed and ran Gnome Partition Editor. Unfortunately as I was using the current partition it was unresizable.

I downloaded a GParted live USB boot image, and booted of it (F12 on startup, 2nd option).

The X server from the GParted boot would not start, so I entered the parted text mode.

Warning - Resizing partitions is not for the inexperienced or the faint hearted

In parted, after an e2fsck I was able to resize the 120GB into 2 60GB drives.

After this was complete, I rebooted the machine back into linpus to make sure all was well. It was. The drive was now 60GB, GParted confirmed the existence of an extra 60GB partition.

I followed the instructions from here http://komku.blogspot.com/2009/09/winto ... ws-xp.html to make a wintoflash bootable XP CD using the CD drive on my other PC.

Booted into text mode as the guide said, ran the XP installer.

Then, on booting into the GUI mode, I was getting all sorts of HAL.DLL errors / the hard drive could not be found errors.

Rebooted and selected the debug -> parition[2] option (Linpus main was partition 1, partition 2 was now NTFS XP, partition 3 is swap).

Once finished, rebooted, did the same to boot into partition 2 and XP booted.

To do:
- If my extra 1GB RAM ever arrives, install it.
- Fix the c:\boot.ini to point XP to partition 2 so I don't have to boot into the USB pen to get to partition 2.
- Downloaded the drivers from http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/no ... e_150.html , to be installed.
- Fix the grub loader. I will try Auto Super Grub Disk for this http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/AutoSuperGrubDisk
- Install BURG loader. This will cause the machine to boot into a graphical startup similar to this - http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/ ... iginal.png

From which I can select to boot Linpus, XP, and possibly in the future OSX.

 

There is an option in the BIOS of the AAO150 something like "Quickboot". Deselecting this shows the bios checks in text mode without an Acer logo.

 

http://jargongeneration.com/AcerAspire/ ... ubboot.php is a tremendous help!

Hasn't arrived yet. :evil:

Done. XP booted.

Done. Everything works, resolution is correct.

AutoSuperGrubDisk didn't work. I followed the instructions from here, however:

http://jargongeneration.com/AcerAspire/ ... ubboot.php

Used the GParted USB boot to fix Grub, went into Linpus, installed the *new* Grub, so now have a functioning boot menu.

3 choices:
- Fedora (just seems to boot Linpus which is based on Fedora, so might hide this entry)
- Linpus
- Windows XP

That guide is fantastic, would suggest anyone attempting this to follow that guide.

Last time I installed Burg was a Mint / 7 machine. As mint was Ubuntu based it was easier to install. Will investigate installing on the Fedora based Linpus over the weekend to get my graphical boot menu.