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Reinstalling the system is not a fun thing: First, you have to sit in front of the computer desk and honestly answer the questions raised by the Windows installation program. After installation, you can't be idle. You also have to install drivers, applications... It is roughly estimated that it won't be done in less than half a day! Maybe some friends will say, use Ghost, which is fast and convenient, and the system will be restored in less than five minutes. But that's only local backup. If you restore it on someone else's machine, it will definitely "not fit in". The reason is very simple: the configurations of hardware, system, and network cannot all be exactly the same... But after reading this article, you can easily create a universal key. Any machine can easily use the Ghost recovery installation method, and you can install Windows XP in more than 10 minutes!

I. Prepare well

Install Windows XP and use Windows Update to upgrade to the latest system patches (including service Pack 1 and other latest Hot fixes). Also install the required applications. But don't be greedy, because installing applications in the C drive is not a recommended practice, and it will also cause the Ghost image file to be too large.

II. Slim down Windows XP

Whether you need to burn the final Ghost image file to a CD or not, you should slim down Windows XP to minimize the size of the Ghost image file as much as possible. The main items that can be cut are as follows:

1. System file protection cache

It is located in the C:\WINDOWS\System32\Dllcache directory. We just need to run "sfe.exe /purgecache" in the command prompt window to delete it.

2. Empty the page file

Right-click on "My Computer" and select "Properties". In the opened "System Properties" dialog box, select the "Advanced" tab, click the "Settings" button under "Performance", in the opened "Performance Options" dialog box, select the "Advanced" tab, and then click the "Change" button at the bottom right to open the "Virtual Memory" dialog box. By default, the virtual memory file is saved in the installation directory of Windows XP. We just need to select the "No paging file" option below and then click the "Set" button. Restart the computer and the virtual memory file will be deleted. Note that after making the hard disk image file, reset the virtual memory.

3. Turn off the system restore function

In the opened "System Properties" dialog box, select the "System Restore" tab and check the checkbox in front of "Turn off system restore on all drives".

4. Other methods

We can also use other conventional "slimming down" methods such as deleting help documents, deleting unnecessary input methods, font files, etc. to further reduce the size of the partition where Windows XP is located.

III. Operate on the drivers

Since the Windows XP Ghost file we are going to make is universal, the hardware configuration of the target computer must not be exactly the same as the current computer's configuration. Therefore, we need to delete the device drivers on the current computer.

1. Delete ordinary drivers

① Enter "devmgmt.msc" in the "Run" dialog box and press Enter to open the "Device Manager" console window.

② Find the network adapter, right-click on the name of the network card device under it, and click the "Uninstall" menu item in the pop-up menu.

③ Then use a similar method to uninstall device drivers such as Universal Serial Bus controllers, video game controllers, graphics cards, sound cards, etc. Note here that if the system prompts that a restart is required, must not restart the machine, so that the system won't reinstall the drivers on its own.

2. Update the ACPI property

Then we need to change the computer's ACPI property to Standard PC. This is because if there are different types of ACPI in the target computer, the newly cloned target computer will not be able to achieve soft shutdown of the computer and may crash after the first boot! The change steps are as follows:

① In the Device Manager console window, right-click on "Computer" → "ACPI Uniprocessor PC", and click the "Update driver" menu item in the pop-up menu;

② In the opened "Hardware Update Wizard" dialog box, select the "Install from a list or specified location (Advanced)" option and click the "Next" button;

③ In the next page, select the "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install myself" option and click the "Next" button;

④ Then select the "Standard PC" option, and follow the screen prompts all the way to Next. Just when it finally prompts whether to restart, must not restart!

3. Update the IDE controller property

The final operation on the device drivers is to change the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller. This step is very important, because as we all know, different motherboards, such as Intel, Nforce 2, VIA, etc., have very different drivers for the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller and cannot be universal at all!

① In the Device Manager console window, right-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI controller, Intel (R) 82371 AB/EB Bus Master IDE Controller, and click the "Update driver" menu item in the pop-up menu;

② In the opened "Hardware Update Wizard" dialog box, select the "Install from a list or specified location (Advanced)" option and click the "Next" button;

③ In the next page, select the "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install myself" option and click the "Next" button;

④ Then select the "Standard dual-channel PCI IDE controller" option, and follow the screen prompts all the way to Next. Just when it finally prompts whether to restart, must not restart!

IV. Prepare the main image file

Deleting the drivers on the "mother machine" doesn't mean it's done. This is because each computer has a unique security identifier (SID: security identifier). If the disk image is directly copied to other computers, then other computers will all have the same SID. Therefore, we need to use the Sysprep tool to remove the SID of the "mother machine" to force the target computer to generate a new SID.

1. Automatic answer file

When the target computer restores the cloned backup, the system will start a Mini-Setup wizard process, which will prompt us to enter specific computer variables, such as the administrator password, computer name, etc. But since the drivers are removed in the cloned backup, we cannot use the keyboard and mouse for interaction at this stage. However, we can create an automatic installation answer file to let this answer file automatically answer the questions raised by the installation program.

① Insert the Windows XP installation CD into the optical drive, and extract the DEPLOY.CAB file in the \SUPPORT\TOOLS\ directory to the C:\Sysprep directory;

② Then run the setupmgr.exe file in it. In the interface where the installation type is selected, select the "Sysprep installation" option;

③ Fill in the necessary information according to the screen prompts, keep clicking the "Next" button until finally entering the dialog box for saving the configuration file. Be sure to ensure that the final installation script path is C:\Sysprep\sysprep.inf.

2. Repackage

Now we can use the Sysprep tool to remove the SID of the "mother machine". It's very simple: run the Sysprep.exe program in the C:\Sysprep directory, then click the "Repackage" button in the opened window. Next, it will prompt that the SID will be regenerated when it starts next time. Click the "OK" button, wait for a while, and the computer will automatically shut down.

V. Clone the main image file

After the computer is shut down, we can use the Ghost 2003 boot disk to boot the computer, then click the "Local→Partition→To Image" command in sequence, specify the source partition as the C drive, then set the path and file name of the Ghost image file, and start the backup. After the backup is completed, we will have a universal Windows XP image file!

---------- Edited by willsort ----------
Moved from DOS Troubleshooting & Problem Discussion (Answer Room)
---------- Edited by willsort ----------

[ Last edited by willsort on 2005-10-14 at 18:33 ]

Haha, I've seen it! It's just that the re-packaging is a bit difficult! Adding to remove other unnecessary files, deleting pagefile, and things like oe, games, etc., it's best to be able to control it around more than 600M! I made one that's 717M, which is a bit large on one disk! Keep working hard, keep making it as small as possible!

But I only need 550M for a clean install!

For me, the time spent on software setup and debugging after installing the operating system is much longer than the time spent on installing the operating system. However, if there is an image backup, it's not bad to save 45 minutes.

It seems that my topic may not necessarily be moved to where!!! Interesting!!!!!

Now all are using SP2. When deploying, pay attention to the version number of sysprep.exe, otherwise problems such as being unable to deploy at all or the final installation not being able to complete automatically may occur! But for friends who need to deploy, I can provide the SP2 version of sysprep.exe!

Is that so, have you already encapsulated it?

LZ, it is said that deleting Dllcache will cause instability in the cloned system later. So it is not recommended that everyone delete it. There are special Dllcache file backup tools on the Internet. You can search on Baidu.

As for emptying the page file, there is no need at all, because ghost simply does not back up pagefiles. Don't believe it? You can give it a try. Package an image with the pagefiles file deleted and one without deletion respectively, and then see which one is larger and which one is smaller to understand.

My clumsy way is, after installing the system well (I used the 185M one WinXP), then installed the slim version of OFFICE 2003, installed the software that can play DVDRip, for downloading flashget and for uploading the FXP software, can see super star book, and can see PDF software, basically enough, then optimize the system (delete pagefiles files etc.), finally pack, this package has about 500M. Later if someone has a machine to install the system, just burn this package, after burning, don't start, use the 185M WinXP on the newly burned machine to install once, when installing, choose the "repair install" that one. Finally, the explanation is that the 185M this winXP does not bring driver, when installing, must find the machine's show, sound, mainboard etc. driver just line.

Originally posted by gojazh9 at 2006-1-14 08:01:
LZ, it is said that deleting Dllcache will cause instability in cloned systems later. So it is not recommended for everyone to delete. There are special DLL cache file backup tools on the Internet. You can search for them on Baidu.
As for the canal...

Only versions above GHOST 8.0 will. The principle is that the 512M page file and 768M hibernation file can be compressed into a few bytes, so there is no need to delete them at all.

Originally posted by maya0su at 2005-11-7 17:45:
Now everyone is using SP2. When deploying an image, you need to pay attention to the version number of sysprep.exe; otherwise, problems such as being unable to deploy at all or the final installation not completing automatically after deployment may occur! However, for friends who need to deploy an image, I...

Where did you get this Sysprep for Sp2? Is it from the Xpsp2 CD itself? Does it work well after applying the latest patches? Please send me a copy: Hcjcyzw@126.com

I've always wanted to make one, and I've learned...

Moderator, hello:

1. Could you please provide the Sp2 version of Sysprep?

2. Have you heard of the following software? Can you provide it?

　　"ACPI Fact File"

　　Software version: 1.0

　　Software size: 179KB

　　Software nature: Free software

　　Applicable platform: Windows 2000/XP/2003

Thanks!

gz1390@126.com