PCIN.net Update

Posts Tagged ‘windows 7’

Recently at work we installed Windows 7 Professional on our first PC. The user has one piece of software that won’t run in Vista or 7, so we are using Windows XP Mode. I was logged in as administrator and had everything working fine, but when the other user logged in, the Windows XP Mode they saw wasn’t the same. For those who don’t know, Windows XP Mode is essentially just a Virtual PC installation with Windows XP configured for you. Apparently, each user gets their own instead of sharing it. Anyway, I copied the necessary files and figured out how to get it working, but it wasn’t easy. Of course it wasn’t until afterward that I found some helpful hints.

• Microsoft Answers has a nice thread that explains how to reset the Windows XP Mode password
• XP-More is a piece of software “that helps manage Windows 7 Virtual Machines (XP Mode and any other). Specifically, it makes duplication of VMs a no brainer – no more raw XML editing and manually duplicating files”

I’ve had a draft for 21 months with these links in it, but never posted it…

I know that people are moving away from Windows XP, skipping over Vista, and heading to Windows 7, but these are still some good links. You’ve probably had the opportunity to reinstall Windows on a computer and then go to WindowsUpdate and find out that there are 100+ updates that need to be installed. Well, one of the ways to help reduce the number of updates is to install the most recent major service pack. For Windows XP that is SP3. If you got a computer before SP3, what do you do? You can “slipstream” it. A simple explanation is to say that this is the process where you can take the installation CD that you have, copy it to your hard drive, copy the XP SP3 files over the old ones, and then burn a CD again. This is a handy thing to do and you can read more about doing this with the Windows XP media here:

• Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows: Slipstreaming Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3)
• PC Magazine: Build an XP SP3 Recovery Disc

I haven’t tried it, but since the Vista files come on a DVD, apparently it isn’t quite as easy. However, TechRepublic has some detailed instructions.

As of the time of this posting, there is no Windows 7 service pack yet, but once there is, I’m sure if you search for Windows 7 slipstream you’ll be able to find some articles explaining how to do this same process.

Jeff Alexander has some great instructions on how to setup a USB flash drive so that you can install Windows 7 from it.

I wonder if the same instructions work for XP and/or Vista…?