2006-09-26

Windows XP Home Hasstle

How many of us geeks (that actially use windoze) use Windows XP Home? Almost None.
I found this out the hard way as I will explain bellow.

21/09/2006: A client came to me with a computer (compaq presario sr1128an) that had a failed HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and provided me with a new one to install.

22/09/2006: Installed new HDD (easy) and proceeded to install Windows XP, but realised that the client only had a Windows XP Home licence (sticker on the side of the machine).

23/09/2006: I had begun preparations to install Windows XP Home when I discovered that my own copy was broken! *sigh* Not only that but when I asked the Client to provide me with his copy he claims that he has lost it! Naturally I start calling favours from my other geek friends to locate a copy.

25/09/2006: This evening I finally located a copy of Windows XP Home locally (I don't trust downloaded copies) but to my horror it was a DeLLified copy for a dell inspirion laptop. *sigh*

26/09/2006: Began the arduous task of un-dellifying the CD... Here is what I had to do;
1) Copy the contents of the CD to a temp folder.
2) Deleted the $OEM$ folder and the following files
i386\compdata\dellps.htm
i386\compdata\dellps.txt
i386\compdata\dellth.htm
i386\compdata\dellth.txt
i386\!dell_xp.cab
i386\!dpchfen.cab
i386\!pcvenxp.cab
i386\txtsetup.sif
3) Overwrote the file CD:\i386\winnt.sif with my own unnatended setup.
4) renamed i386\txtsetup.sif.txt to txtsetup.sif and removed lines 257-259 (inclusive).
5) Tested the CD iso image with VMware after re-mastering it with mkisofs2.

Apart from receiving the following error message, the CD seems to install a Dell-Free version of Windows XP Home ^_^










If anyone has more information on how to fix this so that the errormessage does not show up please email me at dean[dot]bergin[at]gmail.com

 
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