Windows XP Installation
From DISE KnowledgeBase
About this guide
This guide is meant to help people setting up a PC with Windows XP that should be used to run as a Player using our Display Evolution (DISE) software. You can also follow this guide if you would like to setup a stable XP PC at home or at your company.
This guide is written using Windows XP Professional as template but you may work without any problems on any other editions of XP as well.
Installation
- Start the installation by booting from the Windows CD, please select to format the hard disk during the installation since an installation on top of an already existing operative system may cause problems and will most likely make the installation procedure more complex.
- If possible, use an installation CD that already contains the latest Service Pack.
- If you have an OEM installation on the PC from Dell, HP or any other PC manufacturer you should consider formatting the hard disk and do a clean re-installation of Windows. This is mainly since typically, these installations are cluttered with preinstalled software that at best will bog the system down and at worst will cause problems. If you are unable to do a clean installation of the PC then please make sure to uninstall or disable all pre-installed software that you do not need.
- Make sure to select the correct language when asked during the installation.
After the installation
- Set that the Welcome center should not be run at startup.
- If Windows did not automatically find the drivers for your Network card, use another computer to find and download them from the Internet.
- To make Windows Update quicker, install the latest Service Pack (if not included in the installation) before starting Windows Update.
Read more: Windows XP Service Pack 3 Network Installation Package for IT Professionals and Developers
- Run Windows Update to install updates and Service Packs.
- Please select and install all the Service Packs available before installing separate updates, this is since many of the updates are already included in the Service Packs. You can ignore Windows Mail / Outlook updates since they will not be used.
- Make sure that you include .NET and the .NET Service Packs.
- Do not upgrade or install any drivers from the Windows Update site without making sure that they are the latest drivers and that they are 100% compatible with your hardware (for example, integrated or laptop hardware may be recognized by Windows Update but may not be compatible or will break when using the drivers available on Windows Update).
- Restart when prompted, and then run Windows Update again until there are no more updates available.
- To make it easy to do maintenance work on the machine later, place tools that you or your users will use often easily reachable from the Start Menu.
For example: Notepad, Paint, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, Command Prompt, Calculator… - When reaching the “Protect PC” screen when booting up after installing Service Pack 2/3, do not turn on Windows Update or change the Antivirus or Firewall settings.
Drivers
- We recommend installing the latest stable hardware drivers, download them from the manufacturer’s web-page.
You could install drivers from a provided driver CD that came with the network card/motherboard but if there are new versions of the drivers on the Internet it is possible that there as been important bug fixes and upgrades. - If hardware in the PC was not recognized by Windows you have to download and install the drivers for that hardware.
Note: Always restart your computer when prompted to do so.
- In most cases graphic cards will run best with the latest drivers from the graphic card chip set manufacturer web page.
Read more: ATI drivers
Read more: NVIDIA drivers
Read more: Matrox drivers
Read more: Intel drivers
Configuration
Control Panel
- Use the classic Control Panel.
System Properties
Enter Win + Break to bring up the System Properties dialog.
Computer Name tab
- Setup the Computer Description, Computer Name and Workgroup.
Advanced tab
Performance Settings
- Check Use visual styles on windows and buttons.
Virtual Memory (Advanced tab)
By default windows will change the size of the page file to fit the current need, this will fragment the page file and make windows work slower. It is then better to setup a fixed page file from the beginning. Select Custom size and set both Initial size and Maximum size to the same value (this will stop windows resizing the pagefile). Use at least the value listed as the Recommended size listed at the bottom. If the hard disk space is available then you could set it to an higher value.
Startup and Recovery
- Change the times to start the system faster after a failure.
Remote tab
- Disable the remote access functions.
Read more: Remote access and administration
Automatic Updates tab
If the PC is located on a network that is protected by a firewall, and the network is not open to other computers (laptops that are used at home, etc) then we recommend that you turn off automatic updates. On the other hand, if the PC could be put at risk then it is recommended to turn on automatic updates. The main reason for being a bit restrictive on this setting is that if you have automatic updates your windows installation will change, and that could introduce new features that could change how the PC operates.
Restore tab
- Turn off system restore, as this will save disc space and is not needed if you are running a ghost setup anyway.
Display
Right-click the desktop and select Display Properties.
Desktop tab
- Set the background image to None and select a nice color. Or set the background image to the company logo.
Customize Desktop tab
- Remove all desktop icons and uncheck that Windows should run the Desktop Cleanup Wizard.
Screen Saver tab
- Select None as screen saver.
Power
- Select the Presentation Power Scheme.
Advanced
- Disable Prompt for password when computer resumes from standby.
- Configure the power button to shutdown the computer and sleep to do nothing.
Hibernate
- Disable hibernation if enabled.
Appearance tab
Effects
- Disable the transition effect.
- Enable font smoothing and set it to Clear Type.
Internet Options
- Select Use Blank as home page.
Security Center
It is recommended that you keep the Windows Firewall on, and add the exceptions that are needed to allow the softwares running on the PC access to the Internet.
|
|
If you do not have Virus Protection installed, then go into to recommendations and select that you have another anti-virus applications.
Change the way Security Center alerts me
On the left
- Uncheck all.
Sounds and Audio Devices
Volume
- Set an appropriate default volume.
Sounds
- Select the No Sounds Sound scheme to remove all start-up, shut-down and navigation sounds.
Audio
- Make sure that the audio device you want to use is the default one.
Taskbar and Start Menu
Taskbar
- Uncheck Keep the taskbar on top of other windows.
- Uncheck Group similar taskbar buttons.
- Uncheck Hide inactive icons.
User Accounts
- Activate the Guest user if you want to be able to easily access shared folders.
- Change the way users log on or off.
- Check to use the welcome screen but uncheck the Fast User Switching.
- Make sure that your default user has a password. This is required if you want auto logon.
Regional and Language Options
Languages
Details
To make it easier to work with the PC, make sure that you only have the input languages you want to use installed.
Add or Remove Programs
Remove any unnecessary programs that may be installed.
- Add/Remove Windows Components
- Remove the following components:
- MSN Explorer
- Outlook Express
- Windows Messenger
Administrative Tool
Services
- Disable the Messenger service by right clicking on it and selecting Properties and set its Startup type to Disabled.
Properties of Local Disc's
C and any other disks
- Uncheck Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching and apply the changes to all subfolders and files.
|
|
Explorer
- Select to view files with Details in an Explorer window.
- Enable the Status Bar, so that you can easily see how large files are etc.
You can also select the Choose Details... option and select if you would like to show more columns with other information in the explorer.
Tools > Folder Options
- Use Windows classic folders.
View
Toggle almost all of the options ;)
- Uncheck
- Automatically search for network folders.
- Display simple folders view.
- Hide extensions for known file types.
- Hide protected operating system files.
- Check
- Display file size information.
- Display contents of system folders.
- Display the full path.
- Do not cache thumbnails. (If you are going to use the Dise Composer you would want to leave this unchecked.)
- Show hidden files and folders.
Click the Apply to All Folders button to apply this setting to all your folders, this will also set the view mode that you selected earlier in the Explorer.
Automatic startup
- Modify your boot up screens and remove the Windows logo.
or
- Select Run from the start menu, type in msconfig and hit enter. Go to the BOOT.INI tab and check /NOGUIBOOT. This will remove the boot graphics during the startup.
- Run msconfig to make sure that no unnecessary programs is run during the system startup.
- Common applications that should be removed here:
- jusched.exe (Java updater)
- QuickTime Task, QTTask.exe (Quicktime updater)
- reader_sl.exe (Acrobat Reader speed launch)
- Windows Search
- Make sure that all programs that should be started at bootup are in your Startup folder in the start menu.
- Configure autologon so that your default user will logon automatically.
Read more: Microsoft userpasswords
Read more: Autologon from SysInternals
Read more: Direct in registry
- User Accounts
- Select Start > Run and enter netplwiz
- Select the user to automatically login as and uncheck User name and password.
- Click Ok.
- Enter the password.
The last touches
- Setup the display resolutions on the different screens as close to the monitor specifications as you can. Matrox and NVIDIA both have tools to help you with this task. And for ATI you can use the tool PowerStrip to configure custom resolutions.
Read more: PowerStrip
- Look around and clean up any mess, do a disk cleanup, defragment the disk etc…
- It is not recommended to use the Compress old files option in Dise Cleanup since files that are compressed will take longer time to access.
- To save some space you can remove .wav, .wmv and html files from the Windows directory.
- Start Windows Media Player once and go though their guide to enable all the WMP features, it is recommended to configure WMP to always show the title bar and uncheck the setting Start Player in Media Guide for easier access to the WMP.
- To make sure that you have everything, try playing some video files that have the same format as you may use later.
Create image of installation
Even if this is just a single player setup it is recommended to create a ghost image to be able to restore the installation (without having to do all this work) if disaster strikes and you have a hard drive failure or an issue with the windows installation.
Image creation software
Read more: PING
Read more: Norton Ghost
Conclusion
Now everything should be up running, and the computer should be much more compatible and stable than the default install. If you have any suggestions or tips that will make this guide more complete, please Contact support.
All trademarks are property of their respective owners.