Best way to install XP?

[baskaa]

I'm about to make the switch from 98SE to XP. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to load it for a game machine? For example, I've heard that putting the swap file in it's own partition can be good, as it will never be fragmented.

Thanks!

Mike McCormick

[Mnemonic]

Nah, just run with 512-1024 MB of ram, then your swap file should hardly be used. I run my serial ATA 120GB at full partition. Greased Lightning. Look into RAID and or Serial Hard drives, or even SCSI.

[Mr. Perfect]

For one thing, do NOT use an "upgrade" thing to go from 98SE to XP. XP uses a diffrent file system and a completly diffrent core then 98SE. Slapping XP on top of 98SE will set you up for a number of exciting problems we can't even imagine! What you need to do(or have a local PC shop do for you), is back up all your data on CD-Rs, format the machine, and install XP on an empty hard drive.

Personally, I'd go with Windows 2000. It's practicly the same OS, just without all of XP's hippy dippy BS.

[baskaa]

Well, the version of XP I've already bought is XP Pro full install, so no Win2K for me. Besides, in gaming forums I've rarely heard the words "Windows 2000" without the words "won't run" nearby. Sure, I've talked to others who have had no problems, but I've got this bad opinion stuck in my head now and I'm not willing to spend the time or money to disprove it.

I've found a site called http://www.tweakxp.com/ that has some advice for gamers, as well as advice for regular people who want to get rid of the bells and whistles of WinXP.

Hopefully, by this time tomorrow I will have explored the first level of Thief: Deadly Shadows.

Mike McCormick

[theBlackman]

I ran the UPGRADE XP over 98SE and had no problems. I had a number of older games, including 3 versions of THIEF and other apps installed and everything runs perfectly, including THIEF 1- GOLD- 2.

My current problem is a dead Vcard and not associated with the UPGRADE installation. It's run perfectly for a little over a year.

[baskaa]

Boy, did I pick a great week to install a new unpatched version of WinXP. I had nothing at all to stop the big new spamware from infecting my machine the instant I logged into the Internet.

I don't know how it affected everyone else, but I kept getting pop-up ads asking if I wanted to earn a degree in 30 days, and every time I rebooted I'd get a system message saying that a particular program (unnamed) needed me to reconnect and contact something called lights.merked.us. Also my web browsing degraded very quickly and my modem seemed to be sending out more information than it was taking in.

What's really funny is, the last time I did a clean install (fdisk, format, install), the only site I visited was the Windows Update site via the Help menu in Start. That can't be good, can it?

Thank Azura that I have a Mac to fall back on.

Still waiting to load Thief

Later!
Mike McCormick

[sesobebo]

I recommend that you create a special partition of ~2GB just for OS, and install all other games/programs/wathever on the other partition, so whenever your OS gets critically corrupted, you just format the partition with OS on it, and your data and work stays intact.
I use this method ever since i had win 98 SE (as i was often forced to reinstall OS). As for win 2000 (pro), in a period of ~2 years, I think i had to reset my computer only once...

[Guineapiggy]

Optimising XP for games is easy enough.
Type Services.msc /s in the run box and go through each task, reading the description carefully, disabling the features you don't need.

[flashovr]

F-bomb (format) your HD.
Turn off computer.
Wait a few seconds.
Turn on computer.
Insert XP CD.
When you get message: "Insert bootable disk" or "No partition drive found". This message will vary depending on you motherboard.
Hit your Spacebar.
Your computer will then search your "Other devices" like your CD drive.

In my case, WinXP then took over. It installed a few files in what looked like an late 80's version of DOS. Then installed XP with almost no questions or input from me other than my WinXP serial number.

This is cleanest way to install and will prevent many problems. For example: "The moment I connect to the internet, I get pop-up adds" Well, that is because you had spyware on your machine, you did not format you HD and when you installed XP your spyware did its job. But that is another topic...

[thegrommit]

Originally posted by baskaa
Boy, did I pick a great week to install a new unpatched version of WinXP. I had nothing at all to stop the big new spamware from infecting my machine the instant I logged into the Internet.

...

What's really funny is, the last time I did a clean install (fdisk, format, install), the only site I visited was the Windows Update site via the Help menu in Start. That can't be good, can it?

You did everything right, but there were a few things you didn't do.

This document tells you what to do. It's a PDF, so should be viewable on your Mac too.

Flashovr - reread what he did. He was likely infected by worms that are probing open ports on new machines. The XP firewall is a good start to reduce the chances of infection. However, it loads late in the boot chain, so isn't perfect. Following the instructions in that document should reduce the chances of infection. Using a hardware router would be even better.

[GlasW0lf]

Help with installing: http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/O...tallxppro1.htm

After the install: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

[baskaa]

Well, things are going much better tonight. Set my IE6 security to HIGH, and turned on ICF on my dialup connection. Having most sites patch up their systems probably helped too.

Best of all, I loaded Thief-DS and have gone through a couple of levels. It really reminds me of Splinter Cell, especially Garrets graphics when he's well lit.

On a slightly related note, I reloaded Morrowind again to see how it would play. WOW! I'm almost sorry I dissed XP for so long.

Well, I'm off to find Black Market Bertha. Later!

Mike McCormick
/* Life is short. Die. */

[Kheldin]

For having 15years experience in the Windows biz, (lol, well, my resume says I have it!).. the best way to install XP would be like this..

Always Low Level format your HDD. The Windows format just erases the drive, and does not check for any damage to the drive. Also, if there is damage, the windows format will not correct any of it. But XP is picky, so if there is damage, it most likely won't install. Still, Low Level formats are always the best route, not only does it completely wipe the drive clean, but gets rid of any bad sectors if there are any (considering you had 98SE running, and if it was for awhile, more than likely you do). These guys make a great CD that has ALL the HDD manufacturer utilities, MemChecker.. and a whole slew of other great utilities http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Boot off your XP CD, run the install, create a partition, full format it in NTFS. Don't use any dos tools to make your partitions (fdisk.. etc..). Let XP do it. After it installs and you get into Windows the first time, don't get on the internet unless you have a good firewall. If you have another computer, or have a friend, goto this website http://www.autopatcher.com/
they make a nice little CD that has all the XP updates, and they keep it regularly updated. You can apply ALL the XP patches at 1 time, without multiple reboots. It also has many of other nice things you can install too. It will apply all the updates, 1 time around, with only 1 reboot, and its about 100x faster than going to Windows Update.

If your job consists of fixing computers, and patching them etc.. this CD is your best friend. You can deploy XP updates very fast and efficiently. I've tried all the other ways and options to update XP, and this method is by far bar none the best way. With the UltimateBootCD and the Autopatcher CD, I can get a fresh XP install up and ready in about half the time of conventional ways.

*Noted:* You already have XP installed, so Im just posting these links for anyone that may be interested in checking them out. They've cut my job time in half, and have proven many many times to be the most handy 2 CD's on my tech bench.

[Rockn-Roll]

Originally posted by baskaa
For example, I've heard that putting the swap file in it's own partition can be good, as it will never be fragmented.

Thanks!

Mike McCormick

I'm not sure that is always true. When the file is first created then yes it will not be fragmented, but when it grows Windows will add more clusters and when it shrinks Windows will remove clusters. I'm not 100% sure if Windows manipulates the low level aspects of the swap file different from normal. My guess is that the swap file is designed for the fastest access possible since the user will be waiting for the operating system to finish doing whatever is changing their mouse to an hourglass. And, continually defragmenting the hard drive when it removes clusters would probably double the time it takes to swap something out. This is the normal operation of disk access. So, my guess is that putting the swap file in it's own partition would not improve defragmentation. It would however mean that you could EASILY defragment just the swap file without having to defragment a whole hard drive full of stuff. But, at the cost of setting a limit on the size of the swap file.

With that said about defragmentation then I would not recommend puttin the swap file in it's own partition simply because you won't be gaining enough of an advantage since the swap file isn't used during game play...it's only used if you don't have enough RAM to hold all of the data, and if there isn't enough memory and Windows has to go to the hard drive to swap data out then having it defragmented won't be much of a performance improvement...let's face it if Windows has to swap something out then there will be like at least a second wait, and the seek time is all that will be saved for each fragmented section...modern hard drives have a seek time of less than 10ms, so you wouldn't even notice it.

Anyway, here is Microsoft's opinion on the subject:

Optimize Virtual Memory Use
NOTE: Unless you are an advanced user, it is recommended that you let Windows manage your Virtual Memory Settings option on the Performance tab of the My Computer property sheet. You should use the default virtual memory settings whenever possible.

With virtual memory, an application sees a large, continuous block of primary memory (RAM) that, in reality, is a much smaller block of primary memory supplemented by secondary memory (such as a hard disk). To temporarily free space in RAM, blocks of data (called pages) are moved between RAM and a swap file located on the hard disk.

By default, the Windows swap file is dynamic, so it can shrink or grow based on available disk space and the operations performed on the system. Also, the swap file can occupy a fragmented region of the hard disk with no substantial performance penalty. A dynamic swap file is usually the most efficient use of resources. The simplest way to ensure high virtual memory performance is to make sure that the disk containing the swap file has ample free space, so that the swap file size can shrink and grow as needed.

In some earlier versions of Microsoft Windows, enhancing performance by changing virtual memory settings is quite common. Because the Windows swap file is dynamic, the need to change virtual memory settings is less common. However, in some situations adjusting virtual memory settings can improve performance. If you've already tried deleting unnecessary files, and you still have a performance problem, try changing the Windows default virtual memory settings.

If you have more than one drive available, you may get better performance if you specify that Windows locate the swap file on a drive other than the default in the following cases:
If the default drive doesn't have much free disk space, and another local drive has more space available.


If another local drive is available that is faster than the current drive (unless that disk is already heavily used).


You also may get better performance if you specify that the minimum disk space available for virtual memory is at least twice the size of available RAM. For example, if a computer has 20 MB of RAM, you should specify at least 40 MB of virtual memory. You may want to specify more if several large applications will be run at the same time.

For information about changing Windows virtual memory settings, see the "virtual memory settings" topic in Windows Help.

Here's what the Windows Help says (my guess is that nobody reads windows help):

Managing your computer's performance
Windows 2000 allocates resources according to its settings and manages devices according to what your system needs. However, you can adjust Windows 2000 to improve its performance, particularly by changing the way Windows 2000 uses processor time and memory.

Managing processor time
System processing is managed directly by Windows 2000, which can allocate tasks between processors while also managing multiple processes on a single processor. However, you can set Windows 2000 to give a greater proportion of processor time to the application in which you are currently working. This can result in faster response time from the programs and applications you use while you work. Or, if you have background processes such as printing or disk backup that you want to run while you work, you may prefer to have Windows 2000 share processor resources equally between background and foreground programs.

Managing Computer Memory
When your computer is running low on RAM and more is needed immediately to complete your current task, Windows 2000 uses hard drive space to simulate system RAM. In Windows 2000, this is known as Virtual Memory, and often called the pagefile. This is similar to the UNIX swapfile. The default size of the virtual memory pagefile (appropriately named pagefile.sys) created during installation is 1.5 times the amount of RAM on your computer.

You can optimize virtual memory use by dividing the space between multiple drives and especially by removing it from slower or heavily accessed drives. To best optimize your virtual memory space, divide it across as many physical hard drives as possible. When selecting drives, keep the following guidelines in mind:

Try to avoid having a pagefile on the same drive as the system files.
Avoid putting a pagefile on a fault-tolerant drive, such as a mirrored volume or a RAID-5 volume. Pagefiles don't need fault-tolerance, and some fault-tolerant systems suffer from slow data writes because they write data to multiple locations.
Don't place multiple pagefiles on different partitions on the same physical disk drive.

As you can see Microsoft discourages putting a swap file on a seperate partition. The only reason to let the swap file span drives is to give it more room. But, like I said swap file management is really only for people doing loads of data manipulation like engineering programs, business programs, etc. A game won't need to process that much data at one time. I just used program manager to check and t3main.exe and t3.exe took up a total of 48MB after loading the menu. After loading the Pagan level it grew to 53MB. My computer could have had just 196MB in it and Windows would not have tried to use the swap file as long as you let Windows manage it.