Anyone had an XP SP3 upgrade fail?

[Rik]

QVC had them last weekend as a TSV. I was tempted... Aldi have a netbook tomorrow, which looks quite good:

http://uk.aldi.com/uk/html/offers/58_8207.htm

[Steve]

That's definitely a MSI wind derivative, SP3 already installed,very useful forum and wiki here

[Rik]

Which would you go for, Steve, the Samsung or the MSI?

[Steve]

I have an Advent 4211 and my only real complaint is the 3 cell battery life which is probably less than 2 hours so I'd go for the 6 cell battery which in this case its the Samsung I believe. They are easy to modify in terms of adding additional memory, changing the wifi card to run Ubuntu easily and upgrading the hard disk, apparently the WD 320Gb passport drive works well.

You can buy 6 cell and 9 cell batteries but they are not that cheap.

[Rik]

Thanks, Steve, I'll keep my eyes open then. These days, I only really need a notebook when we travel and then only to surf and upload photos, so a smaller machine would make a lot of sense.

[Lance]

I can take your Acer of your hands Rik, just to help you clear a little space and that. I won't even charge you for the help!

[Rik]

Thanks, Lance. I'll let you know.

[Sebby]

If I were you Rik, I'd take an XP Home/Pro OEM disc (depending on what came preinstalled on your laptop) and use nLite to extract it and slipstream SP3. Copy and replace the following files from the I386 directory on your laptop (probably in the Windows directory, or root of the C: drive) to the I386 directory on the extracted CD:

OEMBIOS.BI_
OEMBIOS.CA_
OEMBIOS.DA_
OEMBIOS.SI_
OEMCOA.JP_
OEMIG50.EX_
OEMIGLIB.DL_
OEMLOGO.GI_
PIDGEN.DLL
SETUPP.INI

Now burn it. You have a clean Windows disc with no Acer rubbish that'll install using the license key on the bottom of your laptop.

[kinmel]

Excellent advice Sebby 

[Sebby]

[Steve]

Long thread here

[Inactive]

You're right there, Steve, particularly with notebooks in my experience. I think I'll just buy a netbook and dump the Acer. Hey, Christmas is coming.

Any excuse will do.. 

[Rik]

If I were you Rik, I'd take an XP Home/Pro OEM disc (depending on what came preinstalled on your laptop) and use nLite to extract it and slipstream SP3. Copy and replace the following files from the I386 directory on your laptop (probably in the Windows directory, or root of the C: drive) to the I386 directory on the extracted CD:

OEMBIOS.BI_
OEMBIOS.CA_
OEMBIOS.DA_
OEMBIOS.SI_
OEMCOA.JP_
OEMIG50.EX_
OEMIGLIB.DL_
OEMLOGO.GI_
PIDGEN.DLL
SETUPP.INI

Now burn it. You have a clean Windows disc with no Acer rubbish that'll install using the license key on the bottom of your laptop.

Slight snag there, Seb, I think, in that Acer only supply a restore disk, and the laptop is the only machine using Home, the others are Pro...

[Rik]

Any excuse will do.. 

Always, In.

[Rik]

Long thread here

Thanks, Steve.

[Steve]

Thanks Rik , Some poeple have had success with a program called dial-a-fix for resetting registry permissions (cant access links at work)

[Rik]

I'll have a hunt - once I've patched the other machines.

[Sebby]

Slight snag there, Seb, I think, in that Acer only supply a restore disk, and the laptop is the only machine using Home, the others are Pro...

That's the point; you only get a restore disc, so you're forced to do a restore and install SP3 separately - what's to say it won't fail again? You need to get hold of a clean XP disc (any one will do) and modify it as described. It then becomes an Acer OEM disc without the rubbish, and it means that SP3 can be slipstreamed.

[Rik]

So it's OK to use a Pro disk, or I need to find a Home one?

[Sebby]

It needs to be the same as whatever comes with the laptop. I take it that's Home?

[Rik]

Indeed - no choice otherwise I would have stuck with Pro for consistency.