nLite Rocks!

[bbriand]

I had been fretting over installing my second WD SATA drive for a few weeks now. I haven't had a floppy drive in my system for 6 years and I didn't want to have to dig one up to use as I am going RAID0 (plus I'm lazy).

So last night I bit the bullet and installed it and put my SATA drives in RAID 0 as boot drive... but before doing this I used nLite and placed the nForce4 SATARAID drivers on my x64 installation CD. While in the process I selected the unattended install as well. Took less than 30 mins from start to finish (including downloading nLite).

Holy Crap... Worked first try! I was expecting the floppy scenario to come into play when the hacked install CD failed but I just made my partitions, did a full NTFS format and watched a movie. Sometime in the middle of the show I checked and it was sitting at the desktop - no questions asked.

My God this application has to be one of the most usefull ones I have ever seen! I know any install CD is specific to whatever system you have but wow is it handy nonetheless.

Something I want to see now is if it would be possible to have nLite reference a USB drive for the drivers? If so you could keep the latest drivers for your system on a USB drive to be installed during installation (I HOPE this is possible).

Anyhow thats my rant. Now off to make a better install CD...

Bill

[gR3iF]

Yeah but it isnt working that good with ati drivers and the via drivers............



But it works perfect with the s-ata driver for every controller, but i guess with vista no one needs floppy drives anymore although i still have a few

[bbriand]

I have to admit I was in a hurry and my faith was low that the modded install CD would work. So I only added SATARAID drivers and unattended install. I have an ATI GPU so if the mood strikes me again I may try and beef up the install CD with Drivers and updates and see how it goes.

I guess I would recommend this method to all the floppiless people out there that curse M$ for making a floppy necessary to install RAID drivers. If for no other reason than that nLite is worth using. I mean come on really... floppies... its insulting ;)

Bill

[gR3iF]

jup i use nlit for a long period now and its pretty fun to install windows and then everything is ready no sp2 no windows updates nothing :D

[Jimmy 2004]

nLite is great, I use it but DO NOT try to integrate the ATI drivers because it will not install SmartGart or the ATISmart service which will mean you don't have full control over setting it up and will probably take a performance hit.

[gR3iF]

did i mentionend it before?^^ XD

[Alec§taar]

See subject-line/title above, & if you will? Please tell me MORE of what this program's for & what it is capable of doing...

:)

* Integration of drivers to make a MACHINE-SPECIFIC "slipstreamed" installation including service packs &/or hotfixes, that DOES SOUND GOOD TO ME!

(Is it simple to use & create this type of install CD using this tool??)

APK

P.S.=> Thanks for the info. fellas, & if it is capable of doing anything else (say, removing IE completely & all that)? Please, let me know... apk

[{JNT}Raptor]

Nlite Is good.....I've used a Differant App called "Windows Unattended CD Creator" from here.
http://www.vitaligraf.de/en/index.htm

Does all of the above listed and Installs Soft and removes Unwanted Windows Components.

Also Incorporated some driver packs from here.
http://www.driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/

Fun stuff Indeed. :)

[Jimmy 2004]

It can integrate (some) drivers, service packs, hotfixes as well as a number of useful tasks like removing languages (no offence, but I don't need Chinese!!!), removing other windows junk, pre-setting which services are disabled and creating automated install disks with the product key integrated in. Very useful and worth a play with - you can get rid of some of the junk in XP that maybe 1 in 1000 people might use.

[Alec§taar]

See subject-line/title above: Again, gracias!

:)

* Sounds like an app I could REALLY truly use!

I say that, because I have a caching controller that is TRULY a pain-in-the-you-know-what during Windows Server 2003 installs!

(All because I have to do the "hit f6 to install 3rd party drivers" portion of the installation, & that means installing a floppy diskdrive (& the most I really EVER use nowadays is zipdrives (IDE internal here) &/or Flash Memory stick/drives lately!))

APK

[bbriand]

Alec§taar its well worth playing around with. Even if you only put the pain in da butt caching controller drivers and make an unattended install.

Bill

[Alec§taar]

Alec§taar its well worth playing around with. Even if you only put the pain in da butt caching controller drivers and make an unattended install.

Bill

I believe you!

:)

Sounds like something I could DEFINITELY use & like having worked with... @ least on a machine for machine basis, making SPECIFIC driver installs part of it, as well as 'slipstreaming in' the latest service packs &/or hotfixes!

(I did the latter as far back as Windows NT 3.51, before there even was a name coined for it (slipstream) & imo, w/ older MS' OS's, it was much easier then imo (less complex) but still, am familiar w/ the technique & how it is manually accomplished (takes time this will save me imo in that capacity @ least)).

APK

P.S.=> Is it Windows GUI based, & is it relatively simple to use in your opinion/estimation? apk

[bbriand]

Totally GUI based and really simple. I used a quick guide I found on putting nForce 4 SATARAID drivers on a Windows install CD but it was hardly necessary. You check off what you want to add to the CD and It prompts you for the rest.

Bill

[Jimmy 2004]

Plus they have some good forums to help you out.