Windows XP SP3 nLited and Audio Optimised

[Poxican]

Hey there Dux, thanks a lot for this brilliant version of XP. It boots in no time and I love the bare-bones nature. Can't wait to start using Reaper.

I have one question though, maybe someone can give me some advice. I need to install my video card drivers obviously, but I just wondered if I should just install the latest version, or maybe use an alternate version to avoid unnecessary stuff being installed? I've got an Nvidia 6600gt.

I realise this mightn't be the place to ask, but I figured maybe someone might be able to help.

Cheers
Poxican

[DuX]

Hello!

6600GT you say? Do you have a dual monitor setup? Do you play games?

You're right. You don't have to use the latest driver, but it depends on your needs . The latest WHQL-ed drivers in a series is usually always the best, like for example:

v93.71
v169.21
v178.24
v186.18

I'm currently using v178.24 as I found v18x.xx and v19x.xx troublesome and I don't recommend them at all. I had some troubles to install them with 7600 series card. Updating v178.24 didn't work peachy, either. probably these drivers have issues with the older series cards like series 5xxx,6xxx and 7xxx.

however, 178.24 works just peachy, even for games .

Cheers!

[DuX]

Very helpful tools when you don't know what's in your PC: http://www.3dpchip.com/index_eng.html

Quote: "Ever had painful headaches searching through the web trying to find the correct drivers for your newly formatted PC?

3DP Chip and 3DP Net are extremely useful freewares that will minimize your effort and time spent in finding the drivers for your PC components!

3DP Net has the ability to automatically install the right network driver for your PC even if you reinstalled Windows and cannot connect to the internet due to the absence of appropriate driver. 3DP Net will detect which network adapter is installed on your PC and automatically choose the right driver from its integrated ethernet card driver pool that enables to use the internet with breeze.

3DP Chip is another useful program that will automatically detect and display the information on your CPU, motherboard, video card and sound card installed on your PC. You can also choose to copy these information into your clipboard with one click for later use (such as posting in a forum). If you have working internet connection, you can choose to download the latest drivers for all of these components.

We recommend you to run 3DP Net first after reinstalling Windows to detect network adapter and install driver, then once you get hold of internet connection, run 3DP Chip for other component drivers."

Cheers!

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by DuX

Very helpful tools when you don't know what's in your PC: http://www.3dpchip.com/index_eng.html

Great. Looks like exactly what I need. Thanks!

The "3DP Bench" got flagged by AVG as infected by WIn32/Virut.Z

[DuX]

These days I trust small developers more than antivirus programs... they've become too paranoid. Really. To elaborate a bit: usually antivirus programs find "viruses" and "trojans" in programs that use some network routines to communicate with the server. For example, I have a chat program which I use regularly and my McAfee av-scanner found a trojan in it. I have no problems with that because I know it is a good program from a good developer. he wouldn't put a trojan in it and I can see there are no processes nor unnecessary network communication going on.

Anyway, you don't need yet another benchmark program, eh? ) Just use the driver installer.

btw. do you know what's the best and safest antivirus program in the world? Uses almost no resources! - Symantec Ghost. or any other backup program for that matter. No, not "System restore"...

Cheers!

[pollux]

Hi,
This question might seem stupid, but I did not find it anywhere in the thread.
Is this a win XP Home or Professional image?

I have a win XP Pro license, and I'd rather be sure before trashing my hard drive

thanks!

[Coerce]

Originally Posted by pollux

Hi,
This question might seem stupid, but I did not find it anywhere in the thread.
Is this a win XP Home or Professional image?

I have a win XP Pro license, and I'd rather be sure before trashing my hard drive

thanks!

It's an xp pro image.

If you find my earlier post in the thread, the image is uploaded as one file on my ftp. Someone add the links to the main page

[pollux]

Originally Posted by Coerce

It's an xp pro image.

If you find my earlier post in the thread, the image is uploaded as one file on my ftp. Someone add the links to the main page

Thanks

[DuX]

We're all pro here bro... we don't even doubt these things! Therefore there's no mention of whether it's Windows XP Pro or Home. How can you even think...



It's Windows XP Service Pack 3 Professional.

It seems I've come here right on time to add the link to the main page Coerce? But I remember adding some links there... will check.

Ok, I updated the link to ISO. You can remove those RARs if you want now.

Cheers!

p.s. how come I didn't see that post Coerce... [slamming my stupid head on the keyboard...]

[Coerce]

Originally Posted by DuX

how come I didn't see that post Coerce... [slamming my stupid head on the keyboard...]

It's cool we're all busy

[pollux]

Originally Posted by DuX

We're all pro here bro... we don't even doubt these things! Therefore there's no mention of whether it's Windows XP Pro or Home. How can you even think...

Don't know.. was thinking that maybe Win Xp Pro supports only Pro Tools, and that amateurs tools like Reaper only work on Win XP Home

[groverk]

Thank you so much for this optimized version .
It has definately made life easier .

I do have one question . I've heard there were firewire Issues with service pack 2 . Was this fixed in service pack 3 or fixed on this version of XP .


Thanks again

Ken

[DuX]

Originally Posted by groverk

Was this fixed in service pack 3 or fixed on this version of XP?

Yes! It was fixed With SP3. We had a testing sometime around New Year 2009. No problems with FireWire.

Cheers!

[Fabian]

DuX,
You looking into Win 7?

[DuX]

Originally Posted by Fabian

DuX,
You looking into Win 7?

Dealing with installations is too tiresome for me. I hate it. Man, I install a new OS on a PC only 2x on average and I buy a new PC once in 4-5 years [that is not including customers' PC's of course...]. I rather play music and do my job instead of experimenting with OS'. I am pretty sure in this statement: nothing brand new MS releases can be interesting to me as I like *stability*, then *stability* again and no bugs, efficiently programmed stuff using less resources etc. I can't afford experimenting with MS BS beta systems which are always full of bugs even in SP3 or more incarnations. As long as my apps and plugins work stably I don't want to worry about anything. New OS brings you nothing new except new bugs and headaches and new level/way of hogging your PC's resources.

So in short: No, I'm not. I haven't even seen a screenshot and I didn't even know it's been released. Some stories I've heard just confirms what I already know, so there is really no need to be excited about anything, at least until SP2 or 3 IMHO.

You may say I'm old school, but no - I'm just being logical and I don't wanna upgrade just for the sake of an upgrade or because someone tells me this new Windows look cool. I don't even wanna upgrade if the speed of both OS' is the same, only if it's working more efficient and faster on the same PC. Let's face it: I really really doubt MS programmers are capable of doing a better and faster system than XP, actually Windows2000... XP is just a bloated Win2000. Now Vista and Windows 7 are just bloated Windows XP. When I say "bloated" I mean "a lot of absolutely unnecessary and annoying sh*t". Windows GUI's just tend to be worse and worse, less easy to cope with and just downright annoying. Instead of simplifying things, they complicate things.

I want my Apps and plugins to use the OS, I don't wanna OS to use my apps and my nerves. I want it to be *transparent*, no messages, no nagging, no flashy graphics, no nothing. A black hole like DOS if necessary. Just want my apps and plugins to work stably and you don't have to be a nuclear scientist to put 2 and 2 together and figure out that more code makes for more bugs. Quantity is not quality in programmer's world but the opposite. For example, there are still many unresolved bugs in WinXP... that will never get fixed.

My vision of an OS is: a some kind of a "bar" or a menu system for starting apps and some kind of a file manager. There has to be some kind of a control panel for everything system related and that's IT. Nothing else. Ideally it shouldn't be bigger than maybe a 50-100MB... just a core OS, I mean. Then you install all the apps of your choice that you need, ideally in separate folders [no install, no having apps in 3-5 different folders and no fu****g registry!], actually then you could have all those apps somewhere on a flash key, you just copy them in your newly installed OS and they would just work! No install and no setting up anything because all your data is already there in those folders! You could have all your apps and data together wherever you go, for years and years without ever having to install anything or import/export anything. What I described here is pretty much "Damn Small Linux" which I adore... except this "one folder" policy :/ that would be fantastic to have... oh maaaan, just fantastic!

Why is such a simple and straightforward OS so complicated and hard to accomplish I really don't know . I hate MicroSoft's totally moronic corporate guts...

I feel better now.

Cheers!

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by DuX

<long post, see above>

I guess your not, then

Glad you're feeling better now

Ciao

[JHughes]

I agree with everything Dux said.

The best thing that has happened to PC's in a LONG time is the flash drive. Because of that, people started converting regular multi-folder apps into single folder apps. So when I see a program I need, I try to find a portable version of it for my desktop. The only tradeoff I sometimes see is longer startup times. But what a relief when there is no long winded installation, no menus created, no registry entries...

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by JHughes

So when I see a program I need, I try to find a portable version of it for my desktop. The only tradeoff I sometimes see is longer startup times. But what a relief when there is no long winded installation, no menus created, no registry entries...

Same here, I (try to) exclusively install portable applications, especially on my DAW laptop (which is driven by DuX' AO XP, and will remain so for a long time). I only wish all VST plugin developers would acknowledge this also. Some of them that are useful has to be installed through the Windows installer service, and this is really a PITA...

Just give me the dll to drop in the folder of my choice, thank you...

The reason I asked about Win 7 is that my job is buying me a new laptop with 64-bit Win 7, and I wanted some info about stripping this one down to its bones (almost) for DAWing, and I hoped DuX had some hints. But alas... I will have tinker on my own (if at all necessary).

[DuX]

I'm expecting posts like this soon:

Reaper User: "I'm having a problem with Reaper... it doesn't do this or that and then it crashes... Why is that? "

Me: What is your system specs?

Reaper User: "I'm running a brand new Intel 8 core with 16GB of RAM and Windows 7. It's a fabulous computer ".

Me: I'm sure it's a fabulous computer, but it would be much more fabulous and more stable if you got rid of that Windowstein and Install XP. It would also run faster. In my experience, brand new computers run fabulously only with older systems since the days of first Windows 95 and Pentiums I.
--------
We've been through similar stuff when XP and Vista came out... and there's always some partypooper who claims his brand new computer with brand new Vista, or XP at the time, is working brilliantly. "Brand new" being the key word for him meaning "brand new works better" and for me meaning "brand new works crappy". Weird, my experiences with Vista and first XP were only rather negative in most aspects. Upgrading just for the sake of change is not very wise, especially when you're dealing with Microsoft's Windowsteins... and does anyone think MS gives a rat's arse about how their Windows perform with audio? They don't. They're happy when their Windows don't lag too much with Internet Explorer, Office 2010 and games... everything else - they don't care and rightfully so - 95% of Windows users need just the aforementioned stuff.

So don't expect any progress for the faster and more stable. Everything else [unimportant], though, you *will* get - new animations, different looking start menu, many different names... you know - the "important" stuff that microsoft always changes in their "new" systems in order to look like they've made soooo many changes, but on the inside it's just plain old NT+bloat[W2K]+bloat[XP]+bloat[Vista]+bloat[W7]... Microsoft did the same thing so many times and people still don't get it . Yawn. I'm with them since DOS times and I know what I'm talking about. The only really revolutionary change happened when they dropped W98 "DOS shell" based system very similar to Windows 3.11 in favour of NT based system that was Windows 2000 which was actually more bloated and just redesigned good ole Windows NT. What is also apparent, they like to call their "new" OS' differently every time, so users would think they've coded a brand new OS. So instead of Windows 2001 we got XP, instead of Windows 2006 we got Vista etc. Their PR people gotta get paid for something... eh?

What they should of done instead is developing the "core" - Kernel and runtimes, getting rid of bugs and leave the GUI and names of things alone so we don't have to learn them again every time.

When Microsoft makes a system that runs faster and more stable than the one before I will be the first to install it... and I'm gonna start going to church on every Sunday, too. So no, I don't believe it can happen, not 1%. And there's no need to be sad about it - there's OS-X which looks much better under the hood than any of the Microsoft's Windowsteins.

Cheers!

[DuX]

Fabian, if you have the time and patience, it would be nice if you could test Windows 7 for a few days. Don't erase it immediately. Try it and see how it works... post some impressions. Then install XP and see how your brand new laptop flies with an older system.

I always enjoy that feeling. I downgraded a dozen of laptops from Vista to XP and not one customer said anything in favour of Vista. We also agreed that Vista looks better, that is undeniable, but looks is just that - looks... you have no real benefit from better looking OS when it comes to deadlines or doing a 12h mixing session, you know. The only real benefit comes from stable and fast system, plain and simple.

Cheers!

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by DuX

Fabian, if you have the time and patience, it would be nice if you could test Windows 7 for a few days. Don't erase it immediately. Try it and see how it works... post some impressions. Then install XP and see how your brand new laptop flies with an older system.

I will test it, for sure. Throwing out Win 7 from it is probably not possible though; it's not really my computer. Maybe double-booting with XP, though...

Originally Posted by DuX

I always enjoy that feeling. I downgraded a dozen of laptops from Vista to XP and not one customer said anything in favour of Vista. We also agreed that Vista looks better, that is undeniable, but looks is just that - looks... you have no real benefit from better looking OS when it comes to deadlines or doing a 12h mixing session, you know. The only real benefit comes from stable and fast system, plain and simple.

Yes, also I have avoided Vista like the plague. I bought a new laptop last year and payed extra to have it come with XP. I also re-installed my sisters Vista laptop with XP and she's happy. Last year I paid extra for a laptop to get it with XP. However, when it comes to Win 7, people seem quite satisfied (people I trust on this, that is), so I am actually looking forward to get this new Win 7 machine to see what it's all about. I will report back. Maybe I'll double boot with XP just for comparison (and the fun of it, of course )

[DuX]

To tell you the truth I'm not as sceptic about Windows 7, either, but we shall know everything soon. In any case I wouldn't consider using it before at least SP1 is out, judging from all the previous experiences. Windows 2000 and Windows XP both work best with their last service packs. Windows 2000 appealed to me after SP4 and Windows XP after SP3 was out. Yeah, I've been using XP for only like 2 years now.

[seymsag]

For some reason, on this optimised xp, Reaper uses only one core of the t7200 in my laptop.I can force it to use the other core through task manager, so all of the cores are properly detected.

This causes major performance issues.This wasn't the case with xp home.

Any advices?

I use it with amp modeling software like wagner sharp, lecab, etc.; and I have 2gbs of ram installed.

[matic]

So, I think this has been asked before, but, is there anyway to make this work with an OEM license?

I can't believe there are this many people out there with retail licenses... I only ever get a Microsoft OS if I buy a computer that has it

[Fabian]

Originally Posted by seymsag

For some reason, on this optimised xp, Reaper uses only one core of the t7200 in my laptop.I can force it to use the other core through task manager, so all of the cores are properly detected.

This causes major performance issues.This wasn't the case with xp home.

Any advices?

Sorry no help, but I can just say that this is not the expected behavior. Does not work like that on my laptop, Dell Vostro 1510, Intel Core 2 DUO T5870. So may be some setting in the prefs.

[Bob Headroom]

Hi all

Time’s up for a fresh install now, but before I do I wondered if DuX or anyone else can help with a couple of things?

1. There’s been talk over the last few pages of a brand spanking new DuXP (Version 3). No talk of late though…….. Is this still in the pipeline, and if so, how soon is it likely to be here?

2. DuX discusses nvidia graphics cards drivers a few posts ago. I have a 9600GT, the latest driver for which is 191.07. Should I go for that driver or use an older one? And if so, which driver should I use?

3. I know the latest DuXP has all updates/hotfixes up to Feb. 09 included. Is it worth installing those that have been released since? And where’s the best place to find out what updates have been released?

4. One last small thing. In the absence of WMP, can anyone recommend a decent freeware video player?

Cheers

Max

[Obitheincredible]

Check out portableapps.com and download VLC Player.

[DuX]

Media Player Classic HomeCinema and VLC player have most of the codecs in them and play almost everything by themselves. Excellent media players, although I prefer MPC-HC because it's smaller and starts faster.

I see the thread has become alive again...

Long time no see. I haven't been around lately, maybe it's time to change that. It coincides with Reaper version 3 becoming reliable as version 2, it seems, but + a lot of nice features.

Is any of you guys on Facebook? )

Cheers!

[JHughes]

I use KMPlayer. I forget why I quit using VLC, I think there was some file it wouldn't play one day, in spite of it supposedly being able to play everything.

[Bob Headroom]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'm going to try them all out before re-formatting my HD and see which I prefer. Aside from design and options, etc. should I compare them for picture quality or are they all likely to give the same picture quality?

DuX - good to hear from you. Not on Facebook I'm afraid.....

Any help on the other questions raised would be muchly appreciated.

[DuX]

Picture quality depends on the codec used [DivX, H264, XviD...?] and on the video rendering engine. In MPC you can choose between many rendering engines like Overlay [hardware], DirectX7, DirectX9 or D3D. Overlay is most likely to give you the best picture quality, but that, on the other hand, depends on the drivers. In my experience, with nVidia drivers, overlay is the best as it gives you no tearing artefacts and uses less CPU as many functions get accelerated through GPU.

Cheers!

[JHughes]

Dux makes good points. That said the quality differences between players should be indistinguishable if they exist at all. After that there may be options to sharpen, etc. but those don't count.

The important thing to me is to find a player that does not require codecs to be installed. Those can (I didn't say will) mess up your system. I prefer a player where the codecs are built in and self contained. VLC, KMPLayer and BSPlayer all qualify.

http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14938
http://www.bsplayer.org/

[seymsag]

Originally Posted by seymsag

For some reason, on this optimised xp, Reaper uses only one core of the t7200 in my laptop.I can force it to use the other core through task manager, so all of the cores are properly detected.

This causes major performance issues.This wasn't the case with xp home.

Any advices?

I use it with amp modeling software like wagner sharp, lecab, etc.; and I have 2gbs of ram installed.

I forgot to mention that I use an emu 0202 usb interface.

[seymsag]

It occured to me that the problem may have arised because of ffdshow, when I first run Reaper it asked me if I wanted to use ffdshow with it and because of curiosity I accepted.

My new hdd will arrive some time next week and I will keep you informed after a fresh instal of nlited xp.

[Bob Headroom]

Any further thoughts or responses to questions 1 to 3, which I raised at Post #187???

[seymsag]

Originally Posted by seymsag

It occured to me that the problem may have arised because of ffdshow, when I first run Reaper it asked me if I wanted to use ffdshow with it and because of curiosity I accepted.

My new hdd will arrive some time next week and I will keep you informed after a fresh instal of nlited xp.

Performance is much better now, without ffdshow.Though I realised that Reaper was never using two cores to process fxs realtime, and allowing multiprocessing of live input isn't very desirable for low latencies.I wonder if it would help if Reaper had an option to choose which fx is processed by which core.

I am asking this because a vst I really like has a cpu load of more than %20, it would be nice if I could adjust reaper so it uses second core for that vst while using the other for the rest.

[Anton Farmer]

My vision of an OS is: a some kind of a "bar" or a menu system for starting apps and some kind of a file manager. There has to be some kind of a control panel for everything system related and that's IT. Nothing else. Ideally it shouldn't be bigger than maybe a 50-100MB... just a core OS, I mean. Then you install all the apps of your choice that you need, ideally in separate folders [no install, no having apps in 3-5 different folders and no fu****g registry!], actually then you could have all those apps somewhere on a flash key, you just copy them in your newly installed OS and they would just work! No install and no setting up anything because all your data is already there in those folders! You could have all your apps and data together wherever you go, for years and years without ever having to install anything or import/export anything.

Oh yes - please, please, please!

Is it really too much to ask that one those clever 'code writing' type folks could actually make this happen?

I know it seems like fun to have all the gadgets to play with on your PC but for serious work computers i.e. music PCs etc. all you need is an OS that is stable, fast and works!

Thanks again DuX for your hard work and sharing it with us on here - my new Quad-Core is rock solid running DuXP3 and boots within a few seconds

Thanks again

Cheers
Anton

[DuX]

Originally Posted by Max Dread

Any further thoughts or responses to questions 1 to 3, which I raised at Post #187???

Sorry Max, I got carried away and forgot.

1. Yes! It's just that it's not gonna be a substantial update. I would just like to change a few things I've noticed users have been having problems with.

2. 186.18 is the final WHQL of the 18x.xx line and therefore should be the one most stable. 19x.xx line should be given some time to get there.

3. All the updates since the February deal with OS/network security issues and there aren't much - 40 in my update folder. I'm installing them as they come out. First and the biggest bunch were critical patches from September, then some in October and a few in November. I haven't noticed any changes that concerns us DAWers. For all interested, it's easy to install these patches by downloading a little update program from www.windowsupdatesdownloader.com so you can update your Windows manually with every patch that's been released since. Unfortunately, the little program needs .NET so I'm running it in a VM [Virtual Machine OS] as I don't have it in my main OS and I use Linux on my other Computer. VM is a great thing for those who want their OS to stay clean of garbage and you can have it for free from Microsoft, just google "Microsoft Virtual Machine".

Cheers!

[Bob Headroom]

No worries mate. Thanks for replying.

1. So do you think we are talking days, weeks, months?

2. Here:

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/winxp...2_whql_uk.html

it says that the latest driver (195.62) is WHQL. Or is that not what you meant?

3. Cool......I'll look into that for my General OS, but maybe not bother for my DAW only partition.

Cheers

Max

[Simple Simon]

Originally Posted by DuX

Try ripping out the "Oobe" - Out Of The Box Experience.
It will make your "out of the box experience" much better .

Just as a matter of pure academic interest (of course), can anyone explain exactly how to do this?