Building an Ultimate XP Bootdisk
So, as Windows XP is moving towards end-of-life, I’m collecting together bits and pieces of software and consolidating them together into a nice bundle. Why? Because that software might become unavailable at some point in the future — and not only is my hardware not doing Vista, but there’s a slew of old software that probably wouldn’t play nice with Vista anyways. Old software is the sole reason I’m not a Linux-only guy anymore (Wine couldn’t quite cut it for me). If Vista broke that software, it would pretty much completely defeat the point of having Windows at all. :)
I’m going to be scouring the Microsoft website (and to a much lesser extent, the Internet at large) looking for interesting freebies to put on my disk. Furthermore, I’ll be analyzing and tweaking installers to get them to deploy silently and to the location that I want. The end-result will be a DVD with the latest XP + patches, with automatic installation of all the goodies I happen to dredge up (disk imaging is too fragile for my taste; auto-installation might be slower, but it’s more robust).
I’ll do my best to include all the links, (self-written) scripts, and step-by-step instructions for how to build your very own version of the disk.
2 Responses to “Building an Ultimate XP Bootdisk”
Posted: May 16th, 2008 at 01:41
Travis, That’s a very sensible approach to shielding your self from future Redmond clusterf*cks.
I run some old software that is central to my business as a painter, so I sympathise with this idea of maintaining a time capsule computer.
The fly in the ointment is whether manufacturers will keep on writing drivers for XP much beyond 5 years after MS abandons support for the platform. You might have to lay in supplies of peripheral hardware that will last you until you die!
Keep us posted on this project, it sounds interesting!
Posted: May 16th, 2008 at 01:54
Ah, well, you can always install it on a virtual PC if you’re in a pinch. Worst comes to worst, x86 + Intel Pro Ethernet + Sound Blaster and generic IDE should be emulated for a long time to come. :)