Reinstalling XP tablet edition sans bloatware

[djscoggins]

I read in the sticky and followed the link to the sguide to reinstall XP tablet edition and make my X41 Tablet run faster but the links that describe how to make the install disk, and how to use my cd key for the software are all dead. Are there any other places I can look for this information or another guide alltogether?
Thanks

[djscoggins]

Is there no other source for this information? I did find a microsoft article on XP tablet deployment but im not sure if thats what i need.

[RealBlackStuff]

Try the Base Software Administrator
This lets you delete the bloatware from the Preload (does not work on all machines, though).

[Bibin]

If you find an OEM disc from another manufacturer, they will often work (except dell ones and a few others). That's what I did; it licensed and activated just fine on my X41T.

[fasteez]

I'm not sure to be on point but just in case

edit : you might prefer the IBM BSA way (as mentioned by RealBlackStuff) to stay in the thinkpad way of doing things.

A: prerequisites
- not beeing a total newbie (dont want to waste your time, nerves and/or data)
- having a running xp system
- having a genuine XP iso
- a usb key (or cdrw)
- get nlite (1)
- get eth drivers (2)
- get thinkvantage system update (TVSU) (3)
- get ninite (4)

edit : for Vista/Win7 users
- get Vista/Win7 drivers
- get vLite http://www.vlite.net/ ( never tried it though )
- get TVSU 4

B:
- use nlite to remove uneeded things from the original iso (there's a lot, )
- copy TVSU, the driver(s) and ninite exec on the usb (or cd)
- generate a new ( and probably very lightweight ) custom iso ; burn it.

C:
- install your custom iso : bare naked useless xp with network access
- then install TVSU and run it : hardware installed
- run the ninite thing, wait, enjoy : most of the mundane apps/utils installed in one click

D:
- up to you

All this is pretty commonly used so you can find tutorials/help easily, it's not complicated if you're used to burn iso, make archives, install drivers etc.

Having a naked custom xp surely helps responsiveness, startup times, and also trust a bit more your machine, since you know most of things that are installed; but it won't make xp fly twice as fast (unless your previous system was bloated)

have fun

(1) http://www.nliteos.com : used to customize/lighten the xp installation
(2) or any driver allowing to fetch other secondary things from the web, wifi for instance
(3) http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 66956.html
(4) http://ninite.com : select the things you like and download the proposed executable ( a small one that will retrieve everything later )

[crashnburn]

Nice outline. Gotta try this next time. Is there a similar thingy for Win 7?

[fasteez]

well it's almost the same except that you take vista/win7 versions of drivers, TVSU and vLite http://www.vlite.net/ (nlite for vista and children). Ninite is "version agnostic" since it's just a cute download-n-install.

I never tried it personally though (win7 is new so less time to mess it up, and recent machines don't beg for paranoid optimizations)

[djscoggins]

Thanks for the answers =)
In the meantime I have taken the plunge with Ubuntu 10.04, and man is it so much faster!
I am still trying to work out a few bugs(takes me a while I'm a total Linux noob) but I am so far very impressed. On the first boot Ubuntu recognized all of the hardware! And thanks to the incredible amount of resources online I have gotten the tablet functions up and running.
Thanks again!

[fasteez]

Linux is great but some things are a little bit harder to do ( undervolting ) than in windows.
If you're curious, you might like to try Linux Mint 9, based on Ubuntu but more multimedia friendly (and I find it even faster)

Have fun