Microsoft/Windows/XP

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computing: operating systems: Windows: XP

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Related Articles

• Windows Genuine Advantage
• Windows XP EULA

Technical Issue Reports

• 2006-11-06 mouse wheel settings tab missing

Links

• NTLDR is Missing error message at boot
• Windows XP Privilege Escalation Exploit (2006-06-05)

Maintenance

The following drivers tend to cause problems if you allow Windows Update to automatically update them:

• nVidia Vanta
• nVidia Riva

In most cases, you can do a Repair on XP from the CD (key required) and get the system back without losing applications – unless they managed to corrupt the registry. (QBFreak has learned not to replace the SYSTEM hive and expect anything to work right.)

The Recovery option is NOT the Recovery Console presented at the first screen of the boot CD. Choose Install Windows XP (should be ENTER) and agree to the EULA (F8), then you will be prompted to select a destination partition, you can select the existing install and press R to repair it.

Notes

Recommendations from a couple of XP admins (2007-05-30):

• QBFreak: generally I select all of the critical except IE7 (but thats most likely already there), and then all of the optional that say "Update for Windows XP" as well as the Root Certificates update, but half this stuff you'll only see on a new system
• Bill usually, eh, waits a couple of months and turns on auto updates, lets it do it's thing (MOSTLY) and turns it off
• Bill: thus far i've avoided the windows "OMG TEH EVIL" software removal program
• QBFreak: I rarely install driver updates, but if you do avoid any nvidia drivers, there is only one that is a problem but I forgot what it was (update: nVidia Vanta driver)... basically it no worky, and you rollback and windows ends up with the resolution at the max the card can handle, and naturally your monitor cannot. Very annoying. (I also forgot how to fix that :) )
• Bill: i just update drivers from the manufacturer's web sites
• QBFreak: yeah
• QBFreak does a lot of fresh installs and thus sees these updated drivers a lot... especially if I couldn't find one initially
• Bill: well, i think that most people just allow all the automatic stuff to work, and it just kinda works ... *shrug* and they don't worry about it

They also recommended signing up for the Windows Secrets newsletter in order to learn what to avoid.