Edge Computing Division Users Forum

Works great. Easy to follow. No USB CD/DVD extra drive required. Allows many pre-install customizations.

Steps

1. Prepare OS image by using free nLite tool for XP (http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html) or its sibling vLite for Vista/Win7. For instance, I did with WinXP Prof SP2 CD-ROM (may be also a mounted image from the original distribution disk) with SP3 slipstreamed (downloaded from MS site). nLite has straightforward user interface with many customization options like serial number, machine, workgroup and administrator names, cut off services and other parts of OS. See on their site from the link provided. I don't recommend to integrate driver *.inf files as many drivers assume post-install setup and/or having their own setups with extra functionality - just keep things cleaner and less dependent on the target. In nLite Unattended mode section, I choose "Hide pages" setting. Save image as ISO.

2. Mount the custom image made from step 1 by any suitable tool like free Daemon Tools Lite (http://www.disk-tools.com/download/daemon). You'll need the mounted source in next step. Sure you also can use the image by directly burning it to a blank CD/DVD disk.

3. Prepare USB stick using free WinToFlash tool (http://wintoflash.com/overview/en/). It is even easier than nLite. Some data fields are the same as in nLite - I just re-typed those like serial key, etc.

4. Connect a monitor and keyboard to fit-PC with HDD/SSD inside, plug the USB stick from step 3. and enter F2 BIOS setup to select desired settings (for instance, I chosed 128 MB memory for video) and ensure the USB devices are listed before HDD/SSD in the boot sequence.

5. Proceed with normal text setup stage (1st item in multi-boot menu), there delete all HDD/SSD partitions if any, then create one and format it as NTFS - be careful as another drive listed is USB stick itself. As the result, I got system drive with assigned letter D: and USB stick will be C:

6. Keep USB stick in after reboot and proceed with 2nd item in multi-boot menu (that chosen by default). In case of error just check your boot sequence in BIOS - you have to still boot from USB stick in this step.

7. Complete the GUI part of installation as usual. Remove the stick and ensure the Windows will boot just fine.

8. The last step is installing custom drivers for fit-PC and extra programs you'll need. The same USB stick may be used to transfer those extras, I made the Extras directory with the drivers and other stuff after step 3.
First, install xp-chipset package. If you would like to use remote control like LogMeIn without a permanently attached monitor, install IEGD driver (http://www.fit-pc2.com/download/xp-drivers/). Then Ethernet or WiFi. It would be good idea to have free and universal 7z packager and DaemonToolsLite (GUI part can be set to run on demand) to have virtual CD/DVD drive in fit-PC. Tray bar CPU thermometer with possibility to send email alerts like SpeedFan (although it consumes a little too much memory for my liking) would finish the nice setup.

Very helpful post. thanks.

Do you have any suggestions for how to do this but using a clone of an existing fit-pc rather than a clean install of the OS? I was thinking of creating a disk image with Acronis and then loading that on to my new PC using a bootable USB stick but I imagine there might be easier ways to do it.

Thanks,

tim

You are welcome.
There are probably many ways to do this.
Depends on the software you want to use for that.
If you have the same capacity hard/solid disk, you may use for instance Paragon Hard Disk Manager to copy data/partition(s)...
On the other hand, to copy the working environment to several machines, you may prefer to prepare an image on a bootable USB stick... Many ways, I personally didn't needed this yet. Feel free to experiment and maybe put together a brief success story report here.

Hi all

Great tutorial.

I do have a question. Is it normal that it takes about 1.5h to copy the files? It is less then 1Gb.

Thanks

vince wrote:...Is it normal that it takes about 1.5h to copy the files? It is less then 1Gb. Thanks

You are welcome.

I don't remember how long it took. The main thing is it ends w/out errors. Slow copying may be due to lack of suitable drivers, but the end result is what matters in such kind of installations. Unless you are doing this on industrial level - then one would need a dedicated software to prepare disk(s) for the installation(s) first.

Ok this didn't work. I kept getting errors on install.

Alwasy in last 10% of the installation after 2hrs of copying.

So I ended up using Winsetupfromusb. I've used the latest stable version 0.2.3. http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/120444- ... -with-gui/

Using this tutorial http://duncsweb.com/2009/07/17/e-has-no ... not-valid/ everyting went like a charm.

Hope this helps.