Sean Henderson Dot Com

The scenario is all too familiar.  You buy a laptop at the store because it was cheap, it was on sale, or maybe you just went ahead and blew two grand on it.  You get home, open it up, and are greeted by a myriad of startup programs and trial software.  The machine runs mediocre or maybe even slow.  You wish you could make the machine run faster but you don’t know how.  This is about the point in time that I receive a phone call from some random person asking me to clean up their new laptop in exchange for money, food, or liquor.  So, what’s the trick?  I’ve been asked by so many people that I decided to write a guide to get you started.  I’m writing this just weeks before the official launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft’s next generation Operating System, so this will be outdated for sure in the near future.  This guide covers Windows XP only.  In this exercise, I bought a cheap Toshiba laptop and three commercial pieces of software
to do the job.  (I got a second more expensive laptop to double check my article.)  Believe me, this is not rocket science as some might think.  Let’s get started now shall we?

This guide makes use of the following items:

• A brand new Toshiba Satellite laptop (approximately $500)
• A second Toshiba Satellite laptop (over $1000)
• External USB hard drive ($200 or less)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition SP2 OEM (approximately $150)
• Acronis True Image 9 ($50)
• Driver Magician 2.8 ($30)

A quick summary of what I’m about to do:

• Identify the problem with this new laptop
• Backup the laptop with Acronis
• Backup the drivers with Driver Magician
• Wipe the laptop and install Windows XP Pro clean
• Restore the drivers
• Optimize the cleanly installed Windows XP Pro

Section I: Overview of the Problem

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A picture says a thousand words.  This first glance screen shot shows 58 programs hogging 279MB of ram (the more expensive laptop had 74 programs).  There are about a dozen or so icons in the System Tray.  The desktop is littered with advertisements for Office 2003 trial, America Online 9 badware, eBay, broadband providers, Yahoo Music, Buy at Toshiba Direct, MSN, and various Google apps.  After a few moments, I get a popup for McAfee trying to sell me software upgrades (McCrappy Antivirus).  Nice! I’ve had the laptops open less than five minutes and I’m already being hit with advertisements.  I suspect that maybe these advertisers pay the laptop makers money to insert their software into new PCs with the hope that some people will buy into these offers, thereby allowing laptop makers to sell at a lower price.  In any event, all this garbage is bogging down the new laptop.  What should we
do about this nuisance?  Wipe it!  But before doing so, we should back up the computer just incase something goes wrong.

McCrappy Antivirus Ad

74 running programs! click the picture to view it full size

 

Section II: Backup the Laptop with Acronis

First I’m going to backup the computer with Acronis True Image 9.  By doing this, I can always restore the laptop to its original state if I want to return it to the store (which I probably will).  Acronis will create an image of all the data on the new computer’s hard drive.  We need a place to store the image that has more free space than the total size of the new computer’s hard drive.  For this, I’m using a 500GB external USB 2.0 drive.  This section is optional; you don’t have to do it unless you want to.  Also, Acronis is not the only solution to this; Alternatively you may also want to try Symantec Norton Ghost or PowerQuest Drive Image.

examples of external 500GB drives:

Cavalry CAUE37500 3.5" External Module Hard Drive With 7200RPM 500GB USB 2.0

Western Digital My Book Premium 500 GB External Hard Drive with Dual Interface ( WDG1C5000N )
 

Step 0: Buy and Install Acronis True Image 9, and plug in your external USB hard drive.

Step 1: Start the Acronis True Image application

Step 2: Click Backup from the Task List


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Step 3: The "Welcome to the Create Backup Wizard" dialog opens.  Click Next>

Step 4: Select "The entire disk contents or individual partition" option.  Click Next>


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Step 5: Tick the checkbox for Disk1 or C:.  This is the hard drive we are backing up.  Click Next>


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Step 6: Save the image file to the external hard drive by typing in a File name.  In my case, I called it "E:\toshiba.tib" where E is the drive letter for my USB hard drive and toshiba.tib is the name of the image I’m about to create.  Click Next>


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Step 7: Select "Create new full backup archive" option.  Click Next>

Step 8: Select "Use default options" option.  Click Next>

Step 9: Type something in Archive Comments to describe the image.  Click Next>

Step 10: The details of the backup are shown.  Click Proceed to begin the backup.


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Section III: Backup the drivers with Driver Magician

I’m about to use Driver Magician 2.8 to backup all the device drivers on the computer.  If you have a computer that is older than 2001 which meets the minimum requirements of Windows XP, then this step is probably not necessary since XP would automatically find all of the drivers.  In most cases though, XP will not find all the drivers.  Backing them up with Driver Magician will save us the hassle of having to install them one by one or search all over the internet for missing ones.

Step 0: Buy and Install Driver Magician 2.8

Step 1: Click the dropdown next to Backup and select "Search Non-Microsoft Drivers" from the menu.


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Step 2: Tick all the checkboxes next to the red drivers you want to backup (the non-Microsoft drivers are shown in red).  Click Start Backup.


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Step 3: Select a folder to backup the drivers to.  Click OK.  (Note here that I have created a folder "E:\toshiba_driver_backup" ahead of time)

Step 4: Driver Magician asks you if you want to continue backing up to the folder you just selected. Click OK

Step 5: Allow a few moments for the program to find and backup the drivers. When Congratulations comes up, close Driver Magician.

Section IV: Wipe the Laptop and Clean Install Windows XP Pro

This section is about wiping the laptop and doing a clean install of Windows XP Pro.  What exactly does that mean?  Quite simply, wiping your computer means erasing everything off it completely.  Doing a clean install of Windows means that you’re installing Windows from scratch with no programs or crap whatsoever.  Think of this process like changing the oil in your car for example.  You dump out the old nasty oil and replace it with fresh new oil.  Easy.

Make sure the computer can boot from CD-ROM before the hard drive (Skip to Step 3 if your computer is already set to boot from CD-ROM)

Preliminary Step 1: First we have to get into the computer’s BIOS. On many computers, this is usually done by pressing F1, F2, or Delete when the computer is first turned on (some computers have different keys). This first black screen that comes up is usually referred to the POST screen (POST stands for Power On Self Test). Usually at the bottom of the POST screen, it will tell you what button to press to enter SETUP.

Example of a POST Screen.  Notice the "Press DEL to enter SETUP"

Preliminary Step 2: Once you find the correct button to press, press it to enter the BIOS Setup. Various computers have different BIOS setups. Use the keyboard to move around until you find the boot order. Once you find it, make sure it is set to boot from CD-ROM before Hard drive. Usually there will be instructions on the right side indicating how you move the CD-ROM up and the the Hard Drive down.  If the computer does not have a floppy drive, then make sure the CD-ROM Drive is at the very top of the list.  Once you are finished, make sure to Exit Saving Changes.

Step 1: Insert the Windows XP SP2 OEM CD into the CD-ROM.  If you set the computer to boot from CD properly, than you should be prompted with "Press any key to boot from CD…"  When you see this, press a key on the keyboard.

Step 2: Setup takes a few moments to load drivers and the installer. When "Welcome to Setup" appears, you should see an option for "To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER." Press Enter.

Step 3: "Windows XP Licensing Agreement" appears. Press F8 to agree to it.  (I’m assuming you’ve read it and if not, your lawyer has.)

Step 4: The next screen will tell you that a Windows XP installation is damaged and will give you the option to repair it. We want to wipe this clean instead. Press ESC to continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing.

Step 5: The next screen shows a list of partitions. Our goal here is to delete all the partitions, then create a new one. Start by highlighting C: Partition1 [NTFS], then press D to delete it.

Step 6: A warning message appears. Press ENTER.

Step 7: A confirmation message comes up. Press L to delete the partition.

Step 8: When finished, you should see only one item in the list labeled "Unpartitioned space". If the computer has multiple partitions, repeat Steps 5-7 for each partition until there are none left.

Step 9: Press C to create a partition.

Step 10: The next screen will ask you to enter a size. Just leave whatever the default is and press ENTER.

Step 11: Now you’ll see C: Partition1 [New (Raw)]. Highlight that, and press ENTER to install.

Step 12: Highlight "Format the partition using the NTFS file system" and press ENTER to continue. Setup will format the hard drive (wiping it clean). Then it will copy over installation files. Finally it will reboot. This may take several minutes. After the reboot, don’t press any key to boot from CD. Just allow it load Windows Setup. After it boots back up, you’ll wait until there are about 33 minutes remaining before a dialog pops up.

Step 13: Regional and Language Options appears. Click Next>

Step 14: Enter your name and your company. Click Next>

Step 15: Enter your product key. This is located on the COA label that came with the copy of Windows XP Pro. Click Next>

Step 16: Enter a computer name. You may also set a password if you want. Click Next>

Step 17: Select the correct Timezone and make sure the time is set correctly. Click Next>

Step 18: If Windows does not recognize your network card, it will skip the Networking settings in which case goto Step 20. Otherwise, when you see the Network Settings dialog, select Typical Settings, and click Next>

Step 19: Leave it set to WORKGROUP. You can change this later. Click Next>

Step 20: Setup will continue installing files. This will take several minutes.

Step 21: After rebooting a second time, Windows will greet you with a Welcome wizard to setup your computer. You can use this to create users if you like. I usually just skip it and go straight to Administrator by holding in the power button for five seconds until the machine shuts off, then turning it back on.

Windows XP Pro SP2 is now installed.  The last thing I do before removing the Windows XP CD from the CD-ROM tray is set it up so that Windows never asks for the CD ever again.  This is very easy to do in two steps: Copy the i386 folder from the CD (D:\) to the local hard drive (C:\), then run cabpath.vbs to change the install dir from D:\ to C:\.  Do this:

Step 1: Right-click the Start button and select Explore from the popup menu.  This opens Windows Explorer.  Click (D:) in the left pane to show the CD contents in the right pane (where D is the drive letter of your CD-ROM).  Click and drag the I386 folder from the CD and drop it on Local Disk (C:).  This will copy the I386 folder from the Windows XP CD to your hard drive.  This will take a few minutes.


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Step 2: Download cabpath.vbs and open it.  Change the path to "C:\" (without the quotes), then click OK.

If you’re having trouble doing this part, check out the "Insert CD" fix article; I think that’s where I got this idea from originally.

Section V: Restore The Drivers

Step 0: Install Driver Magician 2.8

Step 1: Run the Driver Magician program

Step 2: Click the Restore button and navigate to the folder we backed up the drivers too.

Step 3: Tick all the Checkboxes for all the drivers, click Start Restore.


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Step 4: Click OK to the warning message that restoring drivers will freeze up the machine for awhile.
(note: in some cases, a dialog may come up asking you to insert some CD to find a file. There’s a good chance the files are all in the backup folder, so look around in there. also, windows may complain that a driver has not passed some certification rubbish. always continue anyway)

Step 5: Reboot when your finished.

In the event that some devices are not found, you may have to go to the manufacturer’s website or hunt down the driver on a site such as Driver Guide.

Section VI: Optimize the cleanly installed Windows XP Pro

By now, you are at a point where the laptop is usable.  Before I finish, I like to go through and tweak it a bit to optimize the laptop for speed.  When I finish, the computer will look like Windows 98 in the sense that I’ll get rid of anything that may slow down the performance of the machine including the blue theme.  Also note, that I have written this guide specifically for a person whose laptop I recently worked on that requested I write this guide.  Some of the parts may be biased so beware.  This part may be done differently by different computer people.  If anyone disagrees with anything I write in this section or has suggestions for anything I may have left out, please leave comments.  Rather than go step by step, I’m simply going to list a series of things I did to the new laptop.

Get rid of Windows XP Tour. 

• Click on the little icon for Windows XP Tour, then click Cancel from the dialog that comes up.

  

Get rid of Security Center Tray Icon. 

• Double click the little red shield tray icon to open Windows Security Center. 
• Click "Change the way security center alerts me." 
• In the Alert Settings dialog, uncheck Firewall, uncheck Automatic Updates, uncheck Virus Protection, then click OK. 
• The red shield will disappear immediately.
  

Optimize Display Properties.

• Open Display Properties from the Control Panel or open it by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting properties.
  

• Click the Themes Tab.
• Click the Theme dropdown and select "Windows Classic" from the list.
• Click the Desktop Tab.
• Set the Background to None.  (This will speed up the boot up of the computer since windows won’t have to load a picture into memory.)
• Click the Screen Saver Tab.
• Turn off the Screen Saver: Click the dropdown under Screen saver and select (None) from the list.
• Click the Power… button to open the Power Options Properties
• Under the Power Schemes Tab, set all three options for Plugged in, to Never.  That is, set Turn off monitor to Never, set Turn off hard disks to Never, and set System standby to Never.  For Running on Batteries, I set them a little different to conserve on power.  Set Turn off monitor to After 2 mins, set Turn off hard disks to After 5 mins, set System standby to Never.
  

• Click the Hibernate Tab.
• Untick the Enable Hibernation checkbox.
• Click OK to close and save the Power Options Properties.
• Now your back to the Screensaver Tab of the Display Properties dialog.  Click the Appearance Tab.
• Click Effects to open the Effects dialog.
• Untick all the checkboxes, then click OK.
  

• click OK again to save and close the Display Properties.

Taskbar Properties

• Right click the taskbar and select Properties from the popup menu.
• Under the Taskbar Tab, Untick the checkbox for "Hide inactive icons."
• Untick the checkbox for "Group similar taskbar buttons."
• Click the Start Menu Tab.
• Select the Classic Start Menu option, then click the Customize button next to Classic Start Menu.
• In the Customize dialog, scroll down and Untick the checkbox for Personalized Menus.
• Click OK to close the Customize dialog.
• Click OK to save and close Taskbar Properties.

Bring back good old Quick Launch

• Right click the Taskbar, and select Quick Launch from the Toolbars submenu.  This gives you the desktop and IE shortcuts as seen in Windows 98.
  

Setup Windows Explorer

• Right click the Start button and select Explore from the popup menu.  This opens Windows Explorer.
• In Windows Explorer, click the View menu and select Status Bar so it has a check by it.  Click the View menu again and select Details.
  

• Click the Tools menu and select Folder Options to open up the Folder Options dialog.
• In the Folder Options dialog under General tab, select "Use Windows classic folders" option.
  

• Click the View tab.
  • Select "Show hidden files and folders"
  • Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"
  • Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files"
  • Uncheck "Use simple file sharing"
    

  • Click Apply to All Folders, then choose Yes from the confirmation dialog.
  • Click OK to save and close Folder Options.
• Put a Shortcut to Windows Explorer on the QuickLaunch bar:  Navigate to C:\Windows on the left column.  Then in the right column, Scroll down until you find the Windows Explorer command (it looks like a folder icon.)  Click and drag the Windows Explorer command to the QuickLaunch bar and drop it next to the IE shortcut.  This makes it easy in the future to open Windows Explorer.
  

• Close Windows Explorer

Adjust for best performance

• Open System Properties by Right Clicking My Computer and selecting Properties from the popup menu (or find it in Control Panel).
• Click the Advanced tab.
• Under the Performance frame, Click the Settings button to the open Performance Options dialog.
• Under the Visual Effects tab, Click "Adjust for best performance."
• Click OK to save and close Performance Options.
• Click OK to close System Properties.

Disable DCOM vulnerability

• download DCOMbob from www.grc.com
• Run DCOMbob.exe.
• Click the "DCOMbobulate Me!" tab
• Click disable DCOM
• Close DCOMbob (without rebooting, you can reboot later).
  
  
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Disable Windows’s internal Spyware

• Download xp-antispy 3.72
• Run xp-antispy
• Check All the boxes, then click "Apply Settings."
• Leave "Clear pagefile at shutdown" unchecked if you want the computer to shutdown a little quicker.
• Leave "Disable auto-updates service" unchecked if you plan on using Windows Update for security updates.
• Leave Disable ZIP functionality if you don’t plan on installing WinRAR.  I highly recommend WinRAR.
  

Disable unnecessary Windows Services
Read the article I already wrote on this, or just download and run the registry script I’ve created based on BlackViper’s recommendations.

You can probably do any number of additional tweaks to make Windows XP scream.  I’ll let you use your imagination on that one.  Once your all finished tweaking the crap out of XP reboot the machine.

When I bought the laptop at Best Buy, the sales guy talked about having the Geek Squad run a bunch of optimization tweaks on the machine.  I looked into this a bit and found out they they use an in house tool called the MRI Customizer.  The current version at the time of this writing is 2.8.  They expire every so often, and then the headquarters issues them a newer version.  Lets take a look at this.

Running the Geek Squad MRI Customizer 2.8

Run customizer.exe (if the CD rom is not set to autorun).

If you work for the Geek Squad, then you must first agree to the terms of use.  If you do not work for the Geek Squad, then you must exit this program and skip this entire area.


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System Customization Tasks: This is an overview of all the tasks that Customizer will perform.  Install Antivirus and Antispyware are just automated installs for Trend Micro’s PC-Cillin Antivirus and Webroot’s SpySweeper antispyware applications.  Before using those, the customer has to have already purchased licenses for either application.  They are unchecked by default.


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Agent Tweaks: This step applies a series of optimizations for the computer that were organized by the Geek Squad in a registry file called agenttweaks.reg.


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Uninstall Unnecessary Applications: This is like a glorified Add/Remove programs from Control Panel.


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Shortcut Manager:  This deletes shortcuts from the desktop and Start Menu.


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Startup Manager:  This allows you to uncheck items that you don’t want to start up with the computer.  The less startup items you have, the faster the computer will boot up and perform.


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Services Manager:  This allows you to quickly disable any non-microsoft services that are running.  The less services you have running, the better your computer will perform.  Be careful though, some of these may be needed if you have antivirus applications installed.

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Windows Updates: This is clever.  Instead of downloading all the Windows Security updates off Windows Update, this tool installs them directly from files on the CD.  This saves time and uses no bandwidth whatsoever. 


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The MRI Customizer completes.


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After finishing all the optimizations, reboot the computer.  The last thing I do when I’m done is defragment the hard drive.  After this, the computer will be running as good as it will ever run.  It’s all downhill from here after installing programs and things that bog the machine down.  My final optimized computer has only 11 running programs using less than 70MB of memory.  If you open Task Manager, you will see there is no scrollbar.  If there is a scrollbar, then you probably have lots of running programs which slow down your computer.  This isn’t the most optimized it can get either.  If you want to really get crazy, run windows with no services at all.  I just like to keep mine running smooth.

John Chow might create some of the fastest computers the world has ever seen.  I just take ordinary computers and make them run as fast as they possibly can.  Does your new laptop run like a champ?  Mine does.