OEM Windows XP MCE Version 2005

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm testing a C2D build, for which I purchased a 3-disc OEM installation of XP MCE version 2005.

Apparently, I missed installing the third disc. The "Control Panel" -> "System" -> "General" tab reports that I have version 2002, SP2. The SP2 update roll-up has been installed; the Windows Media Player 11 has been installed, as well as some security updates that came in through "Windows Update."

I finally sorted this out in re-examining the third disc -- which I had overlooked.

Attempting to install it, I get to the blue screen [not BSOD] in the installation, and as I continue and it almost completes unpacking the files from the EXE program on the CD, it tells me installation was unsuccessful, that it is rolling back the installation, and that I should "try again" after the system automatically reboots.

I'm thinking I should try to unpack the EXE file to hard disk with WinZip or WinRAR, and then look for a "Setup.exe" in the resulting folder.

Does anyone have insight on how I might resolve this problem? At this stage of testing, I could simply make a whole new install, followed by drivers and about fifteen stress-test and benchmark programs. IF I don't have to re-install the whole enchilada, and if there is a way to complete the installation of the third disc, it will save me a lot of trouble.

I was in the middle of other things, so I'm hoping that one of you has some insight or idea that will allow me to get over this hurdle without starting all over again.

Thanks --

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, for anyone who's interested -- keep in mind that we're at the dawn of the "Age of Vista" -- I was miffed by the convoluted way this version of XP installs as opposed to the "Pro" edition.

I went ahead and chose to "Repair" the existing installation. That saved my registry hives and programs, desktop with shortcuts -- the whole enchilada.

With Pro, you get one install disk. You're expected to update to SP2 unless SP2 had been included on that Pro disk.

With MCE, it asks you for an SP2 CDROM. Which means that you must extract the comprehensive "Administration" SP2, burn a CDROM with it, and move forward.

But if that's not enough, the XP MCE installation process halts to tell you it can't find certain files on that disc, so you have to "browse" it and search for those files. I'd been unable to install them two weeks ago on the first pass, exited the message boxes, and the install had continued from that point.

This time -- I got 'em. The MCE 2005 "disc 3" installed without a lot of trouble.

Since these OEM install kits were meant primarily for OEMs and since they never offered a retail version of XP MCE, one has to surmount these hurdles "hermetically," I suppose.

All is well.

 

[Raduque]

Sounds like you made things harder then it really was. "SP2 disk" referrs to Disk 1.

Edit: this is referring to the dos-based XP installer. It starts on disk 1, asks for disk 2, then asks for "SP2" which is disk 1 again.