MCE install - @_@

subway

good lord,
i forgot how much hassle this is.

why does it come on 2 discs?
why do you have to change discs twice?
why is ru2 not incuded in the install?
why do you need to download and install about 200megs of updates before you can install ru2?

ahhhhhhhhhhh.
everytime i walk away and come back its paused or rebooting or just complaining.
is there a way to slipstream this or something?

8T8

why does it come on 2 discs?

The second CD is just over 250MB in size and the first CD is 580MB so even a 700MB CD would not be enough to hold all the data. As for a DVD MS officially wont be doing that till Vista but it is possible to make your own MCE 2005 DVD that is boot able and can install the OS from.

why do you have to change discs twice?

Dont really know I presume the second swap is needed for something maybe it's just a security check.

why is ru2 not included in the install?

More recent versions of MCE at retail come with the RU2 on a separate CD so yes you get three discs! if MS were to integrate all the updates into it the install they would have to introduce a new SKU and as they don't really focus on the retail of MCE 2005 it doesn't matter to them. Because the OEM's and system builders "should" in practice integrate the RU2 update into the media PC's they sell.

why do you need to download and install about 200megs of updates before you can install ru2?

Because the RU2 is designed to install on a certain build of MCE only after downloading all the updates that upgrade the stock MCE to the required build will it allow to be installed.

is there a way to slipstream this or something?

Yes nLite allows you to slipstream various updates into Windows & build a new ISO from that. I have not used it with MCE so I do not know the details but a quick check on their forum showed this thread that deals with integrating RU2. Some more tips here in general about MCE 2005 & nLite.

subway

cheers for the reply
i was actually just having a little rant.

the machine im rebuilding was only up about 2 weeks so hadnt gotten around to ghosting it yet.

Smoggy

i believe there is a release with sp2 on it, which will cut down on the updates.

subway

thats the one i have.
2 discs are mce with sp2.

the other disc is ru2.
i figured out what was annoying me so much.

only after downloading all the updates that upgrade the stock MCE to the required build will it allow to be installed.

why is ru2 not a cumilitive patch?
it couldnt have been that hard at the time of release to add the currently requreid updates onto the disc.

8T8

Nope it's not cumulative, a few things have to be installed beforehand as well as the .NET framework (which doesnt come supplied with any retail release of WinXP as far as I know).

hshortt

You can get Vista RC1 now if you have the hardware to support it, at least this will be a single install (for the moment!)

http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc1/en/download.htm

Cheerio
Howard

8T8

Just downloaded it last night :cool:

I already had the PRE-RC1 build on my HTPC was getting lots of audio stuttering errors on live tv but videos were fine.

What was also interesting to note was that the EPG guide was no longer missing some of it's entries like BBC2 vs the XP MCE guide, curious as to why.

About to give install the RC1 on it today anyway so I hope the audio bug doesn't resurface I sent the automated crash report to MS in the hope they catch it.

subway

i dont think my machine will support vista.
p4 2.4, 512mb ddr 226, geforce 6200 128mb
any ideas if that would be stable?

i ran vista on an athlon 1800, 768mb ddr 400 and the same 6200 and i could barely open files with it.

8T8

subway wrote:

i dont think my machine will support vista.
p4 2.4, 512mb ddr 226, geforce 6200 128mb
any ideas if that would be stable?

i ran vista on an athlon 1800, 768mb ddr 400 and the same 6200 and i could barely open files with it.

It should be okay, try the RC1 if you want to, from reports it is much better than the Beta 2 build & runs a lot better on older systems.

A cheap improvement that would certainly help were if you upped the RAM to 1GB on each system. Doesn't have to be uber-RAM any of the cheapest & nasty stuff will do (I have 2GB in my HTPC running on awful timings). Everything else is fine by the looks of it I have a GeForce 6150 in my HTPC and the interface was very snappy on the pre-RC1 build & it was using shared system RAM.

subway

what kind of processor are you running with?

SouperComputer

p4 2.4, 512mb ddr 226, geforce 6200 128mb
any ideas if that would be stable?

Should be fine when vista is actualy released. The prereleses contain a lot of debug code (Natrually enough) and as a result are more sluggish than one would expect.

subway

well rc1 appeared yesterday,
probably only a month or to before rtm so id say this is how its going to be.

8T8

I would say there will definitely be another public release, I think it would be too soon for RTM at this stage seeing as MS have been saying something like January 07 for it's release.

Anyway to answer your previous question the CPU is an Athlon 64 3000+ so obviously it has a bit of power behind it but the rest of the components are not all the great.

I'd say give the RC1 a go with temporary 1GB in the system salvaged from another PC and see how it fairs.

My own impression after installing the RC1 build on my HTPC this afternoon with an external SATA HD was positive enough.

Here are some initial impressions;

• The audio bug I mentioned above was no longer present yay!
• Image quality on live TV subjectively seemed a little better
• TV guide has listings for formally missing channles under XP MCE though one or two are still empty they are not channles I ever watch so I'm not bothered about those.
• Faster at retrieving thumbnails of videos
• Skipping backwords & forwards between videos seemed more fluid
• Better caching of video thumbnails over networks
• I really do like the left to right scrolling video browsing system
• Interface is generally slicker but with pro's & con's over the older system
• Vista MCE is much faster to start
• A lot more tasks are available through the interface than before like burning to DVD and other features but this make the UI more 'busy' as a result

Negative points;

• Network connection was flaky in MCE most likely due to my NIC's driver would bomb out on me.
• Some codecs installed fine like FFDShow but others didn't.
• The scrolling left and right I'm not sold on for the main interface whether I'm not used to it just don't like it I cannot tell yet.
• Not MCE related but UAC is a pain in the ass thank god you can turn it off (MSConfig->Tools->Disable UAC->Launch & reboot).
• Readyboost one of the features I was really looking forward to refuses to work with any of my three USB memory sticks

Will do some more messing around with it later on.