Windows Fundamentals on an ASUS eeePC
The Asus EeePC is an awesome little machine. I have the 701 model, which has 4GB of hard drive space (basically a 4GB flash card), and 512MB of RAM.
This model comes with Xandros Linux pre-installed. Xandros is very useable out of the box. By default, the EeePC is in “Beginner mode” but you can switch it to use “Advanced mode” which is a KDE-based Linux desktop.
Linux is just fine for 99% of what you’ll want to do, especially since all the apps (OpenOffice, etc) are preinstalled and preconfigured. There’s no reason for most users to want to change the OS on the EeePC. But we’re going to install Windows on it, just because we can.
This is where Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs comes in. This is an OS that Microsoft put out to its corporate customers to install on Windows 98-Class machines. The requirements are super light — it needs 64MB of RAM, and 700MB or so of hard drive space. I had used Windows FLP before, but mainly on really old hardware or inside VMware virtual machines. It’s basically a very light version of XP SP2.
Windows FLP is only available to corporate customers and you’ll need a corporate volume license serial number for it to work.
The very first requirement for installing Windows FLP on the EeePC is an external USB drive of some sort. A thumb drive, USB hard drive, or USB CD or DVD drive. The Windows FLP installation CD is about 600MB, so you can just image the ISO onto a USB drive and boot from it. The easiest way, though, is just to borrow or buy an external USB CD or DVD drive. It’s a good investment, and you can use it later to install more software on the EeePC.
Anyway, whichever method you choose, you’ll have to go into the EeePC BIOS and change the boot order so that it will boot from USB before the internal drive. Just press F2 when the computer boots to enter setup mode. While you’re in here, make sure the OS Installation option is set to “finished.”
Once you’ve saved your BIOS changes, the EeePC should boot into the WindowsFLP installation routine. Pick the default (guided install), put in your windows serial number, and then y0u’ll eventually arrive at the disk partition screen.
You’ll be asked what kind of install you’d like. You can do a minimal install or full install, it’s up to you. I went with a minimal install + IE + Media Player. You’ll need to install Media Player if you want to run any DirectX stuff. I installed IE so I could do Windows update later.
As you can see from the photos, there are multiple partitions on the disk right now. I just wiped them all out and created one 4GB partition. If you have a problem at this point, with an error message about no system disk, then you probably didn’t do the “finished” bit in the BIOS above.
Ok, it should reboot once its done — it may reboot a couple of times, it’s ok. At one point during the plug and play detection, it looked like the installation had frozen, since the progress bar wasn’t moving at all. No worries, go have a coffee, it will be a few more minutes, but it _will_ install.
Seriously, be patient. Don’t abort here. It may reboot a couple of times.
Once Windows FLP is fully installed, you’ll be greeted with a “Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to Login” screen. Go ahead and login. Everything’s installed properly, but you’ll now need the DVD that came with your EeePC. It will have all the necessary drivers for the unknown devices (ethernet, wifi, trackpad, etc). If you’re using an external DVD drive, just pop in the disk. If you’re using a USB thumb drive, you can just copy over the contents using another computer.
There’s a setup program on the DVD, which will install all the drivers. You’ll need to reboot 3 or 4 times for it to finish.
Here’s an important step you’ll need to take at this point: when you first reboot, go into the BIOS and switch the boot order. You don’t want the ASUS EeePC DVD to boot when Windows reboots. By the way, you would use this DVD to restore the Xandros distro back on the EeePC if you get sick of Windows.
That’s it! You’re all done. Now you’ll have to install some software. My advice: download Firefox right away, as well as a virus scanner (I use clamwin). Then run Windows update. There are a bunch of updates — 50 or 60 of them. So while Internet Explorer is downloading updates, you can use Firefox to download other software (such as OpenOffice).
You’ll probably want to download msconfig so that you can turn off some of the unnecessary tray lint. And tweakui to get rid of that annoying login window.
Here’s a video of the EeePC booting Windows FLP. Pretty speedy!
Some miscellaneous screenshots of WindowsFLP on the EeePC:
actually i have more of a question….i installed the FLP, but when i play movie and stuff the player actually laggs sometime…i think its something to do with the video component of the FLp coz i have installed and reinstalled all the video players but cant seem to get the video to play smoothly…
plus there is this damn error for ffdshow.ax…..i get that when ever i install the CCCp or kaza or anyother…
is there any component i can intall in FLP which would help me to make the video smoother? thanks my email is andrewdallas@ymail.com
thanks!
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Since FLP is based upon the Professional Edition of XPSP2, you can use all the nifty tools like GPEDIT.MSC and SECPOL.MSC to do whatever tweaking and security restrictions options you like.
YOu don't need any third party “TWeaker” or “Tuner”. its all included in XP/FLP. Just a bit hidden
To boost XP/FLPs performance even more, you should go into gpedit.msc, administrative templates and disable “Application Compatibility” and the Assistant completely. After that your XP will fly, because it no longer probes your exes if they were meant to run on 98 .. todays apps are all developed for 2000/XP so there should no risk.
YOu can even completely disable the 16bit and MSDOS-subsystem, but some older installers use it.. worth a try maybe. Completey turn off Systemrestore will add speed,too as well as preventing WMPlayers video accelaration and hundred tweaks more.
for security sake you can modify all the “named pipes” and “admin shares” in secpol.msc to be blank and forbid remote control,terminal services and so on. The need for Ctrl-alt-delete can be turned off, as well as the welcome screen in favor of the NT-Logon.
FLP is an amzing piece of OS. My old Pentium3/256MB machine lives on with it in its original configuration. Otherwise it could only run XP pre-SP2 at top speed. SP2 was the showstopper for my PC.
With FLP i am back on track with sp3 at more speed with XPrtm..
Advice : If speed matters then do not upgrade to IE7 or 8 ! slows down and eats Ram, especially IE8 is a Ram-monster. For safe and modern surfing I recommend Opera, fast and Ram-friendly.
A shame that MS makes us all going illegal for not selling this retail.
Someone from Germany …
FLP only makes sense if Ram and diskspace is limited. ON systems with only 64-256 MB Ram you WILL notice a drastic difference. FLP has the same specs like XP , but a native/”Normal XP will behave extremely slow where FLP does not. With 2Gigs you can run anything, including Vista or Seven, so there is no need to install a modded XP ( which FLP is ).
ASUS eeePC has really helped our business. The very best. The more I use it, the more it impresses me.
This OS is the greatest Microsoft has ever designed. It gave my aging old Pentium 3 with 256 MB of exotic old Ram back its life ( before I knew of FLP it was only possible to run 98SE or a tweaked 2000 at good speed ). Now I have a fully up to date XPSP3-clone, IE7 and even the Mediaplayer 11 running on it like a dream. All of my older games like Sims,FS 98,Midtown Madness, yes even Rise of Nations and AOE2 are working.
It is unbelievable – I used a normal XP Home and it ran ..well it ran somehow ok, after putting SP2 on it and a virus scanner it was unusable slow.
BTW : Windows Defender and Avast Home 4.8 are working on FLP as my Securityguards while surfing with IE7 ( 8 uses too much ram for me ) — all in 256MB of Ram, were stock XP would crawl along like a lame duck..
Everybody should use it and openly admit that there is a need and a market for it, so MS is forced to sell it and do away with the Vista crap or with the ridiculous statement that it is only for corporations. There are so many people that are forced to use old or extremely cheap pcs due to economical reasons and being on a tightest budget.
Around 50 Euro or so I would happily invest in a legit FLP disc if it was available.
This OS is the greatest Microsoft has ever designed. It gave my aging old Pentium 3 with 256 MB of exotic old Ram back its life ( before I knew of FLP it was only possible to run 98SE or a tweaked 2000 at good speed ). Now I have a fully up to date XPSP3-clone, IE7 and even the Mediaplayer 11 running on it like a dream. All of my older games like Sims,FS 98,Midtown Madness, yes even Rise of Nations and AOE2 are working.
It is unbelievable – I used a normal XP Home and it ran ..well it ran somehow ok, after putting SP2 on it and a virus scanner it was unusable slow.
BTW : Windows Defender and Avast Home 4.8 are working on FLP as my Securityguards while surfing with IE7 ( 8 uses too much ram for me ) — all in 256MB of Ram, were stock XP would crawl along like a lame duck..
Everybody should use it and openly admit that there is a need and a market for it, so MS is forced to sell it and do away with the Vista crap or with the ridiculous statement that it is only for corporations. There are so many people that are forced to use old or extremely cheap pcs due to economical reasons and being on a tightest budget.
Around 50 Euro or so I would happily invest in a legit FLP disc if it was available.
I know this is old, but epic nonetheless.
Well, it turned out that Windows FLP does not support DUN. I ended up installing Windows XP using Nlite. Be sure you include modem support or otherwise PdaNet will not work.
Well, it turned out that Windows FLP does not support DUN. I ended up installing Windows XP using Nlite. Be sure you include modem support or otherwise PdaNet will not work.
flp has no modem or dialup support. “nul.sys” is missing, that's needed for dialup. As some cellular modems also act as modems when connected that could be the thing that no connection is possible.
FLP is great for LAN and WLAN, but thats about it.
i think there are more info so people visit this site!
i think there are more info so people visit this site!
I tried install WinFLP for a week. But all downloaded FLP is wrong. Please send for me your FLP! morzsaszar@feemail.hu