What you can also do to help speed up the boot process is go into the bios and disable what you KNOW your cousin won't be using such as the parallel port, serial port, etc.
As for Media Center Ed and Professional, Pro edition has more security features, options, and permissions built in when it comes to the networking end. Of course nothing beats server 2003 still, media center is more for...the media type person =P
Edit: Also, what I would recommend you looking into (on your own pc first) is a program called "Tweak XP Professional". I believe its up to version 4 now, and they offer lots of options to help change and speed up windows xp. I use it on my laptop mainly for customization and helping free up ram when using internet explorer. (i know about firefox, but I like IE too).
PC Repair! Update: 10-29-06
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bicostp
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OK I have the system about as clean as it can be (only 55 second boot time now!).
Since there isn't any program on there to create restore CDs, I want to image the hard drive. I'm positive I can do this with a Linux boot CD (slax frodo?) and the dd command, but I don't know the commands needed.
The internal hard drive is formatted for NTFS and has 15 gigs of <s>cra</s> stuff on it. (The drive's really an 80 gig). It's also SATA. The target is an IDE 20 gig Quantum. The backup will probably be in a disk image file, as opposed to writing the clone directly to the other hard drive.
1. Can this work with SATA drives?
2. Can I have dd just copy the used data space, instead of the entre drive?
3. If not, is there a decent, FREE program that can do the job? (Don't tell me "o just d/l a copy of norton ghost *coughemailmecough*", either.
)
Thanks!
PS: Apparently there's a 4.6 gig FAT32 partition on the HD, which I assume is the equivelant to System Restore discs. Think it would be a better idea to just image this part instead, or do the whole thing?
Since there isn't any program on there to create restore CDs, I want to image the hard drive. I'm positive I can do this with a Linux boot CD (slax frodo?) and the dd command, but I don't know the commands needed.
The internal hard drive is formatted for NTFS and has 15 gigs of <s>cra</s> stuff on it. (The drive's really an 80 gig). It's also SATA. The target is an IDE 20 gig Quantum. The backup will probably be in a disk image file, as opposed to writing the clone directly to the other hard drive.
1. Can this work with SATA drives?
2. Can I have dd just copy the used data space, instead of the entre drive?
3. If not, is there a decent, FREE program that can do the job? (Don't tell me "o just d/l a copy of norton ghost *coughemailmecough*", either.
)Thanks!
PS: Apparently there's a 4.6 gig FAT32 partition on the HD, which I assume is the equivelant to System Restore discs. Think it would be a better idea to just image this part instead, or do the whole thing?
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