Hello my name is Horus and I'm a board hog.

While I think I'm being careful in setting up my computer for my first snapshot I'd love to get it just right. Woudn't we all? So let's all put our heads together and find out WHEN to do a DEFRAG. Since I'm on a completely new fresh install of xphome with all the patches and updates I noticed that even on such a machine as virgin as this it is fragemented 8% according to MS defrag analysis right off the top. Must be all those updates eh? Well no one wants an UNPATCHED system snapshot so after I did the updates and PRIOR to installing ANY other software should I defrag this with MS own defragger or put in Perfect disk now and defrag then install FDISR and make a snapshot? Want to have as tight a ship as I can for my first snappy. It's all about me me me.......

 

Carefully setting up my computer?
I do that over and over again.

In general I'm like Peter, OEM + drivers + updates + customized accounts, and image that first.

 

OK I think that sounds good too. However I'm stuck in a holding pattern with trying to figure out which imaing software to use and it bogs you down reading all the threads. And while I'm deciding what imaging software to choose I made 3 snapshots to get to the place I am now. Seeing I already have issues with how the snapshots went I'm glad I didn't image first. Did you set up your computer with all admin and limited user accts and put passwords on all of them? Plus do you run data anchoring? If so did you make sure if you have more than one snapshot that the admin accts and limited user accts all have the same passwords on the various different snapshots so that data anchoring will work correctly?

 

Hello Horus,

First off, don't worry too much about imaging software. When something works for you, go for it. I am pleased with imaging software that features differential imaging and is able to fully function from a bootable CD. What I say: formulate your personal requirements first.

Account access control is not working in Windows, it does work in Unix and their derivates (FreeBSD/Linux, etc).
Not the password is the problem, but the account id, that during each and every windows installation gets a unique number.
When you copy/update snaphots, you copy these id's. That would work. But when you re-install, you run into problems. These problems are not managable in the XP Home Edition. XP Pro has security managing features, but it's still a pain...

The administrator has a password, I quit setting passwords for users (users are administrators too.) I have a strong 63-bits WAP paraphrase for my wireless.
I'm converting all my bank/login passwords to regenerated one-way encryption based on master password + URL. Which means that the passwords are not stored anywhere. They are regenerated on the fly.

Please, tell us, what worries you that you setup limited user accounts?