Is is possible to boot XP to a totally clean boot? Nothing loaded other than the OS. I would take the system offline so virus checker, spyware stuff, and everything else would not be needed. 
 I need to gain more resources for Poser

erm...very possible. infact, it's how you are soon as you've installed...which is what you'll need to do to do it. (removing things always leaves traces/changed settings)

Attached Link: How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state

Personally, I'd be wary of leaving AV off. Unless it's a real dog, you probably aren't going to gain a significant amount of memory/CPU. If you're only working with Poser, I suppose it would be OK but be careful about running/installing anything you may have downloaded in the past, that could be nasty.

this sounds like it will do the trick ... thanks.
Hopefully Poser will work under the clean conditions. Will give it a try and see what happens.

The virus thing...yes, it could be a bit risky, but everything is scanned going in, scanned after install, etc, so it should be ok as long as nothing is installed while the av is inactive. I will pull the cable from the internet as well prior to rebooting.

Quote - The word, according to Redmond at least - ymmv :-)

Personally, I'd be wary of leaving AV off. Unless it's a real dog, you probably aren't going to gain a significant amount of memory/CPU. If you're only working with Poser, I suppose it would be OK but be careful about running/installing anything you may have downloaded in the past, that could be nasty.

 

I haven't read the link but IIRC, you can set the boot using MSConfig, then check with Task Mangler to see if it worked.

My offline machine has no AV or firewall and loads (and runs) much faster than the internet box.

I use F8 during boot and then boot to safe mode , I think its called. It loads no drivers and bypasses any start at boot time stuff.

starting in "safe mode" was an interesting exercise. As Poser was loading, a warning popped up that there was no open port for the library. Check firewall and internet connection. When Poser was fully loaded and ready to rock, the library was just a big white box with nothing in it, which means you have to be connected to the internet to use Poser. So how would someone use Poser that does not have a live internet connection?
This also means I will have to have a virus checker running. Ichose to not have networking in safe mode, but could have chosen with network...will just need to make sure the V is active too.

In safe mode, the memory commitment was 72meg ... right now with my normal boot, I have 468meg commited. That's a big difference, and becomes a huge difference in Poser operation with hi res textures, etc.

no no no

poser does NOT use the internet for the library. at ALL. how many times do we need to say this?

please look up Ports and 127.0.0.1

Safe mode does not allow ports to be used. it's nothing to do with the internet at all.

infact Safe Mode is not meant for running programs like poser at all. it's meant to save your ass when something is stopping the machine running properly. it's a dead end for what you want to do.

ok ...well I will now try the other MS msconfig method. safe mode seemed like a quicker way to achieve clean. It was very.

speaking of booting, isn;t there a way to have multiple boot configs? a clean one and a regular fully loaded one ?

I wish... MS removed that...

"speaking of booting, isn;t there a way to have multiple boot configs? a clean one and a regular fully loaded one ?"

Probably - do a search for something like - XP multiple boot configurations - You'll probably get a host of results on dual or multi-boot though which usually means booting two different installations of XP. That might be what you end up having to do but there may well be a way to get different boot configs for the same installation.

If you do F8 on boot, one of the choices should allow you to select which drivers to load, but  that would be a pain & I'm not sure it would be as comprehensive as a clean boot.

If you have room, especially on a second drive, a dual boot might be more convenient than messing with configs, though you'd probably have to install your 3D programs again for that XP. Poser might run as is since it will supposedly run from an external HD - don't know.

IIRC safe mode boots with a generic VGA video driver which would probably be a show stopper in itself for 3D work.

The best way is to create a dual/multi boot system. Is much easier to start with an empty hard disk.

1- You need some software to create partitions. Use Easeus partition master. 2- Create a primary partition for your general use Windows. For Windows 7, 30 GB is ok.

3- Create a primary partition for your clean Windows. For XP64, 15 GB is enough.

4- Create the secondary partitions, D,E,F..., how much and with the size you want. Here you will install the programas. Never install programas in driver C, unless the installation software gives you no other alternative.

5- Install some software for multi-boot. This is the best way, one Windows partition will be hidden and the other Windows will not see that exist other Windows.

6- Select and boot in one partition, install Windows, drivers and apps.

7- Select and boot in the other partition and install the other Windows, drivers and apps.

8- Many programs once installed by one Window will not need to be installed by the other Windows, is enough to run them. Other you will need to install, so you will have two copies of the same app.

If you want to do this with a disk that already has Windows and apps intalled, is much complicated because you have to resize partitions, create new one, install the other Windows and if you had not done something like this before, I recomend you start with an empty disk so, if something goes wrong, you only need to start all again and nothing was lost.

Ccleaner allows you to disable most start up things (one click to enable again)

it might do what you want

I'll give ccleaner a try.

dual boot...that would be best, but cannot afford to buy new hard drive now, and my current is full pretty much, so that will not be possible to have 2 OS and possible 2 sets of programs. IMO , however, booting into a clean system would be ideal.

If I can ever buy a new system, it will be offline and my current unit would be for online use.

Another simple and cheap alternative:

You only need another hard disk, any old HD with only 40 GB is enough, even a 20 GB will work if you are able to find one. You only need this HD to install the other Windows there.

You switch the Windows you want to use at boot time with the BIOS setup where you select the order of devices used to boot the system, it will take you less than a minute to switch Windows and only will need to do this again when you want to change the  Windows you are using.

i do have a couple of drives lying around, but my system is maxed out. the next thing if i add anything will be crash city. maybe you can boot from external drive?

I think i will just use the msconfig deal and reboot when i use poser ...ccleaner may work as well..just downloaded that. any recovery will be good. i have 568meg commited right now with just outlook express and a couple of web pages opened, so to get most of that back will be a great help for sure. Even safe mode had 72meg commited...using msconfig, i think most of that stuff other than what is needed by XP would be gone.

Quote - maybe you can boot from external drive?

It might be worth investigating Bart PE. Bart PE is a fairly minimal implementation of XP that will boot from a CD/DVD drive. I imagine you would need to tweak Bart PE a bit to get it to support your graphics card, and anything else that Poser might require to run. Perhaps not quick or simple to set up Bart in the first instance, but probably could be done.

You can boot Windows from CD using BartPE, but you have to include all the drivers needed by your computer, all what is needed by your applications and the applications itself. Probably you will need to edit your Windows installation CD setup file (is a text file). Not all Windows CD work with BartPE, some are crappy.

The problem of booting Windows from CD is that you cannot install anything because Windows is on a CD and you cannot write to the registry dat files, the document and settings folder and program files folder, all are read only in the CD. You are only able to install programs that have all contained in a zip file and don't use the registry or use for nothing important.

kawecki, you are correct that once the CD is made you are limited as to what you can install, but if I remember correctly, if you know what apps you are going to run, you can append any necessary registry keys at build time. Drivers can also be included in the build.

I'm not saying it is easy to set up, just that it can be done.

Attached Link: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/overview.html

It’s a lot easier and simpler than messing around with BartPE (which gave me crushing chest pains), booting from CD’s or running from external/second drives.

Your virtual version of XP runs completely isolated, and you can have it as lean, clean, and stripped down as you want.

I use VMware Player, which is very easy to use, and free.

Chuck

Isn't VMware Player running under/on/over your XP installation? If free memory is the problem, I'm not seeing how running a VM will help, i.e. the virtualized system will be starting out with less physical RAM available (minus the amount that the 'Real' XP is using). Haven't used VMWare since ver. 1, but that's the way that VirtualPC and VirtualBox work.

XPLite might be something helpful. I haven't tried it and don't know how much tinkering it may entail but they claim: "The latest developments in XPLite now see clean installations of Windows XP in under 350MB " http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html

This is probably only help for a dual boot install though. There are also other micro or tiny XP's available but they're not legal. A dual boot really may be the best solution. As Kawecki said, even an old 20GB drive might be usable with a minimal XP install, since you can probably use your existing runtime(s) on the main drive.

With virtual machines, you can assign the amount of installed memory for it to use.

Example would be if the “Host” OS is XP, you can allot, say 256mb of installed memory to it, and all the rest to the “Quest” OS.

Having the virtual machine running, with no security programs, firewalls, updaters, internet, and especially all the MS services that can be turned off, more than compensates for that 256mb loss of memory.

oh for the days of DOS and multiple boot disks    rofl

Hope you find a way that works Dave-so but I got a funny feeling even if u manage to squeeze a bit more out of your comp, you'll want more

i need more, considering i have 1.5gig of physical ram and am running a 2003 based machine. I'm way out of the game right now trying to use Poser or any other app.

I shall try to run a virtual machine, maybe it can solve a big problem.

I still have to use a program designed to be used by an Intellec. Intellec was a computer system designed by Intel well before the existence of Apple or IBM PC, it was 30 years ago. Of course I have never used an Intellec or have seen one. What I have used was another software done by Intel that was an Intellec emulator to be used under DOS in an IBM PC.

For 20 years I have used this without any problem and as computers improved with time the time spend to run the app turned to be very fast and less than few seconds. The problem began when I installed XP. XP even still has a DOS Box mode, by some reason the emulator failed to work. With XP64 the problem was even worst, because DOS doesn't exist in 64 bit mode.

I have been using DosBox that is a DOS emulator, in other words I use a DOS emulator to run a DOS program that is an other emulator of Intellec to be run under DOS for the Intellec software do the job.

Resume. Now with a 3 GHZ machine I have to wait 15 minutes to do a job that required less than a second in a much older computer runing DOS.

"With virtual machines, you can assign the amount of installed memory for it to use.

Example would be if the “Host” OS is XP, you can allot, say 256mb of installed memory to it, and all the rest to the “Quest” OS.

Having the virtual machine running, with no security programs, firewalls, updaters, internet, and especially all the MS services that can be turned off, more than compensates for that 256mb loss of memory."

Yes, I understand all of that. My question is: If the problem is that the current XP (loaded) leaves too little memory for Poser, how is a VM running on top of that going to give you more memory for Poser? Can you 'starve' the real XP, giving it less memory than it wants, i.e. give it 256 when by default it wants 768 and give the rest to the VM? If that works then I can see it.