Installing and sharing Windows XP help content

In Windows XP Professional, you can install and share help content from another Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition, and related Windows server operating systems.

After you install the new help content, you can switch back and forth between the help content at anytime, or share it with other computers on your network.

Note:

Installing and sharing help content is only available for Windows XP and related Windows server operating systems. You can not install and share help content on a computer running Windows 2000.

In order to install help content into Windows XP Professional from Windows XP Home Edition, you will need a CD-ROM that contains Windows XP Home Edition or another computer that is running Windows XP Home Edition.

To install Windows XP Home help content, follow these steps:

1. On a computer running Windows XP professional, click Start and choose Help and Support.
2. Insert a CD-ROM that contains Windows XP Home Edition into the CD-ROM drive.
3. On the menu bar of the Help and Support Center, click Options.
4. Under Options on the right, click Install and share Windows Help.
5. On the Install and share Windows Help page, choose Install help content from a CD or disk image.
6. On the Install Help from disk page, enter the location or a CD-ROM drive letter, or choose Browse to locate the help content.
7. Click Find to look for help content on the CD.
8. Pick a version of help content from the list, in this case, Windows XP Home Edition, and click Install.

To start using the newly installed help content, follow these steps:

1. Click Start and choose Help and Support.
2. Click Options and under Options, choose Install and share Windows Help.
3. On the Install and share Windows Help page, choose Switch from one operating system’s help content to another.
4. On the Switch Help version page, there should be two help versions on the list as follows.
   • Windows XP Professional
   • Windows XP Home Edition
5. To start using the help content, select a version of help content from the list, and click Switch.

By integrating help content from one operating system into another operating system, for example, Windows XP Home edition into Windows XP Professional, you can learn and find help about that Windows XP Home quickly and easily without having to actually installing it.

The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files

When installing Microsoft Office 2007 on Windows XP Professional SP3, I get an error – the windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files. 

It looks like the windows installer service looks for a dynamic link library file named fp4autl.dll in the folder “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extension\Bin\40.”  The error occurs when the file is missing from the folder, and when the windows installer service attempts to update web services that associates with the Microsoft Office 2007.

The solution to this error is to place fp4autl.dll file back into “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extension\Bin\40.”  There are two ways to get fp4autl.dll file – extract it from Windows XP setup CD or copy it from another Windows XP machine.

Extracting Fp4autl.dll from Windows XP setup CD-ROM:

1. Open I386 folder on the Windows XP setup CD-ROM.
2. Locate FP40EXT.CAB and double click it to open.
3. Locate Fp4autl.dll and copy it to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extension\Bin\40.
4. Restart Microsoft Office 2007 installation.

Copy Fp4autl.dll from another Windows XP machine:

1. Open C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Services Extension\Bin\40.
2. Locate and copy Fp4autl.dll and save it to a network share or a USB drive.
3. Copy and paste Fp4autl.dll to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extension\Bin\40 on the computer that is missing the file.
4. Restart Microsoft Office 2007 installation.

Fp4autl.dll is a Microsoft FrontPage Utility Dynamic Link Library file.  During the installation of Microsoft Office 2007, Windows installer service needs this fp4autl.dll file to update shared services that associates with Microsoft Office 2007.

Other Fp4autl.dll errors:

Microsoft Support:

• OFF2000: "Cannot load fp4Autl.dll" Error Starting FrontPage
• Error message: "Windows files must be installed for your installation to proceed"
• PRJ2000: "Error 1933" error message when you install Microsoft Office 2000

Registry key for hiding Screen Saver tab

You can hide a Screen Saver tab in Windows XP by adding a new DWORD registry entry in [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\System]. 

After you drill down to this key, right click, choose DWORD, and type NoDispScrSavPage.  Then, set the value for this entry as follows:

• NoDispScrSavPage = 1   to hide Screen Saver tab
• NoDispScrSavPage = 0   to unhide Screen Saver tab

This is the whole string after you create the entry, and if you export it out.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Policies\System]

"NoDispScrSavPage"=dword:00000001

Also, this entry applies to a current user, meaning it applies to each user who logs on to the machine; so you have to find a way that each user gets this setting when he/she logs on.

Resources:

Book

• Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide by Jerry Honeycutt (Author)
• Microsoft Windows Registry Guide, Second Edition by Jerry Honeycutt (Author)

Microsoft Support

• Windows registry information for advanced users

Slipstreaming Windows XP Service Pack 2

There are ways that you can make a bootable CD-ROM. One easy way is to create a bootable floppy disk with CD-ROM driver support. Then use this bootable floppy disk to make a bootable CD-ROM.

Windows XP CD-ROM is already made bootable. This bootable CD-ROM is created using a boot image file. When you boot up your computer from Windows CD-ROM, you usually see a message, reading “Press any key to boot from CD-ROM”.

From time to time, you might need to integrate new Windows service packs into the Windows XP setup. This means that you have to copy all files and folders from the CD-ROM to a folder on your hard disk drive.

After the slipstreaming, you want to copy all files and folders back to CD-ROM and also want it to be a bootable CD-ROM.

In order to retain the message, “Press any key to boot from CD-ROM,” when you make a new bootable Windows XP CD-ROM, you need to back up the boot image file on the CD-ROM to a folder on your hard disk.

If you are not sure how to extract the boot image file or what program to use for this task, follow these following steps.

Step 1: Extracting CD-ROM Boot Image File

1. Download Bbie v1.0 by Bart Lagerweij (Bbie is short for Bart’s boot image extractor) and extract it to a folder on your hard disk; for example, C:\Bbie.
2. Insert Windows CD-ROM and open a command prompt (Start > Run > Cmd).

At the prompt, change a directory to C:\Bbie and type the following command.

bbie i: and press Enter. (Replace i: with CD-ROM driver letter on your computer)

     3. You have now backed up the boot image file named image1.bin to C:\Bbie folder.

Step 2: Copy Windows XP CD-ROM content to a folder on your hard disk, for example C:\Winxp.

1. Insert Windows XP CD-ROM and open Windows Explorer.
2. Select a CD-ROM drive letter, and on Edit menu, choose Select All.
3. On Edit menu, choose copy.
4. Select C:\Winxp and on Edit menu, choose Paste.

Step 3: Integrate Windows XP setup with Windows XP service pack 2

Slipstreaming allows you to integrate XP service pack 2 into Windows XP setup.  When you install Windows XP the next time, you do not need to manually install the service pack 2. You need to get Windows XP service pack 2 file from Microsoft download web site.

A. Get Windows XP service pack 2 and extract it

First download and extract XP service pack 2 to a folder on your hard disk, for example, C:\xpsp2.

1. Download Windows XP service pack 2 (266 MB) and save it to C:\xpsp2.
2. Open a command prompt and change a directory to C:\xpsp2.
3. Extract the XP service pack 2 file named WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe
4. At C:\xpsp2>, type WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe -x and press Enter.

B. Apply the service pack 2 into Windows XP setup

1. Open a command prompt, and change a directory to:

   C:\xpsp2\i386\update 

2. At C:\xpsp2\i386\update>, type update.exe /integrate:C:\Winxp and press Enter.
3. The Windows Service Pack 2 setup wizard starts. Wait…
4. Click OK to close the dialog when prompted “Integrated install has completed successfully.”

Step 4: Copy files and folders back to a CD-ROM and make it bootable.

Using Roxio Easy Creator Basic 5

1. Insert a blank CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive.
2. Start Roxio Easy Creator Basic 5
3. Choose Make a data CD and click Data CD Project
4. On the File menu, choose New Project and click Bootable CD.
5. On the Choose Type of Bootable CD, set the following options.
   1.  
      1. Bootable CD Type: No Emulation
      2. Load Segment: 0x7c0
      3. Sector Count: 4

   

6. Click Browse to locate the boot image file you saved on C:\Bbie and select image1.bin and click Open.
7. Click OK and there should be two files – Bootcat.bin and Bootimg.bin placed in the bootable CD project window.
8. Now locate and open the folder named C:\Winxp and on the Edit menu, choose Select All.
9. Click Add on the bootable CD project, and then click Record.
10. Click OK when CD is created successfully.

Important:

Whether you use Nero Burning ROM or Roxio Easy Creator, you need to change the sector count to 4 and bootable CD type to No Emulation.

External Resources:

• Make a bootable XP SP2 CD with Nero Burning ROM 6

• Make a bootable XP SP2 CD with Roxio Easy Media Creator 5.x

• Make a bootable XP SP2 CD with Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator 6.x

• Download Nero 7 Ultra Edition Trial version

• AutoStreamer – A tool for slipstreaming service pack into original setup files.