FoxBoom!

A couple of days ago, I installed Windows XP on my Asus Eee 701. Actually, I’ve installed XP on it a whole bunch of times, but the activation period always expired and I ended up wiping it and sticking some other operating system on instead. But this time, I got a licence, and it’s going to stick.

I’ve never been sure about the order to install the drivers, but I’ve done it enough times to know what works for me, so this time I made notes for future reference.

1. Get all the drivers you need off the Asus support site, and stick them on a USB flash drive.
2. Install Windows XP.
3. Extract the Inf Update and run AsusSetup.exe.
4. Reboot, and ignore the error about the missing file on startup. The next step will fix it.
5. Back in Inf Update, run Setup.exe.
6. Reboot.
7. Extract the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Driver, and run AsusSetup.exe.
8. Reboot.
9. Extract the VGA Graphics Driver and run AsusSetup.exe.
10. Reboot.
11. Extract the Audio Driver and run AsusSetup.exe.
12. Reboot.
13. Make sure the laptop’s Wi-Fi LED is lit. If it isn’t, reboot and go into the BIOS to turn it on.
14. Extract the Wireless LAN Driver, go into the Install CD directory and run AsusSetup.exe (choosing the “driver only” option when you’re asked).
15. Extract the LAN Driver, go into the attansic directory and run AsusSetup.exe. The setup wizard dialog is huge, so don’t forget to use your new tray utility to increase the screen size to 800×600.
16. Windows XP on an Asus Eee: DONE.

By far, this isn’t the only way to install XP on the Eee, but it works for me.

Also, seriously, I’m putting XP on my Eee after I get paid at the end of the month. I want Firefox 3, plus this utilitarian look isn’t doing anything for me.