How to get SP3 for Windows XP on the Asus Eee PC 900

Asuseeepc900xpsp3Last summer I had the pleasure of dining with Michael Connick and he’s one of the nicest mobile-tech guys you’ll ever meet. That’s why I really felt badly when I saw he was struggling with installing SP3 for Windows XP on his Asus Eee PC 900 last week. A little elbow grease and a long weekend can go a long way as shown by Michael’s latest update on the topic. He’s got SP3 on the box now and he’s detailed the steps, challenges and pitfalls right here.

Why would this even be an issue, you ask? The problem arose because even though the Linux-flavored Asus Eee PC 900 offers a total of 20 GB of SSD storage, it does so with two physical flash drives: one is 4 GB and one is 16 GB. Most folks opt to put the OS on the first (and faster) SSD, which means you’ve only got 4 GB to work with for Windows unless you start tweaking. Michael originally went the standard XP install route (as most folks likely would) and essentially ran out of space on the 4 GB drive. As a result, Windows Update wouldn’t run, and therefore, no SP3 or other Microsoft Updates could be installed.

There are plenty of options and choices to help slim down XP, either by manually removing components or using nLite to build a custom "thin" install. But this situation underscores why we weren’t originally too keen on Asus using the two SSDs as separate drives, not as a single merged drive.

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