Installing XP Home without Acer bundle stuff

So I been messing around with the Aspire one XP version.

I want to install XP Home without all the bloated software included. Can I do this with any version of XP Home and use Nlite?
I tried to do it with Nlite and use the i386 folder on the Aspire One. I booted with a USB CD Drive and started installing. The install said that it could not find oembios.bin, .cat and others. I said skip and it asked for them again and install failed.

I looked in the i386 folder on the AAO and those files are not present.

So now i'm using a real XP HOME cd to do the Nlite slipstream. But I wonder if I put the OEM license, will it ask me to activate or not. I'm hoping that it won't since its a volume license key.

 

using a different XP home disk didn't work. Asked me activate and that didnt work.
damn!

 

it wouldn't activate? weird, should have worked fine, but in any case a quick call to MS tech support would have cleared it all up for you.

In my experience, it was easier to uninstall the extras (like mcafee, works, ms office trial) than it was installing an OEM copy and installing all of the AA1's drivers from the acer FTP servers (which really suck, only a 2000 person limit, almost impossible to connect during the day).

 

I had a little scare this afternoon. The lcd screen would not come up, only the power and fan. I found the fix for that. So reloaded the original stuff and i'm going to stop messing around with it. I took out McAfee, MS office, and some other little things out and i'll reinstall my own stuff back.