Toshiba U300 XP reinstall

My Toshiba U300 has become very very sloooow to boot and will hand when one right clicks on files in windows explorer (file manager).

A new 500GB hard disk was only $66 so I figured buy one and put it in and keep the old one as a back up. (I would have to back up somewhere.)
3pm
In goes the new HD and I put the recovery media in the laptop DVD drive.
Disk 1 then after a reasonable delay disk two and it gets stuck. Some kind error and so try a few more times.
Go home.
5pm
Try to use an external USB DVD drive.
The first disk would get stuck in an endless rebooting cycle.
Eventually succeeded in copying disk 2 on another PC and the copy would read in the internal drive and so we were able to luckilly get XP to install and run. Hopefully all the rest of the disks can come in via USB or network.
12am go to bed


I wish I could work out how to get some kind of automated installation process to occur.

8:00 am Tuesday
WINDOWS XP
79 updates to install. Set it going and went to bed. In the morning more to go.

MS OFFICE
Tried to install Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 but it wanted XP service pack 3 which apparantly had not been installed in said 79 critical updates.
There it is and not we have to re boot.

AVG-
AVG web site -> Looked at the Download options. Hmm not sure what our license covers so downloaded the "recomended" AVG Internet security 2011. Luckilly one of the first steps is to type in the license number. Which is acceoted. Installed. & Updated.

Reboot.
Checked it is NTFS.

MS OFFICE
Tried to install Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. Success. And outlook 2010 is working heaps faster than the old outlook and has found my mail on gmail. I was not so excited about the search function on Thunderbird so will give the new oulook another go.

And another 67 updates. At least that seems to happen automatically.

Date & Time wrong.
Start>Control Panel>Date & Time Properties.
)Internet Time - Tried "Update Now" a couple of times and it stayed wrong.
)Date & Time - Manually fixed the date.
Retried )Internet Time - Tried "Update Now" - & it worked.

11:24 Am
Outlook has hung.
The outlook screen is very visually busy.
Going back to Thunderbird


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Do NOT install these programs
Norton (anti)virus
Windows desktop search. (This removes the traditional search in windoes explorer)

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PROGRAM LIST to INSTALL
XP PRO SP3
Firefox
AVG Anti Virus
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010
Addin tools menus for office
Acrobat reader
Brother Printer Drivers 8660 (z:\CDs\Brother 8660DN...) and 9450
Angry IP Scan
Win Dir Stat
----Make ghost image ------- - done
Notepad++
Protel Altium 99SE
Altium Summer08
Adobe Premiere 6
Adobe Premiere Elements 4
Nero DVD burning software & its update
Thunderbird -
Apache
mysql
php
Virtual box
PDF creator
K-lite codec pack
Screen monkey
Serif video edit program
DVD Decryptor
Zumodrive

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THUNDERBIRD notes
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-GB/thunderbird/
Addons:-
Zindus - Google calender sync
Enhanced search add on
Fix default reply to - Right click the account (left side under all folders)
Select "Composition and Addressing", Then,
Drop down Box, select "Start my reply above the quote"
Get Addins
Provider for Google Calendar
Lightning (Actual Calendar user interface)
Zindus (Google Contact Sync)
To connect the Thunderibird calendar to google
In the google web interface, on the left side under "My calendars", click "settings",
Calendars tab> click on calendar name, scroll down to "private Address", click XML
Copy the URL.
Switch back to thunderbird.
Open the (currently blank "home" calendar)
Select file>new>calendar
Give it a name, paste the url, enter the gmail login name and password etc.
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APACHE, MYSQL, PHP
Install in this order
1. Apache
2. mysql
3. php
because apache and mysql can each be tested on their own.
Then after getting both going in their default configurations,
Fix up
httpd.conf and
php.ini
...........................
1. APACHE

2. MYSQL
mysql-installer-5.5.11.7.msi 189MB and did the install all option.
Needs dot net framework 4.0
Lets run widows update yet again. All this manual installation is enough to make one try to actually run off linux.