Darn...I haven´t heard the word "Laptop" for a veeeery long time...

Why make jukebox's out of good laptops?

Why that is simple to answer: It's better to use good laptops then bad laptops.

Cheers RC, I didn't think it was as simple as turn off 1, delete 2 etc.
I may as well clean install and leave alone. But don't install any other programs except what MM requires.

Why am I wanting to make just music players out of perfectly good laptops? I don't know, and probably wont bother now.

Well i dont know what services it needs i just left xp as default install and turned off all items options to connect,

Mm use to need real player , quick time and wmp and it will still use some winamp plug ins, you can also choose to use the winamp player instead of mm's.

If it still needs qt, or real player i'm not sure i also just let them in since they are not oh wait i took real player out and mm still plays those formats so i guess its not needed but i still have qt.

Yes i believe you will still need windows audio.
Art is just basic graphics card as far as i know i added nothing in to handle that,

Maybe you should pm rusty to get confirmation of how it works,
But remember mm was made for easy use so it might just use all windows stuff since it wont run on a mac.

Thanks again RC.
Still has not really answered my questions though.
I think MM needs Quicktime or Itunes to play m4a files. Is this correct?
MM has it's audio player plugin. Do I need windows audio still?
What plugin in MM shows album art? Is it my basic graphics card?

That is why I asked the experts on here what services MM needs to run, so I can disable/delete everything not required.
I don't synch an Ipod or phone either. All is done from ext hdds. And line out to mixer.

Is the library search connected to windows search or independent?
Does MM use java at all?
They are the kind of questions I would like answered.

If I remember correctly, MM needs lame, or was it winamp plugins for something?
Thanks. Martin.

If you should decide to use them as full time jukeboxes they will need defraged about once a week if you play music all the time, but to use it once a month or so for partys they shouldnt get fragmented much but you will still need to defrag them after a total of 5 days of playtime, music playing really fragments the hard drives it will make the system crash if not defraged in about 3 weeks of heavy playtime use,

I set mine up for all day every day use once lasted a week then crashed constantly because of fragmented hd's. Now i stop monkey every day run maintaince and reboot then restart monkey takes 2 hours to do that but the system doesnt crash any more from heavy fragmentation.

I said to run av since you would have been updating from online. If not online after the reinstall then dont do av.

Thanks RC.
I have however got the service packs and all updates on disk so no need to go online at all. I will remove the wireless card and disable the LAN.
After a format and clean install, do I really need to fragment and run AV?
These machines will only see the light of day when I re-scan new tracks to MM and use them at a party.. The new tracks would have been scanned on another laptop I use for downloads only.
Am I missing something?

Reformat hd,
Install xp as normal,
Go online get all xp updates service packs and the likes,
Install av program.
After all that is finished remove phone plug or wireless modem,
Go in to admin tools in to the computer management section.
To the services.
In there read all services descriptions and turn all that connect to web as manual or off.
Run av program to clean out anything that might have got in.
Leave av in computer but set all its automatic options to off so you have to start and run it at all times, remove any background running program for the web from start up folder,

Use another computer that is online and download latest versions of auslogics defragmenter, registry cleaner, take to offline jukebox your making, set the defrag up to run at boot up or logon, go through and remove any browser or turn its auto update off, do same for any other program you dont need to go online.

Basically you want it ready to go online but have all online items turned off or set to manual reason being is ms in xp still required some of its files from one program to be in computer for another program to work, so removing any of ms's stuff might make some strange thing happen in the dll that renames audio files, or the defragmenter so its best to leave them in just disable their call home features,

Hi guys, hope I'm in the right area.
Anyway, I have some older laptops running MM3 and one or two are slowing down. I would like to have two CLEAN laptops to be dedicated to MM.

I want to format xp, Stop ALL windows services not required to run MM and delete ALL additional items Windows XP installs by default.
Specs:
XP sp3, AMD turion64, ATI, 100gb HDD, Wireless, MM3 etc.

I realise I will need Audio! do I need windows audio? Or can MM use it's own?
Do I need JAVA? Adobe? or windows updates?

Basically, what windows XP services does MM need to operate correctly?
I think MM needs Quicktime for M4A files. I am not sure what else. But you get the idea.. I use the BLUE MONKEY theme and ALL music is on EXT USB HDD's.

Oh, and my files vary from Flac, Mp3, Wav, Wma, M4a, Ogg etc. One day I will convert them all to ONE specific format. Probably 320 mp3 for storage reasons.

I hope I have explained myself clearly and understand it isn't as simple as I would like. But you computer guys have not let me down yet.
Any ideas from you would be appreciated.
Thanks, Martin.