SVCPACK.INF Creator Error

[VTshadow]

Greetings.

First off, would like to thank Greenmachine and all others who have helped this project be as great as it is. Keep up the good work.

I've been using XPCreate for months now, and have had not a problem until now, with Service Pack 2. While I understand it's not fully supported yet, I thought I'd pass this along and see what you guys think.

During the processing, I received this error in the .cmd prompt.

-- 12:15:23 --> Files already in CABs are not new.

File Not Found

File Not Found

-- 12:15:25 --> Files already in I386 are not new.

File Not Found

-- 12:15:25 --> Add list of New Files to [Files] in DOSNET.INF.

File Not Found

-- 12:15:25 --> Checking sub-directories.

-- 12:15:25 --> RoyalBox's SVCPACK.INF Creator

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

File Not Found

When I try to integrate the final result into my Windows 2003 Remote Install Server, he complains that the SVCPACK folder can't be found...I check back to CDROOT and sure enough, no SVCPACK folder in I386, yet on a previous XPCreation using SP1 and hotfixes, I can find a SVCPACK folder in the I386.

Here is my XPCREATE.log...couldn't find anything totally amiss, but then I didn't look too terribly hard.

Thanks for the help.

XPCREATE.LOG

[GreenMachine]

The "File not found" errors are (almost) always harmless. They show up because I check the directory, and nothing is there. I haven't found a clean work-around for this yet: it is the result of a DIR command where there are no files that match the FileSpec. I get the same, and it does not present a problem.

There is no SVCPACK directory because, again, there is nothing there to add. This is not a bother on a CD install. A quick workaround may be to add a dummy file (e.g. dummy.txt) to the directory FILESCD\I386\SVCPACK, which will force the creation of the SVCPACK directory.

Do let me know if that fixes it.

[guysmiley]

You can fix that by redirecting error output of the command.

For instance, in a dir where no tmp files exist:

dir *.tmp >nul 2>&1

In English this command means, "Redirect output of the DIR command to the NUL handle, as well as redirect error output (specified by 2>) to STDOUT (&1)." Since STDOUT is alredy being routed to NUL so will STDERR.

[GreenMachine]

Hmm Might have to name you WISE-guysmiley!

Just teasing you, guysmiley, because on your third post, you are showing me up. The truth is, I never mastered that output redirection. In fact, I never even really "learned" DOS Batch coding (I was busy working on our company's OS for PCs when that competitor, DOS, came out). What you suggest seems to make perfect sense, and I'm upset with myself for being so ... whatever! I tested and it works just as described/expected from the command line. Looks like I know who to call now!

Thanks much for the tip. Now to rip out all that code I'd been using to avoid these types of error messages.

Please accept my belated Welcome to MSFN!

[VTshadow]

While I haven't had a chance to try your fix yet Greenmachine (still working on getting SP2 to work) I'll try it when I have some time.

In the meantime, I found another way to "slipstream" SP2 into an image without using XPCreate.

It turns out that SP2 comes with a spiffy little command line option called integrate, and it works like this.

Copy your XP cd to your harddrive, and type "SP2.exe -integrate:<Full Path to Image>" and it will sit there and slipstream itself. I've test this with the Remote Install Server and it works just fine. Now just to get everything else to work with SP2.

While this is only a temp fix if XPCreate is not working for you, as for now SP2 is the only hotfix one needs, I hope I can get future attempts with XPcreate to work, when I need it to slipstream more than 1 hotfix.

Thanks for the help guys.

[guysmiley]

Service packs have had the ability to self-slipstream since W2K SP1 with the -s switch.

Thanks for the compliment, GM. I've been writing batch files since DOS 2.1 so I've become reasonably handy with the task.

-Wiseguy del Batchfile

[GreenMachine]

@VTshadow: Actually, XPCREATE gets SP2 to slipstream fine, just haven't really tested it. The legacy switch, -s, is still supported. (Great for those of us that get tired of looking fir all those letters in integrate!) I will fix the "no svcpack directory" error in the next release.

@guysmiley: Glad you can take a joke: perhaps WiseOne would be more fitting! Again, thanks for the pointers.