expert01

I had no problem with msbuild.exe, but I did with msbuild.cmd Line 383-ish Replace: If %VersionCompare% EQU -1 ( With: If "%VersionCompare%"=="-1" ( I also had to follow directions at http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-1520115.php

; Disable UAC [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System] "EnableLUA"=dword:00000000 ;Auto accept UAC prompts, effective immediately [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System] ;"ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin"=dword:00000002 to reset "ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin"=dword:00000000 ;Disable black desktop when UAC promps pop up ;security risk: lets other programs mess with the UAC prompt ;[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System] ;"PromptOnSecureDesktop"=dword:00000000

I'm gathering the information I need to set up an XP PXE install system, and one thing that's gotten into my head recently is how to speed up the XP install process. I was first looking at the txtsetup file and considering stripping out the least likely drivers (less drivers to load, faster setup load, right?). Then I thought the fastest way would be to do it via a .wim file. I had searched about this a few months ago, and spent some time searching again. It seems to me that quite a few people have tried to do this before and not succeeded. The theory sounds good - use the Vista or 7 installer, replace the install.wim with one of XP, slipstream a product key into the first install screens (so it doesn't ask you for a product key until later), and let the installer handle the partitioning and copying. The only place people have gone wrong (in my eyes) is installing Windows XP all the way, installing more stuff, then creating an image of it. It seems to me you would have more success running the text mode setup of XP until it copies your files to the hard drive and makes the boot sector and whatnot, then making a wim image of the drive before it reboots. That way, the Windows XP setup wizard still runs, which handles hardware detection, product keys, networking, accounts, and whatnot. So, does this sound possible? And has someone managed to do this before (with the XP installer running)? Would it still take a long time to install? Does the XP installer, which I think had a "Copying Files" section in the GUI, spend a lot of time doing this? Is it possible to get it to copy all the files, then stop before hardware detection?

Looks like you have three months left

Sorry to bump an older topic, but for future reference, you might try, instead of trying to get a wider resolution at boot, making a narrower image. Shrink the image horizontally, then add black bars on the side to get it to 640x480. According to an online calculator, you would need to make your boot image 640x480, shrink it to 640x360 (make sure you shrink and not crop), then add 60 pixel bars to the left and right. When the monitor stretches the image, it should look normal. Disclaimer: I've never attempted that before.

Alright, got around to checking out the CHKPIDS program and it looks like it'll do exactly what I need it to. "D3XXM-YXXMT-XXXXX-XK8XX-8XXXD","{;OEM-PRO-ENGLISH-SP3;}","(55274-OEM-0045892-71 345)","[;OEM;]" That's what it outputs, I should be able to use that to create the setupp.ini

There are two ways I could go about doing what I want with setupp - create a batch file that copies all the installation files from my network share to the hard drive, re-writes the setupp file with the proper PID, then starts the installation; or, if using Windows PE, I could make a RAM drive and create symlinks to all the windows setup files, then have a script that makes a setupp and starts setup. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link symlinks can be made to network shares. I've found three programs so far which may be able to help - xpdec (which gives me a number that matches info on the XP sticker, but doesn't match anything I can find on the net, and I can't figure out how to translate it into a version/channel thing; output is XXXXX-657-1329553-XXXXX if you were curious, sticker on case has 00043-657-132-955 below the product key), CHKPIDS (which I can't find to download), and pidxchk (which may be for just vista). *edit* Also found a topic at http://board.defcon5.biz/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=951 which explains how to get the product ID from the key code, but not the same as the ones in setupp.ini And I should probably mention that I want to do this over the network exclusively, didn't mean to say "disc" in the physical sense.

This was the most applicable topic I could find, sorry for the bump. I would like to do the same thing the OP wanted to do - I run a computer repair shop, and would like to create an unattended XP disc for all types of product keys. In order to be compatible with all keys, I need to find out how to decode the product key I enter to get the PID, so I can put the PID into the setupp.ini so setup will take the key. My alternative would be to slipstream a known bad key (like a XP Pro VLK key) and have the Microsoft Product Key Update Tool run on first boot, which should change both the product key and windows version. Any ideas?

The company I work for is having major issues with Windows Update. We service customer PC's and optimize new computers. Unfortunately, windows update takes about an hour for a new Vista SP1 computer (200MB of downloads). So, I want to cache Windows Update files on our server. We can't use WSUS because they require modification to the customer PC. I've read alot about Squid, and while some people say it doesn't work, a lot of people say it does (by increasing the max cache file size) and the website mentions a fix for Windows Update caching. So, anyone have experience with this situation?

Digg has a link to a great article on setting up apt-p2p to do all of your upgrading via BitTorrent DHT transfers, which should keep you going even when the servers go down. Read the comments for an update on installing apt-p2p in Hardy Heron.

Hope this is in the right section... I'm looking for a program which will let me temporarily disable the screen saver, sleep, hibernate, and any other power related functions. Having a problem with sleep mode kicking in when remote desktoping (think like when you used to run defrag and it would stop when the screensaver came on). Anyone got anything?

It appears capable of going from Pro VLK to Home OEM and any combination inbetween.

Thats the rub though. Thats a "generic" OEM key that only matches the proper oem's disk and will only activate with thier disk. No, it's a standard OEM PID 3 key that will activate any standard OEM disc (that's not customised). And it's not generic, the one on the sticker is an individual key. And I found the most wonderful thing about the Windows Product Key Update Tool:

I've had some customers getting systems serviced come in with a pirated copy of XP Pro Corporate (With an illegal VLK key) installed on the computer. So far, every single customer that has had it installed had a product key on the computer for a copy of XP home OEM! It boggles my mind, thinking why they would do that. Anyways, I figured Microsoft would make it super easy to go from an illegal installation to a legitimate installation, but I've had no luck. I've been tearing my hair out trying to figure this out! And of course the customer computers are usually heavily infected, making it that much more difficult. After lots of thinking, I figured the easiest way to do it would be to use a certain tweaking program to make it think it was a home version so I could put in the home product key. However, every time I do that, it tells me that any changes made after that and before it restarts will be ignored. So I restart to put in a key, and it tells me the key doesn't match the OS (before I can even get in to change it), so I have to go back to safe mode. Problem is that all the utilities that let you change your product key either use msoobe.exe (which doesn't work in safe mode), don't work (in the case of an official MS vbs script), or can't run in safe mode (in the case of microsoft's official product key modifier). I found one which may have worked, but when I clicked the link to change the product key it did nothing. So. Any easy solution? Maybe a program that does it all? A way to change the product key in safe mode? Maybe make MSOOBE.EXE think that it's in normal mode? I'm out of ideas.

Best DOS resources: http://ms-dos7.hit.bg/ (Archive of Wengier's DOS 7.1 page, provided by Myselg and hosted by another) http://wiki.oldos.org/ http://www.dossolutions.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ http://www.freaked.org/ DOS Forums: http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum.php (Very active DOS Forum) http://www.oabw.net/bbs/index.php http://betaarchive.co.uk/ (not as much about DOS, but some good info) http://forum.oldos.org/viewforum.php?f=33 DOS PnP: http://www.nu2.nu/utils/#pciscan http://www.pcidatabase.com/ (large database of PCI device ID's) http://pciids.sourceforge.net/ (another large database of PCI device ID's) http://listing.driveragent.com/pci/ (large database of PCI device ID's with drivers) http://developer.intel.com/design/motherbd/gen_indx.htm (ISA Configuration Utility) DOS USB: http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/forum/13447.html (topic about USB 2.0 drivers for DOS) http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/forum/10491.html (topic about USB drivers for DOS) http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/forum/15568.html (topic about USB drivers for DOS) http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/forum/14818.html (topic about USB drivers for DOS) http://www.bootdisk.com/usb.htm (bootdisk.com topic on DOS USB drivers) http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/ (some guides on net setup, USB info, benchmark util) http://www.fixup.net/tips/usbdos/index.htm (More DOS USB info) http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/new...drivers-for-dos (Inquirer USB DOS article) DOS Drivers: http://www.geocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/ (MSCDEX replacement as well as DOS CD virtualization tools) http://www.google.com/search?q=dos+drivers (Google search for DOS drivers) http://www.leinss.com/blog/?p=9 (Info about Bart's Netboot Disk) http://www.mdgx.com/newtip18.htm#DGSBL (DOS SoundBlaster Live) http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/cdrom/ (Bart's CD Bootdisk) http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?d...TrUrl=Translate (Russian website with drivers, utilities, games - including great classics) http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~gmurali/gui/netdos.html (How to set up net on dos) http://www.nu2.nu/jo/ (jo.sys - boots from hard drive instead of CD if key not pressed) DOS Memory: http://www.mdgx.com/umb.htm (MDGX page with lots of UMBPCI info, also DOS video acceleration info) http://www.mdgx.com/mem7.htm (MDGX page with memory optimization info) http://www.programmersheaven.com/download/.../5/ZipView.aspx (Bit of info about DOSMAX) http://panda.bg.univ.gda.pl/pub/teksty/pc/tips/memory.txt (info about memory optimization) http://www.mdgx.com/speed.htm#BIO (really useful utilities to speed up DOS, some for compatibility and some sys utils) http://www.knowplace.org/pages/morgue/opti..._dos_memory.php (Optimizing DOS Memory) http://www.devedia.com/dosghost/dos/twks_w31.htm#top (Info about DOS memory and drivers) http://smallvoid.com/articles/ms-dos/performance/ (Couple articles about optimization) DOS Utilities: http://members.shaw.ca/rinocanada/hdutils.htm (Hard Drive Utilities) http://www.mdgx.com/dos.htm (MDGX page with lots of DOS utilities, links to other DOS software collections) http://www.filegate.net/anti-virus/avdos/ (DOS Anti-Virus Programs) http://bootcd.narod.ru/index_e.htm (Bootable CD Utilities, good for multiple OS on one disk) http://devedia.com/dosghost/dos/utildos.htm (DOS util archive, has CD God Disk) http://www.ehsco.com/reading/20060803iwc1.html (Article with info about DOS recovery and sys utils) http://www.devedia.com/dosghost/dos/dos_vers.asp (Random official DOS utilities) http://www.devedia.com/dosghost/dos/dosnix.htm#top (Some UNIX based DOS utilities) http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/main.htm (DOS Batch Tools) DOS Programs: http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/indexall.htm (Page with utilities, drivers, and lots of programs) http://oldfiles.org.uk/lightspeed/main.html (Lightspeed's page with some DOS, mostly 3.1 software, links to collections) http://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ (directory of LOTS of DOS programs, including batch file info, bootup/system utilities, drivers...) http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/index.htm (Dale Harris's POS Cash Register Program) http://www.freeweb.hu/doscdroast/ (DOS CD Writing Program) http://www.freeweb.hu/doscdroast/dvd4dos.htm (DVD playback program, 1 hour for 1 minute of playback) http://archives.math.utk.edu/software/.msdos.directory.html (DOS math software) DOS Games: http://www.classic-gaming.net/games/list/system/1/ Windows 3.1: http://www.mdgx.com/w31toy.htm (MDGX Win3.1 resource page) http://www.winsite.com/win3/drivers/video/index.html (Windows 3.1 Video Drivers) http://www.bookcase.com/library/software/w...iver.video.html (Windows 3.1 Video Drivers) http://www.winsite.com/win3/drivers/printer/index.html (Windows 3.1 Printer Drivers) http://garbo.uwasa.fi/windows/drivers.html (Various Windows Drivers) http://www.devedia.com/dosghost/dos/32bithda.asp (Windows 3.1 32-bit HD access) http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/16bit http://browsers.evolt.org/?navigator/16bit http://browsers.evolt.org/?/opera/win16 http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/Articl...5017/15017.html (Windows 3.1 Terminal Services something or another) http://www.smspower.org/maxim/16bit/index.htm (Maxim's 3.1 Resources) http://www.gaby.de/ftp/pub/win3x/codecs/index.htm (Some Windows 3.1 Codecs) http://www.gaby.de/ftp/pub/win3x/archive/index.htm (Microsoft Software Library Excerpts) http://www.winsite.com/win3/ (Windows 3.1 Programs, Utilities, & drivers) http://www.gaby.de/win3x/edrivers.htm (Windows 3.1 & DOS drivers http://www.win31.de/elinks.htm (3.1 link directory) http://www.gaby.de/win3x/esoft.htm (3.1 Software) http://www.oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/win3x.htm (3.1 Software, utilities, and updates) http://stephan.win31.de/w32slist.htm (Win32s Compatibility List) http://home.mnet-online.de/horst.muc/win.htm (3.1 Programs) Misc: http://etherboot.org/wiki/howtos (Network booting info) http://web.archive.org/web/20021123235223/...s/samsung/win3/ (Archive listing of some files, including pendos) remy.soulie15.free.fr/win3x (Slow-loading french site, lots of OS downloads, plus games, drivers)