[Reclaim VistA MAK's]

I would not worry about the MAK's. I asked our Microsoft rep about it and he told us that the number of MAK's can easily be added on to. I was associating them with the number of licenses but if you need more just ask for them and they should be provided. They do not count against any license count or anything.

[I have 2 weeks to create a master image.]

I've got to second GTOOOOOH's sentiment - hardware independent images with anything prior to Vista is just not feasible. You can get close, yes, but never 100% independent.

I disagree. It is definitely possible to do, I have done it (22 models, 3 different manufacturers and a combination of laptops and desktops as well as 3 HAL types). I would give it a few months though and not 2 weeks. It does take an awful long time getting everything to work together nicely (namely because it takes so **** long to sysprep, reboot, test, resysprep). For a while I used mysysprep to get the HALs right. Now I am attempting to use haldetect.vbs. I will let everyone know how that goes.

I also had a lot of vbscripts running at different times and for different reasons (auto naming the PC based on the Asset Tag and a "site" prefix, joining the domain, installing "helper" apps such as synaptics touchpad drivers but only if the devices existed on the system, etc.).

One could make a career out of building images!

[Integration into Registry unattended install]

Ok i have a reg file i would love to include in my unattended xp cd but i have no clue how this is done i have seached the tools and found reg tweak but the links have expired so can some one please help me do this manualy and please take it easy on me i am a newbie to this stuff

i use nlite to make my disk

I have mine in the $OEM$ folder with the following files/folders:

$1 (root of C: drive)

$$ (root of C:\Windows)

cmdlines.txt

tweaks.reg

in the cmdlines.txt make the command look like this:

[Commands]

"REGEDIT /S tweaks.reg"

That's it. The tweaks get injected during the unattended install.

[Start Menu on First Boot...]

HE SAY

"StartMenuInit"=dword:00000002

ANTONIO FROM LOWYAT?

I have this on my master image and it still comes up on first boot.