joebells

I just went ahead and took out all the ftp commands except for the login stuff I do it by hand now. I didn't want to make seperate directories and different cd's and such. I'm also using an idea from your wget install. On the cd I'm gonna have cmdlines.txt call setup.cmd. Setup.cmd is going to download the ftp script from the ftp server. I'm doing it that way so that if I want to change something in the script I can without burning a whole new cd. Then from cmdlines.txt I am going to call the ftp script which will pretty much be unchanged except for the cleanup part, thats not gonna happen. My packages are all going to have commands.txt still but the commands are going to be RunOnceEx commands. Your ftp script will create the installation script like normal but all its going to do when it executes it is add the entries to the registry.(I'm doing it that way so that I can control the program installation order better. As it is now I renamed the folders, like netframework became aanetframework so it would be first and symantec became zzsymantec so it would be last.) Your ftp script is still going to add the registry entries but since its running from cmdlines.txt the reg entries will apply to all users created. I haven't finished changing the commands.txt files to RunOnceEx commands yet when ever I finish I'll post my results.

Hi I was wondering if it was mabye better to install some programs before other programs? Like maybe bigger programs first or maybe last. Right now I have .net install first and antivirus last. the stuff in the middle is just there. I was wondering if there were any thoughts on this.

simonsays I found a much easier method than that just use double percent signs and it will resolve the system variable correctly like this %%SYSTEMDRIVE%%

it seems that the %11% and %01% must be windir and systemdrive and /i is install? So for a batch file install I believe the command would be start /wait "msiexec.exe /i %SYSTEMDRIVE%\install\Intellipoint\Keyboard\ITP50.msi kb=1009 /QR" start /wait "msiexec.exe /i %SYSTEMDRIVE%\install\Intellipoint\Mouse\IP50.msi mm=16 /QR REBOOT=ReallySuppress" don't understand why we have to use msiexec.exe though

I'm gonna go ahead and use it myself also. I was just searching on it and saw that on the microsoft website so I thought I'd post it.

that tweak might not even apply to xp. I see on microsoft site that it says on this page http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....g/debugging.asp

well ommitting prom didnt' work in the batch file when I tested it. It just listed all the different files with question marks after them and gave me the prompt ftp>

I used this method the other day and it worked pretty good. I'm gonna take out the prom command though so it asks me on the packages, that way I don't have to install everything I have on my ftp server onto every machine I have. It isnt' completely unattended then but its kind of like windows post installation wizard in a way. I also couldn't get logged into the ftp server for the life of me the way the script was. It accepted my username but wouldn't recognise my password at all. I had to add the -n paramater before the -s: and then on the second line of my ftp_scr I put the word user followed by my username and then password all on the same line. That lets my login fine. I liked before when my reg tweaks got installed to the default user account from cmdlines.txt so I'm thinking of maybe calling this script modified a bit to download just my reg tweaks from cmdlines.txt. I just have to find out if a batch file called from cmdlines.txt can use ftp.cmd and if network connectivity is possible at that point. I've been thinking of trying out runonceex too and if ftp works from cmdlines.txt I might go ahead and use that method. Or maybe I won't worry about it or the reg tweaks.

also it looks like some of the internet explorer tweaks are hard coded to C: they should probalby be changed to %%systemdrive%%

I found it just use double percent signs like this ;----- ;----- Adds Device Manager right click of MY Computer ;----- [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\DevMgr] @="Device Manager" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\DevMgr\command] @="mmc.exe %%SYSTEMDRIVE%%\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\devmgmt.msc"

[Keyboard] HKLM,"%RunOnceEx%\install017",1,,"%11%\msiexec.exe /i %01%\install\Intellipoint\Keyboard\ITP50.msi kb=1009 /QR" [Mouse] HKLM,"%RunOnceEx%\install017",2,,"%11%\msiexec.exe /i %01%\install\Intellipoint\Mouse\IP50.msi mm=16 /QR REBOOT=ReallySuppress" I don't understand the code used here(I don't use runonceex) The part I don't quite understand is: %11%\msiexec.exe /i -- What is the %11%? and are we calling msiexec.exe with an i switch? Why would we have to call msiexec.exe and pass the ip50.msi to it as an argument? Why couldn't I just execute ip50.msi by itselft with the mm switch? Is it something that has to be done because of the RunOnceEx method or is it something to do with the intelli software? and what is the %01% in front of the \install?

the device manager to right click my computer menu tweak is hard coded to D: Is there a way to make a system variable work there? I tried to put in %systemdrive% but it didn't work. ;----- ;----- Adds Device Manager right click of MY Computer ;----- [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\DevMgr] @="Device Manager" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell\DevMgr\command] @="mmc.exe D:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM32\\devmgmt.msc"

you're welcome

what if you just leave the networking section out of your winnt.sif that way it will ask you to set your networking options like it normally would.

I bypassed the ftp test by pointing it at the ftp_start command early on and it works ok until it tries to unrar the packages and then it just wasn't doing anything so I changed %PACK_EXT% to rar and it unpacks the files and makes the script ok. I of course took out the part where it would install for now.

hrrrrm I ran a test of ftp.cmd and it loops at the [Cancel FTP download? Y/N:] if I say n then it asks me for my username and password and ftp addy. and it keeps doing it if I say y then it cancels everything.

I'm getting ready to do this and I am going over it and I can't figure out how the script knows what PACK_EXT is I don't see a mention of it anywhere else. I will probably just go ahead and put static names in there I think unless I'm missing somethign or maybe just don't understand something about it? Really I don't quite understand any of the for %%i lines.

edg21 you are the man (or woman perhaps) thanks for all these methods. I'm very appreciative.

nevermind

dang another kick arse method edg21. I'm almost definately going this route. I almost had your wget method setup and then decided to go the network share route not for any flaws in it it seems like it will definately work, I just wanted something I could maybe change some options on my winnt.sif(or unattend.txt depending) without having to burn a new cd. But I'm not having a ton of luck with the network booting so I think I'm gonna do this way now. I'm writing to say thanks and that I think you have one little typo. Down where you are writing the ftp_cmd.txt you change to the tools directory and then the next set of commands down you try to connect directly to the apps directory. I was looking down through the commands and seeing how they worked and I got there and thought how the heck does that work? How is he switching directly from the tools directory to the apps directory. Then I looked down and saw the ../ part on the rest of them. thanks again this is awesome

yeah I kind of figured as much. I guess that would be more work too as then I'd need the floppy with the driver and the winpe cd. I should be able to get a boot floppy to work and then thats all I will need. thanks

Hi I want to have my unattended install on a network share. I'm working on getting a boot floppy to work correctly but so far all I am having is trouble. I was thinking of going winpe but I don't want to have to burn a new winpe when a new network card requiring a new driver comes out so I was wondering if it might be possible to tell winpe to look on a floppy for network drivers? That way I could use the same cd and just put the required driver on a floppy. Is that possible in any way?

pdmcmahon I actually just had that problem occur also, telling me there was not a hdd with enough free space. I think it might have to do with ntfs read support in dos. I was using a network boot disk I found here http://www.users.on.net/~driver/bootdisk/ I added ntfsdos to the boot disk like it said but now it is saying that there is not enough memory to run winnt.exe. So I have to find a way to have the boot disk allocate more memory or something. Also what are the big disadvantages of running setup from winnt.exe compared to winnt32.exe.

maybe one of them won't have the rtm in its tag? The rtm shouldn't bother me but it kind of does.

I wanted to just do a full network share(or distribution share as ms calls it) install as then I could just add and subtract drivers and modify my winnt.sif as wanted without reburning a cd but I'm not great at working with samba yet(my server I would use to do it is running gentoo) and when I was using use the setupmanager to set up the share it would say something like couldn't enable the share error (rc=xxx) do I want to continue without enabling the share. The xxx was a different number every time I came back to it to try again after messing with samba a bit. It seemed to change when I changed the name I was trying to use for the share or the exact path I was using for the share so I thought maybe it was messing up with trying to give the share a name or something similar. Would anyone have any hints or tips on setting up a network/distribution share with samba? I've done ris installs with a 2k3 server serving it and it was easy as pie to setup but the machine I want to use for serving doesn't have a whole lot of ram so I optimised the heck out of my gentoo and have it running text mode only so it does just fine. 2k3 would probably be a bit of a dog on there.