PaulIA
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Posts posted by PaulIA
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I ran 4 tests on my VMWare instance and this is the result:
:===========:=============:=============:=========:============:
:-CMD from--:-Start Time--:-Finish Time-:-Desktop-:-CMD runs---:
:===========:=============:=============:=========:============:
:-1-LM-ROEX-:-12:29:46.46-:-------------:-NO------:-Alone------:
:-1-LM-ROEX-:-------------:-12:30:13.64-:-NO------:-Alone------:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-2-CU-ROEX-:-12:30:15.34-:-------------:-NO------:-Alone------:
:-2-CU-ROEX-:-------------:-12:30:44.67-:-NO------:-Alone------:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-3-LM-RO---:-12:30:46.87-:-------------:-NO------:-Alone------:
:-3-LM-RO---:-------------:-12:31:17.31-:-NO------:-Alone------:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-4-LM-RUN--:-12:31:25.10-:-------------:-YES-----:-Alone------:
:-4-LM-RUN--:-------------:-12:33:10.01-:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-5-CU-RUN--:-12:31:29.73-:-------------:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-5-CU-RUN--:-------------:-12:33:10.00-:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-6-STRTP-A-:-12:31:36.96-:-------------:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-6-STRTP-A-:-------------:-12:33:09.39-:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-7-STRTP-U-:-12:31:38.03-:-------------:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-7-STRTP-U-:-------------:-12:33:10.56-:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:
:-8-CU-RO---:-12:31:38.70-:-------------:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-8-CU-RO---:-------------:-12:33:10.68-:-YES-----:-in company-:
:-----------:-------------:-------------:---------:------------:I think that closely matches what you were getting.
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Ack! Had to put on shades B) to read your post!
Check Control Panel, Sounds and Audio Devices. Click on the "Sounds" tab. In the "Program Events" box at the bottom, scroll down and make sure you have sounds associated with the "Windows Logon" and "Windows Logoff" events.
Hope this helps.
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That's funny. I never realized that I had ProductID and not ProductKey. I started out using a WinNT.sif file from somebody else and just never realized that it was there. The Ref.chm file says to use ProductKey, but ProductID seems to work fine too.
@mazin: Did you change yours to ProductID for a reason? Anywhere we can read up on this?
Thanks,
Paul
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Modifying the registry bits was a thought (and a good one). I actually wanted to do this with a script so that I could control more than just the "Quick Launch" setting without any possible side effects. Also, with a few simple modifications, you could set any of other items on the Taskbar tab:
- Lock the taskbar
- Auto-hide the taskbar
- Keep the taskbar on top of other windows
- Group similar taskbar buttons
- Show Quick Launch
- Show the clock
- Hide inactive icons
Not to mention what's on the "Start Menu" tab (which I've already done to replace some other tweaks).
Again, the whole purpose of doing this in the first place was simply to present an alternative to what we know already works. I am not stating that this script is any better or worse than using the registry, AutoIt, etc. It's just another way to do things.Boy, I think we've definitely beaten this one to death!
I appreciate the feedback and suggestions. Please bear with me if I offer up other scripts like this. I've gotten so much help from here that I'm just trying to give back a little. Hopefully, we can all continue to learn new ways of doing things from each other. 0 -
From the script:
There is an error in the comments section of the script. The default settings for a clean install are "Show Quick Launch" off and "Lock the taskbar" on. The comments in the script where I am turning the lock on/off are correct.I'm assuming that you're using this from a clean install where "Show Quick Launch" is off and the "Lock the taskbar" setting is offFrom my first post:
Just call this script in your cleanup command (or anywhere after the Desktop is loaded) to turn the Quick Launch toolbar on.I think it is fairly clear that the script is meant to be run during unattended setup and from a clean install. Running it twice doesn't make any sense, but I put the toggle text in there just so people would know what would happen if they ran it back to back. My mistake for being too detailed.
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@Gee: Glad your tweak works for you. This is just another approach and I can tell what every line of code does if there is every a problem. Can you explain to me what each of the 850+ bytes of registry tweaks you posted does?
@ricktendo: I don't use nLite, so an nLite addon isn't going to do me any good. I started out using nLite then ran into problems with it, so now I only use things that I can fix when they're broken and modify to my specific needs.
To the rest: Thank you for your positive comments.
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RapidShare... ya gotta love it...
Might want to look into EazyShare or something like it.
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Do you have the WinNT.sif file set up correctly? Here's an example:
[Branding]
BrandIEUsingUnattended=Yes
[Data]
AutomaticUpdates=Yes
AutoPartition=1
MsDosInitiated=0
UnattendedInstall=Yes
[Display]
BitsPerPel=32
Vrefresh=72
Xresolution=1152
Yresolution=864
[GuiRunOnce]
%systemdrive%\AutoIt\RunOnce.exe
[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword=**********
AutoLogon=Yes
OEMSkipRegional=1
OEMSkipWelcome=1
TimeZone=20
[Identification]
JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP
[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes
[Shell]
DefaultStartPanelOff=Yes
DefaultThemesOff=Yes
[TapiLocation]
CountryCode=1
Dialing=Tone
AreaCode=319
[Unattended]
DisableDynamicUpdates=No
DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore
Hibernation=1
OEMPreinstall=Yes
OEMSkipEula=Yes
Repartition=Yes
TargetPath=\Windows
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
UnattendSwitch=Yes
WaitForReboot=No
[UserData]
ProductID=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
FullName="John Doe"
OrgName="Acme Corporation"
ComputerName=ACME1Hope this helps
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I had searched the forum and come up with several registry tweaks for turning on the Quick Launch toolbar. Some of them didn't seem to work at all, while the others seemed to work, but messed up other settings on my computer. So after a few liquid refreshments
, I remembered that I was a programmer:Just call this script in your cleanup command (or anywhere after the Desktop is loaded) to turn the Quick Launch toolbar on. Note that this is a toggle script, so if you call it twice it negates itself.
Comments/suggestions are always welcome.
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After doing some research, I ran across an article on this forum (sorry, didn't save the URL) that talked about migrating the NTUSER.DAT file by exporting HKCU via the reg command instead of having to log onto another profile to copy the file.
Basically, if I remember right, the used something like this:
reg save HKCU HKCU.reg
on the machine they wanted to clone and then the loaded this (thereby replacing the current HKCU) during the UA install. Would this be any different than copying the NTUSER.DAT file?
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Well, PaulIA has decided to research and I've decided to do it, myself.
I don't know if burning my drives out with VMWare is research, but it is keeping me busy.
Based on the testing that I have done over the last couple of weeks, the execellent research by mazin and posts by others, I have cleaned up most of the installation problems that I had. Moving certain installations to the LM-RUN or CU-RUN (especially anything that needs the desktop or network) was a must for me. Unfortunately, I spent a couple of weeks of trial/error instead of having the brain matter to conduct a test as mazin did.
@mazin: I think posting your testing batch files would be nice. It might come in handy somewhere down the road or be something that could be extended for other "when does this occur" testing.
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Nice work. That explains the problem I was having trying to run something at RunOnceEx that needed to download files from the network. I'm sure there are going to be a lot of us newbies that will benefit from this information.
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By "tab" are you referring to the [GuiRunOnce] section in the unattended file? If so, you might want to take a peek at this page in the unattended site to get you started:
Hope this helps. Let me know if I'm on the wrong track.
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Ack! You're killing me! It took me a week to figure out that RunOnce/RunOnceEx ran before the desktop was loaded! Next time, do your research sooner.
One question related to this that's been nagging me for awhile. I've been meaning to run some tests, but since you already have done such a good job with this, maybe you can tell me.
When does the network get loaded in relationship to these installation points? I had trouble running the Symantec LiveUpdate during RunOnceEx, but it works fine using Run.Nice work!
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@elwood: Thanks for the step by step directions. I think this makes the whole thing clearer in my mind as to how this works. Also, the link to the Microsoft site filled in a lot of questions I had about NTUSER.DAT (and profiles in general). Definitely recommended reading for anybody looking into this subject.
Good job.
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I think we're both saying the same thing, it's probably just my view is indeed a bit more narrow than yours.
I guess I was looking at the registry as only what is currently "loaded" at any one time in the machine, so all the other NTUSER.DAT files that are currently not loaded aren't part of that "loaded" entity, which I was referring to as the "registry". Technically I admit this is not correct as all of the files (loaded or not) can at some time be loaded, but I was trying to frame it in reference to being able to manipulate the non loaded NTUSER.DAT files (like copying them out so they could be used in a UA install).So, that all said, it appears that if I was "John Doe", I could log in as "Mary Doe" and copy the "John Doe" NTUSER.DAT file out of Machine A. If I want to set up Machine B, is it as simple as creating a profile for "John Doe" and copying this file to that profile?
@elwood: Can you post some information on how you've done your set up that would point us in the right direction?
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I did some testing with putting white space around the "=" and quotes around different things and I can't tell that it made any difference. It appears that the parser is (surprisingly) able to handle it either way.
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No problem. Glad to help out.
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@Gilles: Thanks for answering this old post. For some strange reason, I started having this problem this morning and when I came here to find the answer, it was right on top of the recent posts. Talk about timing
Thanks again.
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Well... I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm asking a question so that I and others like me can learn. Isn't that the whole purpose of this forum in the first place?
My point is that there is not a single file called NTUSER.DAT that is part of the registry. In searching the forum, there are several references to the file NTUSER.DAT as being the contents of HKCU when a user logs on. My understanding is that, depending on who logs in, a different copy of NTUSER.DAT gets "loaded" as HKCU. This is different than, say HKLM, which is the same file regardless of who logs in.
So, if this is true, then one could presumably replace the NTUSER.DAT in a given profile with a copy from another profile. I think what we're all trying to understand here, is the process of how you can get the NTUSER.DAT file from Machine A to Machine B successfully.
Does that sound about right?
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NTUSER.DAT is part of the registry!
Isn't NTUSER.DAT what gets loaded into HKCU when a user logs on? It's not part of the registry, it's what the HKCU hive is loaded with, isn't it?
I think the idea here is to copy the NTUSER.DAT file from an existing machine so that all of the user prefences (usually done with tweaks) are copied too. At least that's what the posts I've seen seem to indicated. I've been trying to track down all of the posts today to see how this is done. Sounds interesting.
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If you wanted to install the update right after you downloaded it, just modify the following section of code:
; Get latest intelligent updater. You can change the second $FileName
; to a constant value if you want to be able to use the same file name
; in your UA script. I left the file name as it is on the FTP site for
; testing purposes.
gpDownload($FileName, $FileName)
; Install the update
RunWait(@ScriptDir & "\" & $FileName & " /q", @ScriptDir)
; Hide status messages
SplashOff()I haven't run this, so hopefully it's not buggy, but you get the general idea. You don't need to launch a command window to run the updater as it's an exe. You also probably don't want to hide the Symantec installer as it will look like the system is hung up while the installer is running.
HTH
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I went to their web site and it looks like you can contact them via email. You can probably just ask them about your problem.
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You are welcome. Hope you found the problem with your script.
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Again, the whole purpose of doing this in the first place was simply to present an alternative to what we know already works. I am not stating that this script is any better or worse than using the registry, AutoIt, etc. It's just another way to do things.
I appreciate the feedback and suggestions. Please bear with me if I offer up other scripts like this. I've gotten so much help from here that I'm just trying to give back a little. Hopefully, we can all continue to learn new ways of doing things from each other. 
, I remembered that I was a programmer:
When does the network get loaded in relationship to these installation points? I had trouble running the Symantec LiveUpdate during RunOnceEx, but it works fine using Run.
No Windows Login&LogOff Sounds!HELP
in Unattended Windows 2000/XP/2003
Posted
Follow taps advice. Sounds like a known bug.