Maestro

Son of a gun!! I should have looked through that help before, I guess I don't always think all the way. (I know you can use rar /? at the command line, but its information is limited.) Well thanks for helping me with something I should have found on my own!

Actually, I haven't renamed anything, and i just searched my computer and there's no "rar32.exe" on it. All I've done is added "C:\Program Files\WinRAR\" to the "paths" variable, so now I can simply use the "rar" command from any command prompt or batch file. The syntax you gave there works for me, Thanks so much! That's very interesting. I'd tried it almost that way, but without the z. How on earth did you ever know to add that? Is there a guide somewhere I've overlooked?

I'm trying to create some self-extracting winRAR archives to install some of my programs, and I've been able to create them fine manually, but I'm having trouble finishing them from the command line utility. I can create the sfx archive itself just fine, but then when I try to add comments to it from a file, I cannot get them to add. The "date modified" on the archive updates to the current time, but the comments aren't actually in it. The file I'm trying to call the comments from is "comment.txt" and looks like: ;The comment below contains SFX script commands Path=strokeit SavePath Setup=strokeit.cmd Silent=1 Overwrite=1 I've also tried naming this comment file with different extensions (or no extension) with the same results. To add the comments to an existing sfx archive, I understand the correct syntax to be the first one here, but I've tried all these and none work: rar cf folder\existingarchive.exe comment.txt rar c folder\existingarchive.exe comment.txt rar cf comment.txt folder\existingarchive.exe rar c comment.txt folder\existingarchive.exe So, does anybody know what I'm doing wrong here? This is driving me insane, it seems like it aught to be so simple... and it probably is. Thanks in advance!

sanjaykumar, Using the magic magenta color works, but it's not limited to that. Alpha transparency is also supported for the OEM Logo. bitmaps do not support transparency like other formats like png do, but it does support alpha layers, which is even better. Here's my logo... you can look at it and see what I'm talking about. (I've modified my system cpl to allow for it's larger resolution, so I don't know how much of it would get trimmed off for you, but anyone's welcome to use it if they want!) Cheers oemlogo.bmp

The space he has there is (or should be!) between username and password, ie. the context is: net user username password /add so my guess is that's actually correct. The problem is AutoAdminLogon=0. Set this to "1" and you should be set.

I've always had a problem with copying over anything correctly with the $Docs folder. Let's say I make a folder for user "bob", as $OEM$\$Docs\bob\ . Everything will copy over, (ie, I have my stuff in c:\documents and settings\bob\*) but now the OS has created a whole new documents and settings folder for bob, c:\documents and settings\bob.COMPUTERNAME\ , so i have to manually re-copy stuff to that new directory. If, on my cd, I instead make $OEM$\$Docs\bob.COMPUTERNAME\ , then I end up with a user folder simply called "bob", as it should have been in the first place, but of course then my stuff is in yet another directory anyway. If I put both "bob\" and "bob\COMPUTERNAME" on the CD, then the user folder ends up with yet another name (I think bob.C.O.M.P.U.T.E.R.N.A.M.E , I'm not sure, I forget). So What's up with this? Has no one else had this problem? I'm running SP2 slipstreamed, the user who's stuff I'm trying to copy is created as an administrator by a batch file called from cmdlines.txt, and also set to autologon. Any Ideas?

you should be able to just add this to your registry tweaks with the proper usernames, etc... Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ;Replace InsertName value with the Username you want to autologin with. ;Replace InsertPassword value with the password corresponding to the Username specified. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] "DefaultUserName"="InsertName" "DefaultPassword"="InsertPassword" "AutoAdminLogon"="1"

probably this thread will be locked soon... http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=30256

Wow, that is quite a batch file Vad! That's exactly the sort of thing I was originally trying to come up with, but it is a good deal beyond my expertise. But is there a way to make that ask all the questions first though, then do the installs? The one thing I like about my way is that you can decide which programs you want all at once, then leave while they install. I guess the best of both worlds would be to use the set choice to ask whether or not to install, and delete the dummy file if choice=no. (the advantage being you can ask "do you want to install...", instead of my more confusing question of "do you want to delete?" press "yes" to Not install... ) It'd be nice not to have those stupid dummy files at all though.

Well, I've been lurking around this forum since it was started, and I figure it's about time I contributed something useful to it. So here I'll explain the method I've been using for picking which programs to install from cmdlines.txt during setup. I know there are programs like WPI for this now, but well, WPI wasn't always around. So this isn't a 3rd party app, it's just a simple way to do this from the cmd files. I'm no expert on .cmd files though, so very likely there is an even better way to do this... So here's the short version: install.cmd asks to delete a .txt file named after a program, you tell it yes, delete it, or no, don't delete it. If you don't delete it, then that program will be installed. The long version: Ok, first off, you will need a "dummy file" for each program (or program group) you want to install. The easiest way to do this is just to make an empty text file named after the program. For example, I have wmp10.txt for windows media player, and mediagroup1.txt for iTunes, whitecap, and mytunes. All these dummy files will go in xpcd\$OEM$\$1\install\ to get copied to %systemdrive%\install\ during setup. Then you will need a "master" install file, which will be called from cmdlines.txt, and will ask the questions and install the programs (this is the only file you will need to interact with during setup). This command file will ask to delete programx.txt from %systemdrive%\install\. After you've said yes/no to all the deletions, it will go and run the setups of the programs you didn't delete. here's an example "master" install file, where programx is just a program, and group1 is for programs X and Z: CLS @echo off TITLE Install Programs COLOR f0 ECHO. When you continue, you will be asked whether or not to delete a file. These are the command files that will run the installation for the program, so, if you DO want to install the program (will be asked as program.txt, where program is the name of the program to be installed), then DO NOT delete the file. ECHO. PAUSE ECHO. DEL %systemdrive%\install\programx.txt /P ECHO. DEL %systemdrive%\install\group1.txt /P ECHO. ECHO. ECHO.Installation of programs will now begin... PAUSE ECHO. ECHO. ECHO.Installing ProgramX IF EXIST %\systemdrive%\install\programx.cmd. (start /wait %systemdrive%\install\programx\programxsetup.exe /s) ELSE (echo programx not installed) ECHO. ECHO.Installing Program Y IF EXIST %\systemdrive%\install\group1.txt. (start /wait %systemdrive%\install\programy\programysetup.exe /s) ELSE (echo program y not installed) ECHO. ECHO.Installing Program Y IF EXIST %\systemdrive%\install\group1.txt. (start /wait %systemdrive%\install\programz\programzsetup.exe /s) ELSE (echo program z not installed) ECHO. ECHO. ECHO.Installation Complete PAUSE EXIT So, the dummy files are just there to create a switch of sorts, since you can't ask yes/no on the "start" command, but you can have a prompt on the delete command. Really it makes no difference what these files are called or where they are, just so long as they are copied to the hard drive somewhere (leave them in $OEM$ like my dumb brain did the first time, and you will have no options, since $OEM$ is on the cd, and so you obviously cannot delete files from it!) Hope this is useful!