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You're right, the guide doesn't state explicitly that you have to create the $OEM$ folder structure yourself. Given the number of questions that are asked in the forums about this, it should probably be added to the guide.

Make sure you've set OemPreinstall=Yes in your answer file.

You can specify another account for auto-logon by importing the correct registry entries. Check out http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/27/ (bottom of page) for instructions. You'll need to remove the autologon related settings from your .sif file if you're going to use the registry method.

The Signature line should read "$Windows NT$".

Recovery Genius isn't a Windows component. Did you install it yourself? If you did, there's probably a reason why this message pops up. If you didn't install it or don't need/want it anymore, just uninstall it.

Okay, so I ran BootVis trace & optimize on a couple of systems. To be honest, I can't say that I notice any difference. However, this is probably due to the fact that these are managed domain member systems. I don't suppose BootVis has any influence on group policy loading or script execution times.

At what point are you importing the registry settings? Are the wallpaper settings applied correctly?

Reinstalling a hotfix that was already correctly installed doesn't do anything except increasing the size of the log file

Oh right, I should have guessed that myself Anyway, you should be able to configure this from your answer file. If you've got the XP Deployment Tools (you should ), look up the [WindowsFirewall] section in the Preinstallation Reference (ref.chm). As far as I can tell, you'll need to add something like this: [WindowsFirewall] Profiles=WindowsFirewall.DefaultProfile [WindowsFirewall.DefaultProfile] Type=3 (0=domain type, 1=standard type, 3=both) Mode=1 (0=firewall disabled, 1=enabled) IcmpSettings=WindowsFirewall.EchoRequest [WindowsFirewall.EchoRequest] Type=8 (specifies InboundEchoRequest message type) Mode=1 (enables specified message type) I've never used these settings myself, so there may be something missing, but basically this should do it. You can configure multiple firewall profiles, for instance one for the domain type and one for the standard type, multiple ICMP settings sections, and a lot of other settings. Check ref.chm for details. Hope this helps!

Are you sure the settings in the new GPO are applied to this user? The new GPO needs to have priority over the original one for the settings in it to "win". If they do, there must still be something missing. Could you post the settings of the new GPO?

Check out Description of Group Policy Restricted Groups. Basically you manage membership of local groups through Group Policy. Any local changes to the groups are overwritten by the policy settings, so don't forget to include the local Administrator account and the Domain Admins group in the member list!

Click Start / Control Panel / Security Center (if in Category View) / Windows Firewall; Select Advanced tab and click Settings button in ICMP section; Enable "Allow incoming echo request" setting.

What exactly doesn't work? Do you get any error messages? How and where are you importing these settings? Be more specific!

How about using Group Policy to control Administrators group membership?

That's exactly what is supposed to happen: the AutoLogon setting configures the computer to log on with the local Administrator account. Could you explain in a bit more detail what is going wrong? Add "AutoActivate=Yes" to the [unattended] section to see if that solves your activation issue. Actually, EncryptedAdminPassword=No is the default value, so adding that shouldn't make a difference.

Interesting reading... I suppose you're right: the wording is open for interpretation. For instance, the phrase "Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users" could also mean that it does improve performance when used by an administrator or developer. I'll download a copy of BootVis and do some testing of my own. Will keep you posted...

You won't be able to access it via Remote Registry; that only works on a running system. What you'll need is some sort of "offline" registry editor. After some Googling I found this: Registry Tool. There's a trial version that may be enough for what you're trying to do.

Distributed File System?

That is definitely the coolest way

How to Implement Group Policy Security Filtering

Most of the Office 2003 policy settings reside in Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\... so they probably won't interfere with the Office 2000 settings.

The error occurs because the file is in use by Windows. For more information, read How to replace currently locked files with Inuse.exe. The article applies to Windows NT and 2000, but I'm pretty sure this method will work on XP as well.

So use the svcpack.inf method. Yes, you'll have to add the fixes manually, but they get installed fully unattended.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "ScreenSaveActive"="0" "Wallpaper"="C:\\WINDOWS\\Logo.bmp" "WallpaperStyle"="0" Next time please do some Googling... These questions have been answered many, many times.

Talk about spreading myths... BootVis is not an optimizer Source: Fast Boot / Fast Resume Design (Microsoft Windows Hardware Developer Central)