kelaniz

Thanks very much for that info, that definitely should solve that similar problem with those 12 ancient apps I'm installing. Alt+F4 will work just fine, provided I set the timing generous enough unless something else steals the focus in that millisecond, that is. Since that installer sometimes won't unload even when you kill the Start Menu explorer window, I assume I can handle that and make sure both processes are sufficiently killed by adding a command and changing the last command to run taskkill to kill that specific process. Something like this... Again, thanks a bunch. Looks like I'm gonna have to give JScript another chance. KZ

That's a good idea. Could you please post an example of a script you used, or at least a good place to find more info on how to do that? I haven't worked with JS in 3 years, and wasn't that great with it to begin with, so creating one from scratch is not possible. I was even worse with VB. I could do it in PHP, Perl or ColdFusion, though, but that's not much help. I checked a few JS repositories, but didn't see anything that I could modify for this purpose. KZ

I had the Office Rollback problem at the exact same place, and determined it was due to (in my case) to checking "Migrate User Settings" in page 9 of the Custom Installation Wizard. That option exports the HKU_S-1-15-xxxxx registry branches, and when it tries to import them, the UID for the corresponding users on the new box are numbered differently, so the keys can't be written, which makes Office freak out and back out of the whole freakin' install. I just unchecked that setting, and changed all the settings I wanted changed in page 10 of the CIW, and it worked perfectly from that point on. As for the bad batch file, I had to use the full path in the TRANSFORMS= to get it to work without quotes. I'm sure there's a few ways to do with with or without quotes, but this is what worked for me. Note, I also moved everything up one directory level, since the 'Applications' directory only has Office2K3. My Office 2003 Install command: "%systemdrive%\install\Office2k3\setup.exe" TRANSFORMS=%systemdrive%\Install\Office2K3\Unattended.MST /qb- Hope that helps one or both of you. KZ

Hello all, I'm having this problem with a number of apps, but to keep it simple, I'll use ACDSee 3.1 as an example. This is (I think) a non-packaged EXE installer. I can get it to successfully install silently with a /s switch if you import various registry settings before you run setup. That's all good. What happens is, many of these (usually older) apps open an explorer window at the end of setup containing their newly-created shortcuts in that program's folder in the start menu. In ACDsee 3.1, it's something like: %AllusersProfile%\Start Menu\Programs\ACD Systems\ACDSee The problem is, the installer keeps running until you close that window. This breaks unattended setup. Is there any way to kill this explorer window (and as a result, the installer) so that unattended install can continue? I've tried using taskkill.exe, but since the installer's still running, taskkill won't run until it ends. I was tihnking it may be possible to somehow call another batch file when setup starts to run concurrently, but sleep, say 45 seconds, until setup (technically) finishes, then kill the process, but I don't know how to do that. :/ I have about 12 "vintage" apps and utilities on my UXPCD that have this problem. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have any switches that stop the post-setup window opening, so if I can get something to work for ACDSee 3.1, then I can adapt it to those programs as well. ANY help would be greatly appreciated, by me and anyone else trying to silent-install any of the thousands of programs that have this annoying little feature. This has been such a problem for me, we're now talking "you're definitely on my Christmas list" appreciation if you have a working solution! Please, no unhelpful comments like "Upgrade to a version made this century, ya moron!" IMO ACDSee went to crap after 3.1, and I have tried (and greatly dislike) all versions past that one. As for the rest of the 12 programs in this category, half of them have no upgrades, and the other half also started to suck as they evolved. Thanks in advance.. KZ

Does your NIC have its driver and a configuraiton automatically added during install? If I'm not mistaken, when the NIC is not preconfigured and is detected and added post-boot as a PNP device, that sequence occurs after services are started. Since there's no NIC at that point to bind AFD/NetBT/TCP/IP to, TCP/IP isn't started and, because of the dependency, DHCP also stops.

Anyone know which nLite setting keeps the generic VGA driver that's needed to autoset your display to 1024x768 on first boot? I've seen mention in the forum that these generic drivers are what allow this, but no mention as to what specific driver allows it. In nLite. I see 2 entries relating to video drivers, but I can't figure out which one affects this, or if it's something different altogether. Those 2 entries are: Display Adapters Display Adapters (old) I've tried leaving both in the build, removing both, and leaving one or the other, but I always get 800x600. Either way, I can always go immediately into the display settings and set it manually to 1024x768 (and preferably 1152x864), but that step pretty much stops me from having WPI autoload and do an unattended install, as I have to set the resolution first, then run WPI. Anyone know? Thanks in advance. -KZ

What do you mean? I'm confused. I've been using a XP with SP2 already integrated build. I verified that by installing it without any modifications, and checked all the file versions against what SP2 was supposed to provide. It all checks out. Since that post, the Username problem has vanished. No idea what changed, unless it's due to some compnent I was removing (I remove very little, like half the "safe" entries) I've been assuming that setting SFC = Disable does disable SFC, rather than setting Enable = enable this tweak.

OK, thanks for the reply. That's good to know what causes it, and it makes sense. When I couldn't get nLite's user creation to work, I did it through a batch file, and unchecked everything in that section. That's when the OOBE problem started, but I was furiously making changes, so I didn't notice it. As for the user creation problem. Well, it works now. I have *no* idea why. All I did differently was disable my temp-fix batch file and re-add the userinfo to nLite. Worked like a champ ever since. The next build I'm making, I'll re-add the 2 users as I had originally and see what happens. The only possible cause I can think of is, when I first installed nLruntimeR3, it defaulted to install in \nLite however, nLite itself was installed in \nLite_1.3b (or something like that). Maybe that had something to do with it. Everything else worked, so I didn't think about that. I eventually reinstalled both into the same dir, though, and everything's working fine. I'll try the build with the complete userlist when I wake up today and see how it goes. An OOBE option would be most excellent, since I'm sure more than a few people don't use Autologon for various reasons. -Kel

On the Unattended="No" setting, my WINNT.SIF doesn't even exist until it's created by nLite, so I assume it must be what's setting it. Basically, here's my process: I have a XP Corp SP2 CD, (VRMPVOL_EN). I start by adding one RVM UpdatePack (RVMUpdatePack2.1.6.7z) to integrate a few missing hotfixes and a DirectX 9.0c addon. Then, I nLite the resulting I386. Since I''ve been testing a variety of builds with different things removed, I always start each time with a brand new nLite config, especially since it seems each time I run nLite on the same source, certain things disappear and reappear (like Clipsrv service). Since RC2, these builds have had this in the resulting WINNT.SIF ... [Unattended] UnattendMode=DefaultHide UnattendSwitch="No" <---------Here's the switch in question.. OemPreinstall="Yes" OemSkipEula="Yes" ComputerType="Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC", Retail FileSystem=* WaitForReboot="No" NoWaitAfterTextMode=1 NoWaitAfterGUIMode=1 DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore NonDriverSigningPolicy=Ignore Hibernation="No" ... That setting (apparently) makes what I asssume is OOBE run run at the end of setup. (I assume it's OOBE. It includes the Welcome animation, and 3 pages of setting up the Network and other stuff) I've been changing it to "Yes" manually, so it'll not load. I just wondered why it was now doing this. It appears on direct CD copied-nLited only builds from both my OEM and CORP CDs. If nLite doesn't do this, then how it appears on a build untouched by any other application really *is* a mystery! Actually, could that possibly be due to the "Enable IP Setup" button at the top of the Custom IP/Network Adapter Page. One one early build, I clicked that to see what it did, it vanished, and that's when the problem started. Even though I did later builds with completely new settings, and didn't click that button again. (It also appears about 1 out of 10 times) No problem on the drivers issue. Guess I'll just have to be more careful there. Going to try the usercreation here in a few mins. If it fails, I'll post the settings_u.ini here.

Ok, I'll check that tomorrow. Also, can you tell me what specific setting causes the item Unattended="No" to be set in the WINNT.SIF? The first couple of builds I made, this was set to "Yes", (which I wanted), but recently, no matter if I start with a clean Corp SP2 or OEM SP2 source, it always ends up being set to 'No" (which causes the OOBE to run). I've been changing it back manually, and can't find anything in nLite that affects it. Another issue I wanted to make you aware of (if it hasn't already been mentioned). If you re-edit a source that you've already completed, and and added drivers to, if you neglect to uncheck the drivers tab, or remove those drivers rom the list, they're copied to the source and listed in the SIT twice, where it's then impossible to remove the duplicate entries. Are you planning to add an "Already added" check to prevent that, like the Themes section has? Just wondering. I'll check another buld with #1 tomorrow and post back. Thanks a bunch for checking that for me.

Doesn't that key only work if you have the *shudder* Indexing Service enabled? That MS page seems to say that to get it to search files other than .txt without the Indexing Service, you have to add a PersistentHandler to each filetype you want searched. -K

Here's a few of the recent configs I tried. In all cases, Administrator and Guest were created, but Kelani wasn't.. Autologon section is the same on all presets. Side note, if you remove autologin from your config, the LogonCount=1 line stays in there. Dunno if that has any side effects.. [Unattended] ComputerType = Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC HibernationNo AutoLogon = Kelani LogonCount = 1 1st example: Renamed admin account, Renamed and disabled guest account, Kelani account with blank pswd and No password reqd. [Users] Adminibator|AdminAccount|AdminAccount2|True|Administrators|x|False|False|True NotGuest|GuestAccount|GuestAccount2|False|Guests|x|False|True|True Kelani|Kelaccount|Kelaccount2|True|Administrators||True|False|True 2nd example: Same as above, except Kelani account has password and Guest account enabled. [Users] Administrator|Adminaccount|AdminAccount2|True|Administrators|x|False|False|True NotGuest|GuestAccount|GuestAccount2|True|Guests|x|False|True|True Kelani|Kelaccount|Kelaccount2|True|Administrators|x|False|False|True 3rd example Same as #1, except no Full Name or Description on any accounts [Users] Adminibator|||True|Administrators|x|False|True|True NotGuest|||False|Guests|x|False|True|True Kelani|||True|Administrators||True|False|True That's 3 of the last 15 versions I've tried. The rest just contain more combinations of Full name/Description/ Must have password/Blank password settings. Most don't create any accounts other than Administrator and Guest. I've tried just about every variation I can think of; including not renaming Administrator or Guest. The only config that actually added the Kelani account was #3 (leaving Full Name and description blank), but the password didn't work no matter if I set it or left it blank, so autologin still failed for the added account (always works fine for Administrator, though). Is including the full name and description still an issue in RC2? If so, you may want to consider mentioning that somewhere in the forum. I had to dig around for quite awhile to find a post where it was mentioned, but that one seemed to say that problem was fixed as of RC2. So, I dunno. In the interim, I migrated account creation to a GUIRunOnce batch file, which does work fine, but I'd (naturally) rather use nLite Any ideas? other than this quirk, nLite definitely gets 2 thumbs up from me. Nice job -Kel

I posted a similar topic in the RC2 sticky thread, but that thread's not getting much traffic, so I'm re-posting it here. Sorry for the duplicate. Bascially, in RC2, I simply cannot get user account creation to work. Specifically, the only users being created are Administrator and Guest. I have 2 more I want to create. In the previous version, the user would be created, but the password (blank or not) wasn't added, so autologin failed. In RC2, these accounds just don't create. I've tried everything from making the Guest account an Admin account, renamed to what I want it to be, to manually editing the INI and moving my 2 accounts above Guest, to setting the username/full name/description to "kelani/kelani2/kelani3" to see what, if anything would add. Nothing does. I know I can do this via command line, but I'd like to avoid that if I can help it, as it'll force me to setup XP, then reboot (I have secondary user/logoff, etc.. removed) to login under the Kelani account and run my silent installers. So, has anyone gotten this feature to work in RC2, and if so, how? This problem is the last kink that remains to iron out in my build. Thanks in advance, KZ

Hmm. nope. Still nothing. For whatever reason, only the Administrator and Guest accounts are being created. I've tried everything I can think of now, like, changing the guest account to an Admin account and renaming it, editing the nLite config manually to put my users ahead of Guest, etc.. No matter what I do, with RC2, those user accounts don't create. In the previous version, they did, although the passwords didn't make it, so they had to be added manually. Anyone know how to fix this? This is driving me nuts. I know I can do user creation via command line, but I'd rather not if I can help it, as it forces me to login as Admin, then reboot to setup everything under the main account.

OK, cool, so I just need to swap username and full name for added users? It didn't do this on the administrator account, that worked. Yeah, I've noticed that too. Even on a fresh, unmodified source, sometimes the options to disable SFC and enable IIS are disabled. It seems specifically like the option for turning off Windows SFC seem to enable and disable itself randomly. Every time I make a change to the build, I always have to go through and recheck about 10 items that have unchecked themselves. So,i guess they're not being saved in (or loaded from) the config. Also, on the SFC option. To me, the wording is kind of unclear as to which option (Enable or Disable) actually disables SFC. For example, does choosing 'Enable' Enable SFC, or Enable the Disable SFC option, or vice versa? Anyone know? Gonna rebuild and try users with username, full name and description all set to the same, and see what happens...

Can anyone clarify exactly how to get the add/rename user portion to work correctly? I recall seeing a post somewhere that said that section was buggy, but fixed in RC2 (no idea where I saw it). I've tried RC2 as well as 2 older versions of nlite, to create a XPSP2 build, and no matter what I've done, the user I want to create is either nonexistent upon first boot, or exists with an unknown password, so not only does auto-login fail, I am forced to login with Administrator. I'm not using the encrypted password option, and I've tried creating 2 users, with and without the name and descriptions, with and without a password at all. Here's my configs. [Users] Adminibator|Admin|Admin|True|Administrators|x|False|False|True NotGuest|GuestUser|Guest|True|Guests|x|False|False|False kelani|kelaniz|kelani|True|Administrators|x|False|False|True kelani2|dupekelani|kelani|True|Administrators|x|False|False|True and... [Unattended] ComputerType = Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC HibernationNo AutoLogon = kelani LogonCount = 1 Also, should that line HibernationNo be that way, or Hibernation = No? That just stood out at me as I was pasting. One more thing.. How is user creation handled by nlite and Windows setup? Is it saved somewhere in the build, or is the INI file read by a batch file, or something? Just wondering if I can edit the INI directly without having to open the program and risk having any accidental or unwanted changes made to the config. Other than this annoying problem I've been unable to solve, this is an awesome piece of software. The first build I tried, where i packed everything in that I could, removed some things, added others, basically did everything i coudl to screw it up, installed perfectly (minus the user thing) as has every build since then! To me, that's pretty darn impressive, because if there's any possible way to break a program, I usually find it Anyway, if anyone has an answer or a link to where this has already been discussed (If there is one, I sure couldn't find it) I'd be much appreciative. This is the only thing keeping my 2 months-in-design KelXP build from being perfect Thanks in advance, Kel

Those links have apparently expired, or gigasize is being it's usual crappy self.

Oh, so it WAS that simple! Whew. Excellent. So, I guess that bug also means that any registry entries that have spaces and need quotes, need to be reworked so they don't? Also, was that info posted anywhere, 'cause I sure couldn't find it. Thanks for the quickest forum reply I've ever seen. -Kel2

Sorry if this has been posted, but if it has, it's hiding very well, I couldn't find anything on it. Ok, got an install of around 30 programs, and I'm on round 3 of debugging an testing on VMWare. That's all good. Last major problem is, NONE of my registry statements in my config are working. All the apps are, but no registry. Here's a sample of my config and a snip of the logfile from trying to install ACDSee 3.1 (yeah, I know it's old, but I hate the bloat and invasiveness of the newer versions. ) prog[pn]=['ACDSee 3.1']; ordr[pn]=[160]; desc[pn]=['ACDSee 3.1 Image Viewer. Whee. Key is <b>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</b>']; uid[pn]=['ACDSEE31']; dflt[pn]=['yes']; cat[pn]=['Applications']; forc[pn]=['no']; configs[pn]=['Apps']; regb[pn]=['"%CDROM%\\WPI\\Kel\\Apps\\ACDSee\\ACDSee3.1_Reg.reg"']; cmd1[pn]=['"%CDROM%\\WPI\\Kel\\Apps\\ACDSee\\Acdsee_3.1.exe"']; rega[pn]=['"%CDROM%\\WPI\\Kel\\Apps\\ACDSee\\ACDSee3.1_Settings.reg"']; picf[pn]=['ACDSee.png']; picw[pn]=['48']; pich[pn]=['48']; textl[pn]=['Right']; pn++; And the log entry... Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:24:41 AM Program: ACDSee 3.1 UID: ACDSEE31 Order: 000160 Category: Applications Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:24:41 AM Reg Before *** Fail *** (File does not exist): RegEdit /S ""D:\WPI\Kel\Apps\ACDSee\ACDSee3.1_Reg.reg"" Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:24:59 AM cmd1 Success (returned code 0): ""D:\WPI\Kel\Apps\ACDSee\Acdsee_3.1.exe"" Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:26:32 AM Reg After *** Fail *** (File does not exist): RegEdit /S ""D:\WPI\Kel\Apps\ACDSee\ACDSee3.1_Settings.reg"" Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:26:32 AM Finished installation. I noticed the double quotes ("") in the log, so I'm hoping my reg entries having quotes is the problem, (even though they're also in the CMD1-6 lines,) but those work fine. So, I doubt it's that simple. So, do the registry before/after blanks just not tolerate double quotes, or is this something else I'm missing? I've done the obvious stuff, verified the path and filename (it's all in the same path). What is listed in the config is exactly as it appears when I click the folder next to the Reg fields and browse to the registry file. I know it's also not something stupid like a missing regedit.exe, because I have a few entries later in my config where the command is nothing but a registry import, for example: regedit "%CDROM%\WPI\Kel\Registry\Recycle_Bin_Rename.reg" and all these work fine. So.. any ideas? I've been working on this install for a month now and I am QUITE ready to finish it and actually use it TIA, Kel2

Thanks for the reply. I figured that was the case. I'll change that. I ended up creating WinRAR SFX archives for a few of the entries that needed operations I don't yet know how to accomplish with WPI. As for the OS / Language question, I'm using WinXP Pro SP2, English (United States) Funny thing though, I was tweaking my config yesterday, and added an app. Saved, and for some reason closed and reopened WPI, now the error no longer appears! However, on my backup box, which is an exact mirror of this one, it still persists. So, I don't know what happened. I didn't make any changes, and the error appeared on both WPI clean installs' since the first run. One more thing.. Is there a list of all the windows variables beyond those in the dropdown box, (i.e. %programfiles%) WPI can read, and example syntax and switches for the DOS commands? It'd be really helpful for those less-familiar with command lines to know exactly how to use FILEEXISTS as well as how FILECOPY/DIRCOPY operate in WPI. Otherwise, you have to assume they function the same as the DOS command, which varies. For example, some variants of copy have switches to copy and auto-create subdirectories, and some don't. Same with leaving out a trailing backslash when copying a directory. One variant of copy copies the directory as a file, while another correctly copies it as a directory. Anyway, thanks in advance for the help. Love the app so far! -kz

Anyone know why I'm getting this error?

That option works. I plan on burning my first test today, and hopefully it'll go well. The only problems I anticipate are from using the commands in the menu boxes to the left of the commands. (FILECREATE, DIRCREATE, %SLEEP%) I have a few questions about those that I couldn't find in the documentation or forums. (can't find anything. am I blind or is it just not documented, yet?) For one example, I want to create a subdir in \Program Files, copy files from the CD there, run the installer from CD (which asks for a password to install), then wait, and install a patch when that install finishes. Using WinRAR as an example, Would these commands be the correct syntax to create the directory, copy WinRAR themes DIR from CD, run the installer, wait 20 sec. and then copy my license key? Cmd 1: MAKEDIR "%programfiles%\WinRAR\" Cmd 2: DIRCOPY "%CDROM%\WPI\KelStuff\Apps\WinRAR_Pro\Themes\" "%programfiles%\WinRAR\" Cmd 3: "%programfiles%\WinRAR\wrar360.exe" %sleep% 20 Cmd 4: FILECOPY "%CDROM%\WPI\KelStuff\Apps\WinRAR_Pro\rarreg.key" "%programfiles%\WinRAR\" Oh yeah, any idea about that language error? I attached a JPG of the error I see after a fresh install, (and every start).

Just US English on this one. It's a minor annoyance. Otherwise, it works great, and I think it's a very well done piece of code. While you're here, though, I have another possibly stupid question.. Can you tell me if there's any way to compensate for the root dir. being auto-included in the config when adding items? (aside from manually removing it, or mapping a drive letter to that dir, which I can do, just prefer not to for various reasons.) For example, my source is arranged like this.. \KelXP\ ..........|$OEM$ ..........|i386 ..........|WPI\ ..................|Kelstuff etc.. So, every item I add gets the path %CDROM%\KelXP\WPI\Kelstuff\... which, when burned and run would fail spectacularly I've scanned the forums as well as a few configs I've found posted, but don't see how everyone's handling it. Cool! Another Kel exists! Seems you abbreviate out of necessity, whereas I do so out of laziness. Still, I'm a guest, so I'll go by Kelx here, so no one mistakenly attached any unwarranted credibility to my posts. -Kelx

Where does one add/modify global variables, to set the language, root path, etc, for if they need to deviate from the recommended folder structure? I'm also getting a script error on a fresh WPI copy that says 'OSLanguage is Null or not an object' Not finding anything about that in the forums. Any ideas?

Sorry to butt in, but, just to clarify, even with quotation marks, you can't have spaces in your path/filename at all?