forkprong

Quite possibly. What disks are supported.

I believe it was 'Hide Pages' (I left it at the default). I even tried the activation code on the side of my desktop with no change in the result. I'll try Fully Automatic using both codes.

I did in my first post but I'll post it again. I'll send my most recent failure's file. I follow that exact procedure every time. Still, my key is invalid. Yes, they are my recovery CDs. It wouldn't surprise me if they were the culprit but they DO manage to install my system correctly even now. They themselves do not produce an error. Key works every time. Which is why I'm wondering why it doesn't work with nLite. There are 8 installation CDs (and one Recovery Tools CD but that one is not essential) mostly because of bloatware: Norton this, McAffee that, MS Office and so forth. Plus HP likes to include it's own software for printers and God knows what else. Altogether, the files from just the 8 recovery CDs takes up 4.23 GB. That's just incredible. I can't wait to be able to use one frigging CD. Most of it is in the PRELOAD directory. Plus, every recovery completely erases my hard drive and I lose everything on it. I can't create and choose partitions to install to. It's all or nothing. I'll also include the screenshot of my source folder as you asked. LAST_SESSION.INI

I am. They came with my system.

It was more economical time-wise to just ask myself. Besides, many of the answers did not match my problem or were posted long enough for me to be unsure of their accuracy. Key is valid. It was recovered from my current XP installation created by my recovery CDs using RockXP and verified with Magic Jellybean and WinkeyFinder. I do not have any keys on any stickers but I do want to know about this answer file. What/where is it? I do not believe its an nLite error and since it also failed in the same way with an SP2 slipstream I made, I do not think it is related to slipstreaming, SP3 or otherwise. The source was not modified before slipstreaming as far as I know. I copied the contents from all 8 CDs into one folder and left it untouched. The only thing I do with those files is copy them to another folder where I work on them with nLite. This is the Home Edition of XP and not Professional. That may be the reason why some files were missing. I'm not sure. I slipstream, then remove components and do the tweaks that nLite lets me do afterwards. After I'm done, I apply the changes and then create an ISO. All in one session.

The main problem is that my activation key doesn't work. Here are the details I use. I'm using the CDs that came with my HP Pavilion (8 in total) I'm using nLite 1.4.9.1 on a WinXP SP3 system. I copied the contents of all 8 CDs to one folder on my hard drive. I copied the contents of that folder to another so I won't have to keep copying them from the CDs if my remaster fails. I did a slipstream of SP3 and it failed at the activation key point (I copied it to the correct part in nLite so I wouldn't have to enter it myself). After that I tried SP2 because I figured it may be an SP3 thing but an SP2 slipstream failed at the key check, too. I recently copied the $winnt$.inf file from C:\WINDOWS\system32 to the C:\XP-remaster\i386\system32 folder (my 'working' folder) but I didn't have the opportunity to check if it worked yet. Also, is there a way to make the installer stop complaining if a file is missing if I got rid of the components they belong to in nLite. It is hardly an 'unattended' install if I have to stay there most of the time holding the ESC key down. Any help is appreciated. I'm including my Last_Session.ini from the time I tried remastering the SP2 version LAST_SESSION.INI

Okay, new topic OTW

I get the invalid key error and I'm using nlite from an XP with an SP3-slipstreamed CD. Any tips on why it is doing that and tips on how I can get rid of the error?

Its amazing that after a moderator says that flames had to be removed that people keep flaming and accuse me of being a troll. nLite should not be able to break an XP install no matter how it is used, PERIOD, because that is not it's purpose. Saying "LOL U USED IT WRONG U SUK" is not only useless in reviving my XP but is a detriment to the community surrounding nLite. What everyone fails to notice it that nLite shouldn't allow you to use it wrong. Also, saying it is for 'advanced users' is no excuse. I am an advanced user but I had no idea how nLite itself worked. Having to gain experience in a program by experiencing tragedies like this is no way to learn about a program. In the second panel nLite says "Locating the Windows Installation" and C:\WINDOWS is the obvious choice for that to anyone new to the program. It should be more descriptive on what you need to start the process. Other than not being able to use C:\WINDOWS, it needs a prompt to appear if you try to choose C:\WINDOWS saying: "Sorry, but choosing C:\WINDOWS as a source directory can break your Windows installation. Please use your WinXP CD or copy the files on that CD to it's own directory on your hard drive." After reading about C:\XPCD I can see the reason to have the browser it does, so that's fine. Since C:\WINDOWS could be selected by the program I didn't expect it to cause a program. The program should know what to do, who am I to argue with it? No warnings, no problem. I assumed it would copy the up-to-date files in C:\WINDOWS to a separate working directory and do its thing, but it broke XP instead. I wanted to warn the developer of the flaw and get help restoring Windows but I found jerks too busy enjoying the sound of their own eliteness to help.

Obviously there is SOME file copying if its moving files from the CD to an empty folder on your HDD. What's odd is that I can't find to location of the DLL files that went missing when nLite used C:WINDOWS as the source. nuhi will fix. nuhi will fix you just quoted what i wrote, then reworded it! (the only file copying you need to do is the xpdisc to a suitable folder, like C:\XPCD ) your install is probably screwed if you've messed with C:\Windows reinstall with your hp disc, and either get a clean xp disc, or just forget about nlite.. That's how it should work but that's not what happened in my case. I was talking about how the DLL files were moved from C:\WINDOWS (the source) to nowhere which made recovering my OS even more difficult. Since I did a recovery install of WinXP I've been unable to repeat what I've done because I keep getting this error: and it prevents further progress so I can't repeat the bug. An easy way to prevent new users from accidently using C:\WINDOWS is to remove the current "locating the windows installation" dialog and replace it with an interface similar to that found in burning programs by having 2 options: 1) the ability to search CD/DVDROM drives only 2) the ability to search your filesystem for ISO files only I just hope that the mysteries of where the files went when I attempted to use C:\WINDOWS as my source or why I can no longer repeat the process, aren't indicative of deeper flaws in an otherwise well-designed program, but they should be investigated nonetheless.

The problem is that nLite was able to work on C:\WINDOWS at all. It really is a major potential bug be it NOOB or otherwise. It should really only prompt for the CD/DVD (or ISO image(s) if that is supported). As for the selection of C:\WINDOWS it was probably a fluke but it's been so long I can't remember.

I don't have the lastsession.ini file to post (http://www.msfn.org/board/145-Beta2-Broke-...323#entry751323 at the very top). What do you mean by wrong concept?

Taking media and remaking/re-recording it (usually to improve quality). Mostly used for the music/movie business but it also applies to remaking install disks of OS CDs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remaster http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Knoppix_Remastering_Howto

I intend to debloat the CD set that I have so I only end up with one CD, I can only assume nLite was made with OEM disks in mind in addition to retail WinXP CDs. As for the 500MB, the first CD did end up producing about that many files, but as I mentioned there's a i386 folder on the second CD and I'm worried that I could end up with missing files when I remaster because nLite didn't check for additional CDs. nLite used C:\WINDOWS instead of an installation CD/DVD as it's remastering source and it ended up destroying my XP installation. Don't ask me what exactly went wrong but nuhi is aware of this now and will likely prevent nLite from using C:WINDOWS in the future. nLite was able to choose C:\WINDOWS as the file source with little or no input from me. That's the heart of the bug. If nLite was going to do anything (and it ended up doing *something*) it should have known better than to fool around with C:\WINDOWS. Seeing as I was new to nLite I expected it to know what it was doing (who am I to question it!) but that ended up in disaster. nuhi will fix that no doubt now that he knows. Bah, I was hoping for OEM support. I hope there's a way to work around this (and possibly support in the future). Found it, thanks. I may as well practice remastering with nLite just the same. I need it. Obviously there is SOME file copying if its moving files from the CD to an empty folder on your HDD. What's odd is that I can't find to location of the DLL files that went missing when nLite used C:WINDOWS as the source. nuhi will fix. nuhi will fix

Just did a search for lastsession.ini and and found nothing. I uninstalled nLite and deleted its folder so if it was in there it's long gone. Sorry. I wasn't trying to mod a cd/iso at the time. I started this thread more or less as a bug report but I'm also using it to help me remaster. I am now trying to remaster using my disks which are virgin quality. I might be able to remaster but found a few bugs and curiosities that should be dealt with before I continue: 1. It couldn't find the following files even though they were present on my CD (I put copies in the i386 directory): - layout.inf (found in i386/inf) - netrass.inf (found in i386/inf) - nettcpip.inf (found in i386/inf) - netmscli.inf (found in i386/inf) - netserv.inf (found in i386/inf) - intl.inf (found in i386/inf) - usbport.sys (found in i386/system32/drivers) 2. nLite also needed syssetup.inf but it wasn't on my CD so I used a version I found in C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386 but I doubt its usefulness since it seems to be related to SP2 and my disks are SP1. 3. nLite only checked one CD. I checked my second disk (out of 8) and found a i386 directory so some files may have been overlooked. Look closer and you'll see I make no mention of a temporary folder and NLite DOES ask the user to define a working folder to store the files it nabs from your disks. Yes I have. I tried remastering C:\WINDOWS again just to get more info on the bug but now I'm trying my installation disks. I encountered some oddities as mentioned above. Just so everyone knows I'm using a HP Pavilion a420n and I had to burn my own recovery CDs.