Octopuss

question: why does %programfiles% doesn't work here?

Out of question, but thanks for tips anyway.

I believe it's HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon I am playing around with my batch files and am wondering whether there is a way to make the cmd window impossible to close.

Well, it definitely does log the user in the number of times I set there, I tested that. But still doesn't solve my problem Btw where do you think it's better to install drivers and software at? I switched over from firstlogoncommands to setucomplete.cmd and it works just fine, sadly with the exceptions of funky stuff like Synaptics Touchpad and 3D DriveGuard. Was thinking to put it in the former as I wouldn't have to rewrite answer file for different PC then and just flip the batch files instead. Besides, one can easily just close the **** cmd windows when the desktop is already accessible (lots of lusers do that).

The computer is playing with me! <LocalAccount wcm:action="add"> <Name>blabla</Name> <DisplayName>blabla</DisplayName> <Group>Administrators</Group> <Password> <Value>aaa</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </Password> </LocalAccount> The account is a guest! What the hell!

You are probably right. But is it possible to create a new account which will be an administrator AND have the default Administrator account enabled at the same time?

I remember I had like 100-200 days uptime on my work XP machine few years ago, and I used to do all kinds of funky stuff with it It DID get slower over time though, but was still very useable. Anyway, I would love a system that boots even faster. It's not about saving time, it's about being extremely impatient

Well, permanent autologon is very handy for home computers. I am installing a new laptop for my father in law these days. He is the only one who will use it, so there is absolutely no reason for 1) having to type a password 2) creating extra account, which would be administrator anyway. My problem with autologon in unattended setup is that you ONLY can set finite amount of logons. Of course one million is probably enough until the thing gets replaced in a few years, but I want to do stuff "proper" way. There is a manual way, but I'd like to achieve that this way. Of course maybe it's impossible just like the themes.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\WIM_Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes] "InstallTheme"="%SystemRoot%\\resources\\Themes\\AeroNoBackground.theme" This is correct, rigt? Double backslash only for disk paths.

Don't get me wrong, I like useless ehnancements. I am all up for improved efficiency. Of course five seconds shorter booting time means nothing, but it gives you the impression the engineers over there did something very good for a change. But there are always those buts. This time frigging huge ones. I'm not buying into this at that cost, sorry (if the new UI was not there I probably wouldn't wait a single second to feed them my money, despite being extremely happy with Win7)

Jesus. It looks like some sort of crippled mixtureof MacOS and Windows 3.x. No way in hell I am potentially buying something that would force me to use such interface even if the whole thing was ten times as fast as Win7. And I was so stunned by that old article where they said how W8 can be ran (not used of course) on some ridiculously old hardware.

Exactly. I can of course do this manually after installation, but I am trying to achieve as much as possible automatically (and learn new stuff). At the moment I am going nuts over the account creation and Aero themes though.

To add to the confusion, if I create TWO new users, the 2nd one is actually created and logged on. What the hell is this? What am I doing wrong?

Another question please: 1) What do I change where (registry-wise I guess) to make a local account autologon PERMANENTLY? Not setting silly stuff like logoncount=9999. Run netplwiz and uncheck the usual tickbox is exactly what I want to achieve. Any pointers? 2) I can't seem to make anything else but administrator account autologin. this works: <UserAccounts> <AdministratorPassword> <Value>aaa</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </AdministratorPassword> <LocalAccounts> <LocalAccount wcm:action="add"> <Password> <Value>aaa</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </Password> <DisplayName>Administrator</DisplayName> <Group>Administrators</Group> <Name>Administrator</Name> </LocalAccount> </LocalAccounts> </UserAccounts> <AutoLogon> <Username>Administrator</Username> <LogonCount>3</LogonCount> <Enabled>true</Enabled> <Password> <Value>aaa</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </Password> </AutoLogon> this doesn't work: <UserAccounts> <AdministratorPassword> <Value>aaa</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </AdministratorPassword> <LocalAccounts> <LocalAccount wcm:action="add"> <Password> <Value>bbb</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </Password> <DisplayName>User</DisplayName> <Group>Administrators</Group> <Name>User</Name> </LocalAccount> </LocalAccounts> </UserAccounts> <AutoLogon> <Username>User</Username> <LogonCount>3</LogonCount> <Enabled>true</Enabled> <Password> <Value>bbb</Value> <PlainText>true</PlainText> </Password> </AutoLogon> ...and asks me for entering name for the account (no idea if it's the name of the folder or the description. **** system is totally unclear about it). If I enter "User" it says I can't use it as it's already in use or something like that. It also asks me for password too.

Ha you are onto something here. The individual packages have their own .msi files so it's technically speaking not one thing. Still I think setup wait for the setup.exe process to finish, which IMO doesn't happen until the whole thing is installed. Anyway, the other way with manual restart works just fine, fortunately. I still wonder if start /wait does anything... What happened when I put the driver in $WinPEdrivers$ was it did install, but the screen was completely blank, but the Windows was running, lol. I even heard sounds and saw disk activity when I opened Start for example. Some mysterious stuff there

How comes the setup doesn't wait for setucomplete.cmd to finish? I set it to install the drivers as per previous post but only just realized firstlogon commands pop up in the background! That makes no sense... cmd /c start /wait %systemdrive%\TEMP\graphics\bin64\setup.exe /unattended_install:c:\TEMP\graphics\Packages /force_hide_first_run /autoaccept_all /force_close_when_done /ON_REBOOT_MESSAGE:YES

What does InstallTheme do anyway? Or what's the difference from CurrentTheme?

Hey I thought to do exactly that. It doesn't work Must have something to do with laptops having per manufacturer customized drivers. Trying to put the driver there results in blank screen. A bug of some sort. However I managed to discover a way to do it anyway. I almost gave up though. I couldn't get the **** thing to install unattended if I specified packages to install (noone sane wants Control Center in his system I'd say, for example). It works fine when executed manually but gives (not always but often) all kinds of weird errors unattended. What I did was check which packages I wanted installed and physically DELETED the rest, and just specify the \packages path. You can also either: \bin64\atisetup.exe -install -use %systemdrive%\TEMP\graphics\Packages -output c:\TEMP\ATIlog.txt -loglevel 4 \bin64\setup.exe /unattended_install:c:\TEMP\graphics\Packages /force_hide_first_run /autoaccept_all /force_close_when_done /ON_REBOOT_MESSAGE:YES The first one has the disadvantage of not being able to push for a restart, so I install via setucomplete.cmd and manually do shutdown /r after that

Thanks. I bloody fail at this stuff big time

Not really, sound scheme and some other minor things are tied to themes as well I really am starting to think this is a design flaw of some sort, because I even copied the theme over to the reference installation, actived it, generalized and captured the image and it STILL DOES NOT WORK. Jeez.

The trouble is I have no idea what are registry like before the user is logged on for the first time, so maybe trying to modify HKCU during setupcomplete.cmd phase is pointless. Maybe the theme settings are saved in more locations than just HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes, because after the system booted to desktop and I manually changed the registry and restarted, the theme didn't change either!

Can't name any specific, just people on forums and articles I read in past... Fair enough with the registry, but why does it work with single backslash as well? example: reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes /v InstallTheme /t REG_SZ /d "%SystemDrive%\Windows\Resources\Themes\AeroNoBackground.theme" /f

Well I don't want to inject anything in the image as I use it for different machines, so I have the file copied by having it in $OEM$ folder instead. I tried to add the registry stuff during setupcomplete.cmd phase since - as far as I know - that is processed before the default profile is copied over, so it should apply to any account created after that. reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes /v InstallTheme /t REG_SZ /d "%SystemDrive%\Windows\Resources\Themes\AeroNoBackground.theme" /f reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes /v CurrentTheme /t REG_SZ /d "%SystemDrive%\Windows\Resources\Themes\AeroNoBackground.theme" /f no idea what .msstyle files are btw

If WinKit can do it then it must be possible to do it manually too! I don't want to use 3rd party tools. And btw the registry stuff IS set. But for some unknown reason the theme is not active even if I restart. Grrrr! What I do is copy the theme file during setup by having it in $OEM$ folder in the installation source. It goes to the usual windows\resources\themes folder.