Octopuss

Oh yes, all the computers are in a domain (win server 2008). The printers are connected to the network, just installed locally. Awkward and stupid, yea, but I can't do anything about it, and gave up proposing any changes

Is this even possible? We have a situation here: one general image for all the machines running W7 at our customer. The catch is that there are a few diffrent printers that are being used, and they are being installed manually. The customer wants the employees to print in B&W by default, but of course colour printers have it otherwise when you install them. Is there a way to somehow change the default user profile so that people who log on the the machine print in B&W? I have to point out there is no print server, obviously, so it's a bit awkward. Personally I don't think this is possible at all.

It works! Thanks a lot. Not sure what do you mean by the other thing though.

My image mostly works, but I have few minor things to solve. For example IE homepage is not being set at all, despite having the correct line in answer file. It is still blank (that's what I set it to during customization of the default image, just for aesthetic purpose). And now that I tried one more installation, I noticed the stupid IE setup wizard showed up! I clicked it through before generalizing and capturing the image! What's going on? Could someone check my file for some obvious mistakes please? I am out of ideas. http://www.mediafire.com/?aum2mbgm8trl8o7

I managed to solve it by manually removing Bing by editing registry before capturing the image Awkward but worked.

I think I used to use xcopy to copy individual files back when everything worked, but I changed that (probably cause I saw no point in xcopy). Oh and I found an article about search providers: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2444193 Maybe it is related. I think it was ok until I actually launched IE - before that the provider was set correctly when I checked from control panel, internet options. I will try it again with different image, because I have no idea anymore - too many attempts and lost track.

And to add a bit more to the unattended mystery, I do have the Total Commander ini file copying working: <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add"> <Order>12</Order> <CommandLine>cmd /c copy /y "%systemdrive%\install\TotalCommander\wincmd.ini" "%programfiles(x86)%\totalcmd\"</CommandLine> <Description>copy Total Commander settings</Description> </SynchronousCommand> but the SAME thing, only for UltraVNC, does not work at all!!! <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add"> <Order>14</Order> <CommandLine>cmd /c copy /y "%systemdrive%\install\UltraVNC\UltraVNC.ini" "%programfiles%\UltraVNC\"</CommandLine> <Description>copy UltraVNC settings</Description> </SynchronousCommand> What in the hell is this? Is there a way to save output from these windows, like when it says "1 file copied" etc.?

Ha! So I was doing it right! Thank you very much.

systemlocale is not needed in oobesystem? Btw from help I was unable to tell which keyboard is the "US". That, afaik, is the only one that doesn't require you to press the key for quotes twice.

Actually, nevermind. Figured it out. The only thing I am unhappy about is I have two keyboard layouts installed now. Fighting with setting searsch scopes atm. I can't seem to manage to eliminate Bing! 1) Is there a way to DELETE a search scope? 2) Tthis doesn't seem to work fully: <component name="Microsoft-Windows-IE-InternetExplorer" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="[url="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"]http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State[/url]" xmlns:xsi="[url="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"]http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance[/url]"> <DisableAccelerators>true</DisableAccelerators> <DisableFirstRunWizard>true</DisableFirstRunWizard> <DisableOOBAccelerators>true</DisableOOBAccelerators> <EnableLinksBar>false</EnableLinksBar> <FavoritesDelete>true</FavoritesDelete> <Home_Page>http://www.google.com</Home_Page> <SuggestedSitesEnabled>false</SuggestedSitesEnabled> <ShowInformationBar>true</ShowInformationBar> <SearchScopes> <Scope wcm:action="add"> <ScopeDefault>true</ScopeDefault> <DisplayQuickPick>false</DisplayQuickPick> <ScopeKey>Search1</ScopeKey> <ScopeDisplayName>Google</ScopeDisplayName> <ScopeUrl>http://www.google.com/search?q=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1</ScopeUrl> <FaviconURL>http://www.google.com/favicon.ico</FaviconURL> <ShowSearchSuggestions>false</ShowSearchSuggestions> </Scope> </SearchScopes> <DisableDevTools>true</DisableDevTools> </component> posted whole component code in case there;s something bad elsewhere... What I managed to do is adding Google as search, BUT it;s not default and the **** Bing is still there, and as number one. Please help!

I guess I was superconfused about several things at once. What I do is install from original media without any answer file at all, enter audit mode, generalize, capture. What I found out is that Action center settings (the notifications) are NOT saved at all no matter what you do. That's one thing that confused the hell out of me. then I forgot to add copyprofile parameter in the autounattend.xml thinking it was enough to capture the original customized image with short answer file which only had copyprofile setting in it. What a mess.

So I thought I knew how it worked, but apparently not. What I have been doing for last months was installing from original media, booting into audit mode, customizing whatever I wanted, generalizing and capturing, and using that image as the new one. After some problems yesterday I realized how confused I was. Do I need to use copyprofile=true setting on the ORIGINAL image I am customizing? The thing is I thought that by generalizing in audit mode the builtin admin account was saved and I didn't have to worry abouut anything else. I simply put copyprofile=true in autounattend.xml and let it install. Now I don't know if I wasn't doing something wrong. It's not that it doesn't work, I am just confused because some changes to the profile seem to be saved.... What is the proper way of doing this then? Installing from original media, and going sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown /unattend:unattend.xml, where the .xml is the most basic thing with copyprofile parameter in it?

Yay, I ran into new problem. What do I need to change/set in the answer file to change time and currency format? I am preparing an image for notebook for foreign employees and the system language needs to be english of course. The catch is I absolutely hate american format and want it changed. The most universal would be UK english format I guess, but how do I set that? WSIM documentation only mentions en-US. I need to set what you find in control panel-region and language-format tab. Which setting is that?

<SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add"> <Order>12</Order> <CommandLine>cmd /c copy /y "%systemdrive%\install\TotalCommander\wincmd.ini" "%programfiles(x86)%\totalcmd\"</CommandLine> <Description>copy Total Commander settings</Description> </SynchronousCommand> now it magically works :-O

But I don't use WSIM anymore and using quotes simply works, so I still don't understand the reason to use the code instead...

No, I mean is there any reason to use the code instead of simple quotes? " vs "

HAHA!!! That's pretty **** good one We had a few cases of women in the customer's office asking us to solve non-working sound on their computers. Colleague went there and asked her "Yeah ok, so the sound is not working - mind telling me where the speakers are?" (yeah, of course there were none!) The reaction stunned him twice as much as the stupidity of the original question, because said women started to look UNDER THE TABLE.

Ah I know what confused me. I use the settings to auto log local administrator after setup finishes, but in fact setupcomplete.cmd runs last before the user gets logged on, which of course I can't see with the settings I use. It still doesn't work yet though, but it's a matter of syntax in the answer file I guess. Btw why do you use " in there? " works fine for me.

I think his argument was something about poor memory management and fragmentation under XP, which is nonsense in my opinion. I tried to tell him what he is doing is nonsense because by setting 10GB partition up for pagefile he basically sets it to fixed size already, which is pretty much the same as my way - 4GB fixed size on system partition (I see no point in more in this case given the amount of stuff that runs on the machines) I really have no idea what all his reason for this were as he basically shouted at me instead of making any points. Guess it was mostly about fragmentation. You do have a point with multiboot, but since we don't use that at all, it's out of question Btw the admin stuff, there's another subcategory in the first group, the hypocrites: yells around about how everything is a security hole, blocks right and left, monitors how often people go to take a p***.... and has ICQ running on his machine - that is after speaking how terrible thing it is to others of course. Had such #$%% as a boss in my first job and I left after 1.5 years cause there's no way to work with such people.

How do you mean first? I thought it's AFTER firstlogoncommands!! (no idea why though, because firstLOGONcommands are pretty clear as for when that state takes place, lol) That would explain! I will recheck autounattend file for some sort of paths mistake. edit: talking about autounattend file, is it safe to run batch files by firstlogoncommands? I hate to add extra bunch of lines for copying one lousy file.

After a few things I saw in this company I feel like it would be interesting to check what else can people come up with elsewhere. This guy I work with creates extra 10GB partition on the same physical disk where he puts the pagefile (auto size) on XP machines. In fact he did that with W7 machines as well (that's double WTF) until I somehow managed to convince him Windows 7 is new enough to have much better memory management. He still does it on XP ones and refuse to listen to any arguments, even yelling at me for not using proper solutions. What have YOU seen that makes you want to smack your head on a wall, asking yourself WTF is this??! repeatedly?

I tried that, only with regular " instead of the code. It didn't work either. Bleh. Of course the best would be somehow forcing the tcmd installer itself to use the customized configuration file, but I failed to google anything up. Well, is it possible to put simple pause command at the end of setupcomplete.cmd? If not I have no way to notice any errors

Well, the folder definitely does exist cause the **** app is being installed about 1 minute prior to setupcomplete.cmd I am dying to find out what the problem is. I am using %programfiles% variable without problems in autounattend.xml to install stuff, so why wouldn't it work in here? The trouble is the errors that happen during the batch file being run are apparently not logged anywhere, so I can't even look at an error message and work from there. Of course using %systemdrive% probably should work, but I am trying to have the whole process as flexible as possible. Will test what you suggested in a VM and see.

I need to know why doesn't copy "%systemdrive%\install\TotalCommander\wincmd.ini" "%programfiles(x86)%\totalcmd\wincmd.ini" /Y this line work. If I execute it from regular commandline it processes ok, but ran from setupcomplete.cmd it doesn't do jack. I install Total Commander with Firstlogoncommands silently and it works fine. This line is supposed to copy the configuration to the installation folder, but for some reason it never happens. When I check totalcmd folder there is the default generated .ini, but it's supposed to be overwritten by the one I have elsewhere. I also believe setupcomplete.cmd is executed last, so it shouldn't be overwritten. I assume it rather fails to get copied over. Any ideas?

Oh I did several awesome things. Like trying to stop the fan in PSU with a screwdriver, only I stuck it a bit too deep. Poof, lighting, and whole technical department with all the machines being tested, installed and whatnot went to sleep. Yay. Burned graphic card in a similar way. When I think about it, I have a thing for digging in computers with metal object. lol Bout 3 years ago I managed to spill half bottle of milk in my (then opened and laying on its side as a bonus) home computer. After lots of cursing and cleaning, I sat back... only to spill the REST OF THE **** BOTTLE in it again. I am surprised I didn't destroy anything including myself. There is only so much idiocy one can produce in a day. I think I broke world records that day. Losing data due to dumb mistakes is not even worth mentioning, been there as well.