Octopuss

Ew, please no, please don't tell me I have to use hex values!! That would be a real nightmare But it seems to be THE only format regedit is willing to export to, unfortunately What about my second question regarding the different key? + Is there any system in what shall I add to the registry path when I am working with an image?

Eh, you are not making this any easier, lol. I only tried the temp variable on my running system so far, and it just doesn't work. I don't understand why. When I do it through command line, the key gets added/changed right away. edit: ok I found out I can only add pure strings, no backslashes no special chars. How in the hell am I supposed to set a path then? Also, why the controlset001 when they key is currentcontrolset?

Good one. I am puzzled about the value types. What's .reg file equivalent of REG_EXPAND_SZ for example? I tried the most simply thing, changing temp variable, and it doesn't work Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment] "TMP"="%SystemDrive%\TEMP" Nothing gets added. And the syntax is probably a bit more complicated than I guessed, because trying to go with the "Value Name"=<Value type>:<Value data> didn't do jack either.

Yes I was serious, ever heard of people who asked about something they only just started to learn?... Thanks for the links, but considering I have all of the tweaks I gathered in the command line form, I think I will pass, because comletely rewriting tens of lines of text into different format is too much. Bleh. I really don't understand the .reg files syntax. And Google failed me again. I can't seem to find any good examples or lists of commands I can use there.

But that's not what I need/am asking about... How! How!?

Aha. Can you tell me more about the first method? I tried to google around, but most articles are about XP only (guess it's the same, but who knows), and are a bit messy. I assume the logic is pretty much the same as with images - load, change, save, unload, etc. Can you give me very brief rundown through the commands I need?

Ok I mounted the recovery partition image and found a few batch files. Each is specific to a windows edition and only contains a command for adding product key to the image used. It's the same key installed PCs report as being installed with. Is the activation done through some command, or how do they do it? Because naturally no activation is needed once the system is installed.

Is there a way to change stuff in the registry of mounted image? Obviously I can't use the reg command, because that would access the running system.

Thank you! 1-3 is cleared and I feel much more enlightened. Unfortunately 4 is a no go cause I get access denied/read only message Is there any way around that?

Since it's still pretty confusing to me, this a list of various context menus I can change I noted down so far: (and which I find useful for my needs) - My computer: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\shell - anywhere in empty space on the desktop or a folder: HKCR\Directory\Background\shell - folders and files: HKCR\Folder\shell Questions: 1) What's the difference between these two, Drive and Folder? already using the latter, but no idea about the former. Bottom line is, what are these two good for when there is already pin to start menu item available by default? 2) I added the Open command prompt here item. It works on folders, but what else would I need to change if I wanted to have it in the context menu of empty space anywhere inside a folder (I know it's half-pointless, but I ? I tried adding it to HKCR\Directory\Background\shell but it gives me error message "this file does not have a program associated with it blabla". I tried to use it in root of one of my drives, on the desktop etc. 3) Why does the "Find target" thing not work on specific icons like shortcut to user libraries, My computer and stuff like that? (I am not too surprised it doesn't, just curious why). I just found out there is hardcoded "Open file/folder location" item though, so maybe this tweak only makes sense for XP... (in that case I'd like to find a way to add an icon to the builtin one) 4) Where would I have to look to change (add) icons for standard context menu items like delete and rename? (or maybe is it different parts of registry based on what I r-click on?)

Hmm I have a question. What are the different right mouse menus we can customize? Do you possibly have the registry trees noted down as well? I dug into the registry briefly and there are several confusing keys, like directory and folder, which are pretty much different words for the same thing in the general meaning...

Or even better: why I can't set some icons? I googled one little tool up, iconviewer or something. I am trying to set an icon for Device manager in My computer context menu. I can set SOME of the icons in let's say shell32.dll. For some reason not all work. I can't figure out what's going on.

How do I find in what order are iconss organized in inside a file? I tried to specify an icon for an application I added to My computer context menu, but I can't figure out the correct index. When I try to change icon on whatever I want and click on the change icon button, and open say shell32.dll, I get to choose from several icons. What's the starting position and in which direction does it increase? So far I got the impression it's completely different than what I see in the window, because index1 is not the top left, and index2 is nothing next to the first one at all. Please give me some pointers.

Is it possible to log what was actually physically deleted? Or is the program actually using DISM? I just tried to remove several whole packages one after another and at some point file count stopped decreasing no matter what I try to remove. edit: of course it uses DISM. Now if only the log was slightly less "talkative"...

Great. Do you have any idea why are the other versions listed though?

Ah, so if I don't specify the full name, it will automatically assume a kind of wildcard? a-we-so-me! This will make the hell of 50-pages long batch file for removing stuff much more bearable

What command did you exactly run? there may be abit more if there are updates installed/integrated Nothing too exotic. magex /export e:\Win7\sources\install.wim 4 e:\install.wim cut, replace the original install_wim_tweak.exe /p e:\mount /l The report lists it like so: Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Enterprise-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Enterprise-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601.17514 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-HomeBasic-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-HomeBasic-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601.17514 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-HomePremium-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-HomePremium-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601.17514 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Professional-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Professional-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601.17514 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Starter-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Starter-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601.17514 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Ultimate-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385 Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP-Component-SKU-Ultimate-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7601. Ok I take it partially back, because the editions are not listed for all the packages. It's the weird version numbers. Why is it so? I thought this would be what'd it look like after SP installation, but this is a disk with SP already included straight from MSDN... Do I need to remove each package for every component to get rid of it completely?

Ok, I am at home for a few days and only have one PC at hand. How would I capture an image of virtual machine? I am using VirtualBox. Any ideas?

awesome! edit: Question! I previously exported only Professional version from my installation and put the image back. After that I ran this tweak and had packages listed. There's like 500 of them, most listed for each Windows edition. Does that work as intended?

Oh man I am so stupid. I forgot to delete the other catalog files for other editions and keep only the one generated by SIM. Lots of double pacepalms this week - and I am not even at the end yet

Maybe I did it that way, I don't remember. Details for image : d:\Win7_CZ_x32.pokus\sources\install.wim Index : 1 Name : Windows 7 Professional Description : <undefined> Size : 11 420 861 283 bytes The operation completed successfully. This seems ok. But setup is screwed.

So I started playing with DISM and the other goodies only to run into really stupid problem. I have an image which I delete all but Professional editions from. When I boot from the DVD I don't see anything I could choose after I set the regional stuff. Where I should see like Windows 7 Professional is one blank line and when I click on next, I am being told there is no image setup could install Windows from (it says bit copy in czech, but that is probably just how it is translated from english). What's wrong? In the image, w7Pro is now index 1, not 4 (of course). Do I need to add something in the unattended file?

Yup, the recovery partition is present but there are only a couple of random files and images. Nothing to see. Maybe I could install the system from the recovery DVDs and try to go to audit mode to see if there are still files to be looked for on the disk?

Nothing useful on live computers at all, and the recovery media do not contain anything visible either I'll just try to throw the key that's being reported after installation into unattended file and see if it works. I guess not though.

Hm, I am actually using image downloaded from MSDN, because the one that comes from Lenovo is full of junk I don't want installed, and on top of that they do not have one with SP yet (and probably never will). The key I discovered is being reported by 3rd party tools from live installations, so I though it was the one. No idea where to look for a different one. Either way, it can't be activated anyway. Getting confused here.