Mordac85

You might want to turn off the automatic reboots on system crashes. Right-click My Computer->Properties->Advanced tab->Startup and Recovery section->Settings. From there, uncheck Automatically restart under the System failure section. This way the next time you apply patches and it crashes, you should at least have a BSOD to read. Otherwise, you could boot from a WinPE CD and review the minidump files or patch logs.

It could just about be anything. Drivers, update applications, USB/wireless peripherials, screensavers, etc have all been known to cause issues with power management. I'd recommend updating all of your drivers and then step through the running processes/services/apps/desktop settings to see if they have any impact on the issue.

Winlogon is a Key and UserInit is a value under that key. No worries though. You might want to fire up msconfig to eliminate all of your startup items, then add them back in 1 at a time. It's slow and time consuming, but you get an idea of what's causing your startup issues. More than likely the explorer window is being caused by an app or service that had an issue during startup.

All you're doing is echoing the choices. You have nothing there to capture any user input. like @echo off setlocal <insert echo statements for the menu> Choice /C 12 /M "Enter option: " if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="1" goto :Office if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="2" goto :Viewer goto :END :Office C:\path to install batch file goto END :Viewer C:\path to install batch file goto :END :END endlocal or @echo off setlocal <insert echo statements for the menu> set /P IMG=Enter option (1 or 2): if "%IMG%"=="1" goto :Office if "%IMG%"=="2" goto :Viewer goto :END :Office C:\path to install batch file goto END :Viewer C:\path to install batch file goto :END :END endlocal Of course, you can probably come up w/a way to automate the install based on the user. If you really get ambitious, you can try using MDT

MS11-049 covers InfoPath and SQL server as well as VS. Depending on what you have installed, you can try the individual updates and possible QFEs to patch your system. You may also want to manually run the patch and use the /log switch to capture the error details. I'd also check the file version (microsoft.xmleditor.dll) to see if it is at, or past, the version that the update is trying to install (3.5.30729.5665)

fwiw, Windows is not as compartmentalized as other OS's and the components are intertwined within the OS. Some applications, even legacy folders, take far more effort to remove 'completely' than it's worth. As long as the service is disabled there should be no issue with it co-existing peacefully on the system. The result does not justify the time and effort spent. If you want total control over your OS, Windows is not for you. Now for the truly serious cases of OCD that just have to have it removed, the above obviously does not apply.

I assume this is a dual boot system and you're using XP more often. You might also want to check the disk for errors. Did the issue just start or has it been getting progressively worse? Was there any physical damage or shock to the system that may have either caused HW damage?

Interesting to know if new documents are defaulted to the 1st or 2nd folder, but it should be no issue. If the default is the 2nd subfolder then it sounds as if My Docs may have been redirected to My Docs, either manually or by policy. If it defualts to the original folder then all they did is dump everything under a subfolder and the name should have no bearing on operation. Just don't expect apps to find the My Music, My Pictures, etc that have been moved to a new location.

fwiw, the updater didn't solve my problem completely on either a slipstreamed SP3 and SP2 media. I had to update the Windows Installer to 4.5 as well.

You might also want to check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Userinit (REG_SZ=C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,). A trojan could have tried replacing the shell and the restored entry may still be wrong or be calling a leftover.

I can't speak to the mix of versions used, but I normally see this kind of issue with an incorrect HAL (APIC when it should be Uni/Multi or vice versa). I assume there is no alternate drive to swap out the questionable one, but since it's a Dell do you have the restore CDs?

I've also run into odd slipstreaming issues where XP doesn't always know the source included the SP or cannot detect it on the install CD after the installation is finished but when you need to pull from the source like when you add Windows components.

If it doesn't really need user interaction, why not use psexec or a WMI call to run the batch on the remote system? From there it should be easy enough to script it so you're running only 1 script against all 200+ systems. If you need user interaction, just add it to the logon script and send out an e-mail telling the users what they need to do before you enable it to run?

Actually, if you wanted to go to all the trouble of configuring an existing user profile I would recommend using the GUI to copy the profile to C:\Documents and Settings\Default User. If it's just a few reg hacks then load the hive and make your changes.

I set the default resolution, but once mini-setup loads the display driver it normally defaults to the max resolution without any adjustment needed on my part. After re-reading the question, I'm not sure if there actually is a problem. If the display driver is loaded, the resolutions are supported. Defining a default resolution in the inf does not mean they aren't supported, just not selected as the default. However, just because the video card may support a specific resolution does not mean the attached monitor does as well. Have you had specific issues with resolutions or are you just questioning the process?