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In nLite's Tweaks section, look under Visual Effects for Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop. Enable it. I think that will do what you want. Ray

Koden, There is no package of extras, per se. Everyone has their own preferences. Some things are done by registry tweaks, some things require lines in cmd files, some involve switchless installers or addons. Decide what it is you want to change, then do a search for how to do it. You will find lists and sets of registry tweaks in this section of the MSFN forum, but you'll still need to select those tweaks that you want to use. nLite does a very good job of getting you started in customizing an installation. You can make choices from menus and lists rather than tracking down each item individually. It doesn't cover everything, but it covers a lot. To add something to the start menu, you can make a shortcut there that will point to any program. You can do the same to put something on the Quick Launch bar or the desktop. I use shortcut.exe which ought to turn up on a search here. I don't recall where I downloaded it from anymore. It creates .lnk files like all of the other shortcuts on your system. You specify the program you want to make the shortcut to and where you want the shortcut to appear. Shortcut.exe can be run from any cmd file like guirunonce or cleanup.cmd. If you navigate to %UserProfile%\Start Menu and to %AllUsersProfile\Start Menu, you will see all of the shortcuts and folders that already exist on the Start Menu. That will give you an idea of teh structure to follow. You can add shortcuts to the Quick Launch bar the same way. To see what's already there, navigate to %AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. The Desktop items can be seen by navigating to %UserProfile%\Desktop and to %AllUsersProfile\Desktop. Use those paths and the paths to the target programs to create your own shortcuts. If you don't know what I mean by %UserProfile%, %AllUsersProfile%, or %AppData%, they're system environment variables that contain the paths to those folders. To see the actual paths for your system, open a command prompt and type Set. Ray

Hi Od. AutoIt may be the only solution. I've been able to create about 90% of my unattended setup without adding yet another installation method, but I may have to learn to use AutoIt to get past this problem. I was hoping there was a way to integrate the service packs into CorelDRAW so that I could install an updated version without applying the service packs individually. But that's not looking very promising. Thanks. Ray

Well, there's another thing about batch files I never knew. So, you could use that to pass-through the arguments for myapp. Regarding Scr1ptW1zard's batch method, it works and it will be great for debugging cmd files like GuiRunOnce and Cleanup. It's not practical, though, for everyday use. While you do get a comprehensive log of each command and its output, you see nothing on screen. So if a program were to hang awaiting input, you wouldn't know it until you opened results.txt Still, knowing what was running when an error occurred in a new batch file is very valuable. Ray

BRILLIANT!!! Sorry I overlooked your post until now. That's exactly what I needed. Now I just have to adjust some file names to make sure that I can use this during an unattended installation. So help me understand this, though, for future reference. How does the * work? %1 executes the first command line argument of stub.cmd. %* works as well, but I don't understand what it's saying. Run each argument? Can I pass multiple files to stub that way? I love simplicity like you've shown. I've just never seen %* before. Thanks for a great tip. Ray

I have a dillemma. I'm installing many of my larger applications through GuiRunOnce.cmd so that I can silently run the installers from my second hard drive rather than take up space with a huge addon of the same software. I'm working on CorelDRAW 9 which can be installed silently so that GuiRunOnce will continue on. It has two service packs, each of which stops with a reboot now? prompt which I cannot find a way to suppress. (I can manually cancel the reboot request and continue but that defeats the unattended install.) I'm not sure how this works, but evidently Windows automatically reboots after GuiRunOnce completes. At the end of GuiRunOnce, I schedule Cleanup.cmd to run after the next reboot. I don't force a shutdown command, and Cleanup.cmd does run so I assume Windows rebooted between GuiRunOnce.cmd and Cleanup.cmd Here's a fragment of my GuiRunOnce.cmd: start "CorelDRAW 9" /wait "D:\APPLICATION CDS\CorelDRAW 9\Disk 1\setup32.exe" /SILENT /NOREBOOT reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\COREL\CorelDRAW\9.0" /v SerialNumber /d XX0XX-0000X00000 /f (more installs go here) (the next line schedules Cleanup to run on the next restart) reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce /v Cleanup /d %SystemDrive%\Cleanup.cmd /f Here's an example of a service pack install command: start "CorelDRAW 9 SP1" /wait "D:\App Installs\CorelDRAW 9 Service Packs\GR9SP1EN.exe" /SILENT What I need is to schedule a second and a third RunOnce to install CorelDRAW's SP1 and SP2 between GuiRunOnce above and Cleanup.cmd. The problem is that the installs don't finish until the user responds to the reboot now? prompt so I'd have to carefully time a shutdown command to reboot only after allowing enough time for the install to get that far. The next question is where do I put these extra command files that run after GuiRunOnce has finished (and the temp folder deleted) so that they too are deleted in the end? Or, is there some other way to do this? Can I slipstream the service packs into CorelDRAW? Is there some other command or switch I can use to install the service packs without stopping on reboot now? Neither /NORESTART nor /NOREBOOT works to suppress those prompts. Corel no longer supports CorelDRAW 9 but I like it and it's paid for. I desperately need some help with this. I'm stuck at this point. Thank you. Ray

Can someone please help me understand (or point me to documentation that will) how PnP printer drivers work? I have an HP722C printer. HP says that Windows has all of the files so they don't offer drivers for it. I agree that Windows has the drivers because the Found New Hardware wizard that pops up on each new install, finds the drivers locally. (The wizard actually finds drivers for an HP720C and for an HP722C.) I found drivers online and added them through nLite. Now I get two sets of drivers to choose from when the wizard pops up. If Windows can find the drivers when I let the wizard run, why can't it find them without displaying the wizard in the first place? This is driving me crazy although it's not a very long trip anymore. Thanks for any assistance you can share. Ray

Is there a way to direct the output of a batch file into a text file for later review? I'd like to see a copy of what would appear on screen during execution if echo off were not used. In other words, the commands and their results. I want to use this with guirunonce.cmd and cleanup.cmd to see what was successful and what failed (and why). I know I can redirect the output to a file with >> log.txt but that only redirects the results of each command, not the command itself, so I can't tell which command resulted in file not found. I can add lines to the cmd file to echo each command and direct it to the log as well but that clutters the batch file and complicates maintenance. Is there some way outside of the cmd file itself to send everything to the screen AND to a text file? Going WAY back to my TRS-80 days, there was a DUAL command that did exactly this. Surely, Windows has a way to do it today. Thanks. Ray

I'm using the same version you referred to in your code block: 4.0.2737. That's why I was wondering if the desktop shortcut disappears as it does for me when you install with your routine. I usually delete the desktop shortcut after installing each application, but in this case, I wanted the desktop shortcut and it's the only one that's disappearing during install. Very frustrating. Good to know you're still here. Thanks. Ray

@ckislam: Yours seems to be the only thread regarding Google Earth 4. I hope you're still around. Does your script leave a shortcut to Google Earth on your desktop? When I use your iss file, I see a shortcut get created on the desktop then, just before the installation completes, it disappears. The shortcut remains after a manual installation. It only disappears when I use the iss file. I created my own setup.iss file using the /r switch to capture the responses and to be sure it wasn't a machine dependent problem, but I get a file that's identical to what you are writing with the echo statements, and the results are the same: no desktop icon. The exe I downloaded is named GoogleEarthWin.exe (not GoogleEarth.exe as you show) but the versions are exactly the same. Ray

Forgive me if I'm not understanding the question correctly, but unless you're intent on doing this yourself, wouldn't this do it? It works for me. Ray

If we all had to learn, read and try everything for ourselves without being able to ask questions to validate our understanding, there wouldn't be much point to this forum. Switchless is switchless only in its final form. A switchless installer typically runs an installation program with certain switches, you just don't see them because they're incorporated into the switchless installer. A program's installer MAY take switches to instruct the program in how to handle its operation. But the program must be written to look for and use certain switches. You can't just throw a /s switch at any program and expect it to run silently. The program must be written to use the switch. Depending on the program and how it was compiled, the switch for a silent installation could be /s or -s or /silent or /qn or /qb or whatever. You get the idea. A program might be written to not display a welcome screen or ask you to accept a EULA if it's run with its silent switch. Or it might be written to change its default installation folder with whatever follows a /dir= switch. Not all programs are written to recognize all (or any) switches. Some will use default settings whenever they're run silently and you cannot specify much else. Others will just not install silently no matter what you do which is why some requests for silent switches or switchless installers go unanswered. A switchless installer is basically a file that wraps around the original program and contains all of the original program's files and the switches. The writer of the switchless installer needs to figure out what switches to use and incorporate them into the switchless installer. Technically, a switchless installer is a self-extracting archive. When a user runs the switchless installer, it extracts the contents, places them where they need to be and runs the original installation program with the switches it's been configured to use. For example, you might find a switchless installer named installer1.exe that will run the command program_a.exe /silent and another (installer 2.exe) that runs program_b.exe /qn. You could accomplish the same thing with a batch or cmd file containing the lines program_a /silent program_b /qn but then you would have to deal with placing the original program files in the right folders. It's a lot easier to just use a pre-made switchless installer (available through the abundant generosity of some members) and let it do all of the work. Switches and switchless installers only control certain aspects of an installation. It would be diffilcult, for example, to use switches to specify the installation folder, whether or not to display welcome screens, whether to create desktop shortcuts, which skin to use, the speed something should run at, which dictionary to use, text color, etc. Instead, many programs house those details in separate settings files or in the registry. When you install manually, the program stores your responses. When you change a program's settings after installation, those data stores are updated with the new current values. Usually the only way to figure all of that out is to install the program manually and see what changes in the registry or in the program's folder. Then you could write a routine in the switchless installer that sets those things when the program is installed but each user will have their own preferences. The emphasis is on getting the software installed silently and suppressing the installation screens. The rest can be set by the individual user when they run the application. There are programs that will record your mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes to duplicate those actions during an unattended installation. As you say, they "go next next next and finish". All of the installation windows open as though you were running a normal manual installation but a macro provides the responses in your absence. It's not the same as a switchless or silent installation, but it is unattended and accomplishes the same thing. This arrangement is good for programs that don't accept switches. Switchless installers are usually run from runonce. Addons are switchless installers with yet another layer of code that allows them to be run from winnt.sif as a hotfix or update. I'm still relatively new to all of this and this is only what I've gleened in the last few months. If anyone has any corrections or cares to add anything, please feel free to do so. Ray

Hello and welcome, jeinnor. I assume you have a set of favorites you want to add into your new installation. Favorites is just a folder containing shortcuts. You can add to it, delete it or completely replace it. You'll find it in documents and settings\(user name). You can manually drag your old favorites into the folder or copy them with cleanup.cmd. I take it a little further: I wrote a simple batch file (cmd) that xcopies my favorites folder to my second hard drive. I've scheduled that to run every night. During reinstallation, cleanup.cmd deletes the default favorites folder and xcopies my saved favorites from the second drive to %UserProfile%\Favorites. When I start IE on the new machine, all of my favorites, as of the last nightly save, are there for me to use. The only good or bad thing is that the favorites on my new installation are sorted alphabetically. If you're asking how to create a favorites shortcut and put it into favorites, I have no idea. Although I can't imagine why you would want to do that, anyway. Ray

I know it's frustrating to not get a step by step answer but most of what you need to know has been explained numerous times and the answers are out there. Here's something to get you started. There are several ways to do what you want to do. Here's the easiest way I can think of. It's untested, but simple enough that it should work without any problems. First, open Notepad and type the name of each switchless installer you want to include. Enclose each in double quotes and put one file name on each line. For example: "Program1.exe" "Program2.exe" etc. Save the file as Installers.cmd Next, create a folder named Installers and copy the switchless installer files into that folder. Also copy the Installers.cmd file you just created into that same folder. Now, you have a folder that contains all of your switchless installers as well as a program (the cmd file) that will install each of them when it is run. If you have a virtual computer program or a test computer to work with, you can copy the Installers folder to that machine and run the cmd file to make sure everything works as expected. Use nLite as you have been doing to create the unattended compilation. When you get to the Unattended section, look for the RunOnce tab. There, you can enter the command(s) you want to run after the first time Windows logs you on near the end of the installation. Enter this line: %SystemDrive%\Installers\Installers.cmd Continue with the nLite process until you get to the Bootable ISO page. Stop there without making the ISO image, but leave nLite open. Locate the $OEM$ folder in your set of unattended installation files. In that folder, you may find a folder named $1. If not, create a folder named $1 inside of the $OEM$ folder. Open the $1 folder and drag the folder you created earlier (Installers) into the $1 folder. Everything in $1 will end up on the drive where Windows gets installed (probably C:), so you'll later see a folder named Installers in the root of that drive. This process doesn't cleanup after itself, so you'll want to delete that folder when everything is done. Go back to nLite and continue with making the ISO image. During installation, Windows will run Installers.cmd at first logon. That should do it. There are a lot of ways to enhance and cleanup this process. For that, I suggest searching the site and also checking out the Unattended Windows Guide 0d recommended if you haven't done that already. Good luck. Ray

I'm making progress. I used a combination of what you showed me above and what my friend Martin H described here. Anyway, I created a self-extracting 7-zip archive with a config.txt file that specifies an extraction folder. I also created a cmd file to run the rundll command now that I know where the extracted setup.inf file can be found. I put both of them in the svcpack folder and created an ini file to add them to svcpack.inf and CABTool'ed the whole package into an addon cab. It took awhile to wrap my head around that, test it and incorporate it into my ISO, but it appears to have worked. At least the application is getting installed. The program I've been trying to install as an addon is Windows Security Configuration Editor for the sole purpose of adding the Security tab to file and folder properties in XP Home. With help from Martin H, I've been doing that from guirunonce but I wanted to move it into an addon and install it through svcpack. The only thing that changes is the timing of the install (svcpack vs guirunonce). I know that some XP files get replaced when I install WSCE. If I run the rundll command from the desktop after installation, Windows File Protection reports the replacements. I saw no errors when installing from guirunonce and everything worked okay. Now that I'm using the addon method, I'm seeing a few post-install errors. Windows is complaining about unsigned mouse and keyboard drivers and Windows Firewall can't start because Internet Connection Sharing cannot start. All of that could have something to do with some conflict during the install of Windows on Virtual PC. I've seen such things before and I'll reinstall again today to see if the problems persist. If they do, I'll schedule the cmd (rundll.......) file to run in guirunonce as you described here and see what happens. I can't believe how much I've learned from you folks on MSFN in the last couple of months. I appreciate the time some of you have taken to explain these details. Thank you! Ray

I follow the first sentence but after that I'm lost. I understand there must be some command within the sfx that gets launched when the sfx gets decompressed. How do I see what that command is and, more importantly, how do I put my own commands in my own sfx? I think this has something to do with a config.txt file, but I don't see that when I extract the files from the archive. I agree that sounds like the most important part of this. But it's not clear how to do it. Is this all accomplished with 7-zip or are other tools required as well? Ray

I need some help with creating a svcpack addon that uses rundll to install an application from setup.inf. In testing, I can place all files in a known folder (C:\temp, for example) then use the command: rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 128 C:\temp\setup.inf to install the program and all works well. I've tried this from guirunonce and it also works as long as I specify the full path to setup.inf. I can make an addon cab file by putting all files in the svcpack folder and writing the ini file. I thought that would allow me to install as a hotfix, but no joy. Since I don't know where everything ends up, I don't know the path to setup.inf. Is there a way to specify or predetermine where the files will be when the rundll32 command is executed? Thanks, Ray

Tasslehoff's suggestion did it! I used NR's SPTD Addon from svcpack then installed DAEMON Tools as before. And it WORKED. I used that addon from RyanVM's site rather than Roguespear's because Roguespear's looked like a bundle of SPTD and DAEMON Tools. To keep things organized, I'm trying to install all "applications" from GuiRunOnce. @elajua: I'm sure that was indeed the problem. It needed to have SPTD installed and the system rebooted before DT was installed. @0d14r3: I just downloaded johndoe cab. I didn't know you could do that in an ini file. I've had situations where I've installed a program then gone back to clean things up in the registry by using a separate file, or as in the case here, needed to install one thing from svcpack and another from guirunonce. It would be great to be able to do all of that from a single cab file. I don't understand what he's doing, though. It looks as though the ..._86.exe gets run from svcpack but all it does is extract itself, right? I don't understand how anything gets installed at that point. Later, in GuiRunOnce, he runs the bat file which somehow is in %windir%\daemon. I assume that's where the exe got extracted but what specified that folder? This is interesting because I have another utility I'd like to install from an addon pack that involves extracting an archive and running a rundll32 command line but I must specify where the setup.inf is located (where the archive got extracted to). Can you help me understand how those commands are working to put the extracted files in the specific folder? Thanks to all of you for your responses. Ray

My cmdlines.txt looks like this: [Commands] "rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 128 .\OEM.INF" "cmd /c start /min cmd /c .\OEMLink.bat" "rundll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection nLite.inf,U" "cmd /c start /min cmd /c .\USBS3KB.BAT" "REGEDIT /S MyRegTweaks.reg" "ieSpell.exe" Notice that first line. Try adding that.

@Nuhi, Offer him/her double their money back. nLite does 90% of what I need in 10% of the time it would take otherwise. When I run across something that doesn't work the way I wish it would, I remind myself of how much it does do and how much I paid for it. Then I'm all happy again. I'm impressed with all the folks here who spend their own time creating utilities, addons, installers and answering myriad questions, sometimes over and over again. I might be tempted to ask about an improvement or constructively point out an error but I wouldn't have the nerve to complain about someone's voluntary contribution. If you don't like it or it doesn't work for you, don't use it. Thanks for your efforts, Nuhi. Ray

I'm running out of ideas. Try putting the .reg file on the desktop and double-clicking it. Do the changes get made that way? It's not the final answer, but at least it will prove that there's nothing wrong with the file. What does your cmdlines.txt look like?

You said that you create your own cmdlines.txt file. But I assume you're also using nLite for the rest of the compilation. nLite will create it's own cmdlines.txt file which (although I've not tested this) is probably overwriting yours and not adding to it. Try this: After running nLite up to the bootable ISO page, stop before you hit Make ISO (don't close nLite, just leave it on that page). Go into the $OEM$ folder and edit the cmdlines.txt file to add your line "REGEDIT /S hkcu.reg" at the end of the file. Close the changed file and go back to nLite. NOW, make your ISO. I think it's okay to add the HKCU.reg file before you run nLite and it won't get overwritten. To be safe, I always make my own changes after nLite creates its files. Again, before making the ISO. Ray

That's a good idea. When I was watching the installation (kinda like watching paint dry), I saw that DT was also installing SPTD. If there was a reboot necessary after SPTD, that could have prevented DT from finishing successfully. I'll check Roguespear's site and try your idea tomorrow. The only thing that doesn't make sense is that when I use the same install command after setup completes, it works okay without an interim reboot. I assume it's installing SPTD then, too. Is SPTD SCSI Pass Through Direct? Do I even need it if I don't have any SCSI devices? Maybe that's a naive question, but I've never understood what SPTD was for. Thanks. Ray

It's not %OEM%, but $OEM$. Everything else looks like it should work. Ray

I install a number of programs from my second hard drive rather than from the unattended CD to save space on the CD. That works fine for everything I've tried so far except for Daemon Tools. The lines I'm using are: start "Daemon Tools" /wait "D:\App Installs\Daemon Tools\daemon4091-x86.exe" /S del "%ProgramFiles%\DAEMON Tools\SetupDTSB.exe" reg delete HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /V "Daemon Tools" /f The first line does the install, the second line deletes the file that installs the When U adware on first run of DAEMON Tools, and the last line deletes the registry key that causes Daemon Tools to autolaunch on each re-boot. If I run those lines from a cmd file on the desktop, it does exactly what it's supposed to do. When I include them in guirunonce during installation, I can see Daemon Tools start and appear to install, but I get error messages on the last two lines. The file SetupDTSB.exe can't be found to be deleted nor can the registry key. When the installation is complete, I can confirm that Daemon Tools is not present and for some reason didn't install. But I cannot figure out why. Is there any reason why Daemon Tools (and only DT) won't install from guirunonce? I'll really appreciate some help with this. Thanks. Ray