bphlpt

A big advantage to the approach that Yzöwl and allen2 suggest, essentially an "Enhancement Pack for XP" script, or builder, is that the user is then free to include or bypass the pieces that he wishes, making it much more flexible. Another thing to consider is that the more you add, the quicker it will go out of date since all of the items added are not on the same update schedule. Having it as a script or builder makes it easier for the user to keep it up to date if they wish. Although I understand that some people prefer not having to do the work themselves, but would rather an AIO pack be handed to them all tested and ready to go. Cheers and Regards

Is what OP proposes that much different than what Gurgelmeyer, Onepiece, and user_hidden have provided? If not, then I don't see why there should be a problem with such a pack being discussed here. It seems that OP wants to build an enhanced Onepiece pack, which some might consider overkill, but others will will think convenient IF they like the OP's choices. Cheers and Regards

In a rush right now so don't have time to look up the syntax, but try executing the first line through a CALL statement. That should force return to execute the next line. Cheers and Regards

5eraph has provided the code for you above. EDIT: heheh - Seraph reposted while I was editing Cheers and Regards

So your list of computers is NOT 5B4-01 TO 5B15 But should be 5B4-01 TO 5B4-15??? If so, then it should be VERY simple to modify 5eraph's script accordingly, ie Check the first FOUR characters of %COMPUTERNAME%, if they are NOT "5B4-" then exit, and if so separate the next two characters into a variable and check to see if they are in the range you require. If not, then exit, and if so continue your install. Cheers and Regards

Are you talking about trying to install the three different OS's ONTO the USB? Because, unless I'm wrong, this thread is talking about installing the different OS's FROM the USB, using it as the install SOURCE, not the TARGET. A totally different thing. Are you in the right place?

The space problem is being caused because you're making things too "neat" and "human readable". You have a space before ">> update.txt", so it adds a space. Batch is usually very literal when it comes to using redirection and comparison testing. You don't need any spaces before or after the ">>" or ">", unless you are trying to add them on purpose. In your case, I think if you change your code to: SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION @ECHO OFF>update.txt FOR /F "tokens=* delims= " %%I IN (update.inf) DO ( IF "%%I"=="CatalogFile = sp4.cat" ( ECHO ThisServicePackBuild = 1>>update.txt ) ELSE ( ECHO %%I>>update.txt ) ) @ECHO OFF>update2.txt FOR /F "tokens=* delims= " %%I IN (update.txt) DO ( IF "%%I"=="MaxNtServicePackVersion = 1024" ( ECHO MaxNtServicePackVersion = 1536>>update2.txt ) ELSE ( ECHO %%I>>update2.txt ) ) @ECHO OFF>update3.txt FOR /F "tokens=* delims= " %%I in (update2.txt) do ( IF "%%I"=="ThisServicePackVersion = 1024" ( ECHO ThisServicePackVersion = 1536>>update3.txt ) ELSE ( ECHO %%I>>update3.txt ) ) that should take care of your spacing problem. Cheers and Regards

By "out of the box, just up to date" my thought was that unofficial updates SHOULD be included, since they are the kind of updates that WOULD probably have been included if support had not stopped. Just don't add extra components that would not have been included in a basic, standard, run of the mill type install. Kind of like the difference between a home and a professional type of install. I know that there are many people who are not like me. They don't want to be at the cutting edge, they're just going to surf the web, do email, maybe office type stuff, and mild games like Solitare. The systems that you would set up for your mom, grandmother, aunt Sue, etc. They would want the standard setup. I'm afraid I'm not the guy who can tell you what that is like since I've always been the guy who wants it all with all the options and nothing removed - ie the ultimate approach. I want to always be prepared so that I'm more likely to be able to run, play, install anything I run across that my hardware will support. The addon from Onepiece - http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5326 could be an example of the Ultimate type of content. Why he didn't include support to enable the LBA 48bit fix, I'm not sure. Could be a technical reason why he left it separate? With the sizes of todays disc drives I would have thought that feature would would be even more important now. If I remember right Gurgelmeyer included it in his pack? Kurt_Aust's guide could also be considered as an example of a build that includes it all, and then some. The third group is those that would have used fdv's fileset. You're right - I had forgotten that Fred said that you shouldn't try to use nlite with his fileset. Good catch. Using two tools at the same time that do the same job, just in different ways, can cause problems. Like running two different real-time anti-virus programs at the same time. But that is a group that might still have an interest in what you do. The fdv threads still get the occasional post. So if you can meet their needs, whether you use the fdv fileset or not, that would get you another potential audience. They want things stripped dowm for speed and simplicity - all the garbage they're not going to use taken out - mostly IE. Again though, that's not me - maybe someone else can advise you on their needs. I love the idea of the SP approach. That should speed things up and keep things cleaner. Both will be appreciated. Keep up the great work. Cheers and Regards

For people to be willing to continue to use Win2K it needs to be stable and to run as much of today's software as possible so people can run their favorite apps and do what they need to do with the minimum amount of trouble, and to be stable. Did I mention that it should be stable? LOL This implies that it needs to be up to date, both from a capability and a safety standpoint. That being said, people will always want different things in their OS. To most easily provide that, and not get into a situation where people are asking you to add this or that, or remove this or that, I think it would be ideal if there could be 3 different levels of builds easily accomplished: Standard - out of the box, just up to date Minimum - strip it lean and mean for speed using fdv's files etc Ultimate - add/update anything and everything MS related to the latest version that can run on Win2K and be stable - latest versions of IE, MP, ,NET, VB & VC runtimes, MDAC, Silverlight etc I hope logic can be added so that server related options are only applied if appropriate, so separate packs are not required. Whether your tools themselves provide these options directly, or you just give a How-To tutorial of how to do it, or you work with someone else who puts those together using your tools is obviously up to you. This would not only provide flexibility and ease of use for the user, which should help promote its use, but by testing the work you do under those three situations I would think that it would help ferret out potential bugs more rapidly. I've always liked HFSLIP and it's ability to integrate updates to speed up the installation process and make the build smaller, but if, as you've lately implied, you are reaching the limits of what it can do, since it's no longer being updated, I guess the choices would be to update it, since the source is available, or move over to either nLite (also not being updated any more) or RyanVM's Integrator which IS still being worked on, at least sporadically. No matter what you decide, a very big THANK YOU! for all the work you've done regarding Win2K lately. It really is appreciated, even if those feelings are not expressed as often as they should. Cheers and Regards

@Molecule: As you say, jaclaz might be able to help you with your problem. But so far you have not answered a single question he asked you, except to say that Unlocker did not find anything to unlock. (Must be the CIA influence. LOL) In order to help him help you would you PLEASE do the following: Devote a single post to answering the other questions he asked you and telling him what happens when you do what he suggested (the 5 steps). In other words, address the following items: Do not put a single word or attachment or picture in that post that is not directly related to the above. You may then continue providing additional information, describing your theories, and asking additional questions in a separate post. Until you do this I doubt he, or anyone else, will be able to be much help to you. Cheers and Regards

The accepted source for Windows 7 Hotfix list is SoLoR's list available here - http://hotfix.chris123nt.com/ Cheers and Regards

Why do you have the path as: "F:\1SYSTEM\DOCS" shouldn't it be "F:\SYSTEM\DOCS" without the "1"? That was one of the 3 errors that Kel tried to point out. The other one was "1cons" instead of "icons". But I guess you could have changed the names of some of the locations on purpose? Cheers and Regards

Well I know that any users that are not as familiar with things to the extent that you are would prefer that after installing UR2 or UR2-v2 if they go to WU/MU that the only updates that show up are the ones that should be truly applied. I know that anyone that is choosing to use Win2K at this point should be willing to educate themselves appropriately, but is there anything you could do to hide updates that you feel should not be applied when UR2 or UR2-v2 is applied, or do you think that would not be a good idea? Or did I misunderstand what you posted? Just a thought. Cheers and Regards

Since Win2K is past end of life, the only value for WU/MU is for the other MS products such as Office, correct? Win2K is no longer examined or updates offered, or am I wrong? Cheers and Regards

Just to be totally clear - This Update Rollup 2 does NOT include Update Rollup 1?? I got that impression from: So to have the basis of a fully up to date Win2K you need to take Win2K, integrate SP4, then slip Update Rollup 1 in one pass, then Update Rollup 2? If this is true, is there any chance of combining the two in a future release, or would that be of any benefit? If I misunderstood, you might want to clarify a bit in the instructions that Update Rollup 1 has been replaced so is no longer required. Also, it might be helpful to show how to do a complete Win2K install, with commonly used apps and all. Maybe partner up with Kurt_Aust, or use his guide as a template/model? http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/97047-up-to-date-windows-2000-install-media-creation-guide/ The comparison between the two approaches might be interesting. Cheers and Regards

Thanks for the follow up. Cheers and Regards

Thanks. Sorry my search skills were lacking. My appologies. Cheers and Regards

I know this doesn't really help, but it sounds like some kind of overflow, either a stack or something so it just wanders off. It can't give you a BSOD because windows is no longer in charge monitoring things. Cheers and Regards

I'd like to tweak a fresh OS install by copying/merging a reg hive. I know I can do so at the second stage of install, but at that point the HKCU keys don't exist yet, so while HKLM, HKCR type tweaks go into effect, HLCU ones do not. Can someone tell me how/when to best load HKCU tweaks using a reg hive? I apologize if this is answered elsewhere. If so please point me in the right location. I did search, but didn't find reference to how to handle HKCU. Cheers and Regards

And if you don't like K-Lite, you could try Shark007's pack - http://shark007.net/index.html. and there are other packs available as well. Cheers and Regards

Yeah, but he's trying to figure out what the new number is so he can program the DOS machine to use it as well. There is probably some kind of DTMF tone decoding software somewhere you can use. Cheers and Regards

Sorry it didn't work for you. It's been a while since I've run Win2K, after running it for ~10 years. The above standalone script has only been tested, by me, on XP and Win7 x32. I didn't think about it possibly having a problem on Win2K, though I'm not sure why it should. I found it in Strel's SNMSynth program, http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/127790-silent-net-maker-synthesized-20100118-w2kxp2k3-x86/, which I believe is supposed to run on Win2K. So I'm confused. The original code snippet is this: Cheers and Regards

Thanks, jaclaz! the explanation is very clear - very helpful. @allen2 - I appreciate the link, but I'm afraid I don't understand the routine. The only parameter, "What", I assume is the web page you want to parse essentially passed as a single string? And if there are more than one link on the page, how do you specify which one you want? Or did I totally misread how this works? Cheers and Regards

To get the version of a particular file within a batch file is actually quite easy using an embedded VB script like so: (Note: Escaping the left-hand parenthesis "^(" is not required, but I usually do it anyway to be symmetrical. ) Hope this is useful. Cheers and Regards

Thanks for the reply jaclaz. i always learn something from reading your posts. I knew that the two versions of the line I posted were "equivalent" though not equal, being familiar with ASCII. Trying to learn more, in the line: what are all the "§1 §2" etc for? They look like parameters, but what exactly is being passed? And how do you make the "§" character and what does it mean? Then in the code: I sort of know how variable substitution works, but I didn't expect to see the "§" character - again, what does it mean? Running the code I can see that it works, but I want to know WHY it works to better understand how to use/modify it. Re modifying it... The download.cmd routine is called passing "%_DownloadPage%", "%_LinkStart%" and "%_LinkEnd%" to it. It, in turn uses wget to get the Server Response from the "%_DownloadPage%", and then get the "%_ConfirmationFile%" that is specified there. Then it creates a VB script routine embedding the "%_LinkStart%" and "%_LinkEnd%" in it and calls that VB script routine to parse the "%_ConfirmationFile%" looking for "%_LinkStart%***%_LinkEnd%" and returning all the unique links it finds on that page which match that pattern. Here's the Call to create the VB script, run the routine, and get the first link found, if any: And here's where it actually creates the VB script: So, with all the steps currently involved, it SEEMS that it would make sense to use the "friendly" version of the link parts as much as possible and only do the change as "deep" in the code as I can to minimize the hassles in trying to pass the "%" character. That would mean doing it in the created VB script, ie in "regEx.Pattern". But I've forgotten whether I can modify .Pattern directly or if I need to create a new .Pattern from modified "%_LinkStart%" and "%_LinkEnd%" elements? And do I need to Close fs and reopen it in order to reread it? I've been away from this stuff for too long. LOL I would like to end up with the following logic, all in the VB script that I'm creating and within the batch download.cmd (At least that seems to make the most sense of where to put it): This way, all manipulation of the link parts can be in "friendly" form, and I won't have to change the code again to be able to handle links in either form, since it will look for both types if necessary. And all of this will be transparent to the rest of download.com and the calling program. Can anyone help me with this code, or suggest an alternate approach to accomplish this goal? Thanks in advance again to all help anyone can provide. Cheers and Regards