PsiMoon314

Hi Guys, Basically I assumed that as the updated was being downloaded via Windows Update and the BITS service that the download must be logged in: %systemroot%\windowsupdate.log Once I understood the format of this log file I eventually found the download link within the log for the WD update file. I suspect that the update file name will change with each release; however once you have the file name you can download the file for offline updates on other PC's. The same technique would work for other downloads which MS doesn't make "publicly" available but which are on Windows Update. WD updating offline is not as straight-forward as I first thought. It appears that you need to completely close WD (end-task the services etc) before the update file will run and update correctly. Kind Regards Simon

Hi MaxaMoto, The direct download link for the latest WD update is: WD Update Hope this helps Regards Simon

Hi, MS not making these updates for WD seperately downloadable for manual installation is a pain IMHO. If you are installing or updating WD on a PC which is offline (perhaps due to spyware infection) then not being able to go online means you cannot update WD to the latest database. Removing some spyware does damage your Internet connection so the ability to be able to update offline is a must when you are engaged in cleaning a PC of spyware (which I do regularly as part of my business). I tend to favour tools and utilities which do allow for offline updating and downloading their updates manually as it makes my like easier. Not everyone has a high speed Internet connection so having your tools on a CD ready to install is a godsend. The updates for MSAS were available for download and later installation when offline so I hope this is something that is carried across to WD. Anyway there is a work-around for now; go to your %SYSTEMROOT%\SoftwareDistribution folder and locate the file for the WD update as it is downloading in Windows Upadate and copy it elsewhere when the download is complete. Extract the contents of the .EXE with your favourite unpacker (I used WinRAR) and the .MSP file will be inside. Kind Regards Simon

@Aid, Apologies however the MSFN board doesn't seem to take files this size! :-) Here is the Rapidshare link: http://rapidshare.de/files/14055113/MPAS-FE.zip.html Sorry for the confusion! Do you have an unattended install .BAT or .CMD you can share? Kind Regards Simon

Hi, Nope, but I grabbed the update file from a Windows Update session. I have not tested this on a Windows Defender install which has not been updated but I think this should work. My current WD verson numbers are: Windows Defender Version: 1.1.1051.0 Engine Version: 1.1.1186.0 Signature Version: 1.13.1282.6 Basically just run the attached file and it should update your WD install. It would be really if MS released this update as a downloadable file for offline updates. Kind Regards Simon

Hi, When repairing or setting up PC's I often need to apply settings and changes to multiple users on the PC. The application I need would load the registry hives for each user on the PC (perhaps the users could be selected from a list) and then changes applied to each user. Ideally this would be a GUI application for Windows 2000, XP and 2003. Anyone out there need a project or a small programing commision? Kind Regards Simon

Hi, This is a tricky one and a lot will depend on the state of the hard drive and the files on it. Are you aware of any file system or hard disk corruption (bad sectors ect)? If the drive is readable then the only way I know of to read the registry (where the CD Key would be located) would be to boot the PC from CD to another OS. I am sure there may be a rescue version of Linux that might do this but for XP I use a CD based on BartPE. This is an OS build from Windows XP which is similar to Windows PE and allows for recovery of files and such from an unbootable Windows XP. It runs from CD so it doesn't need to be installed. You can find more information here: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ You would also need a plugin for BartPE called KeyFinder-PE which would allow you to load the registry from the OS partition so you can find the Product Key for their PC. There is an easier to setup version of BartPE called Retogo-XPE which you can find here: http://www.reatogo.de/ The set-up for this is a bit more automated and might be easier if you are not familier with how Windows PE / Bart PE works. There is a forum for all of these packages here: http://www.911cd.net/forums/ If this is all too much work then take the dead / dying PC to your local friendly PC Engineer and I am sure they would have the tools to recoved the XP Key for you Kind Regards Simon

Hi, I have another issue which is that the build process reports that it cannot find: factory.exe netcfg.exe the odd thing is that it's looking for them on the CD Drive where my XP CD is located. Should it not be looking for these files on the Windows PE CD? In addition they are looked for in the \I386 folder when they are in the \I386\SYSTEM folder, on my PE disks they are anyway What is going on here? What have I done wrong? Kind Regards Simon P.S. I am testing the CD on VMWare and the installation fails on certian files including TSHOOT.DL_ ect. They are present in the .ISO but the cannot be found by the XP Setup Process

Hi, With a Pentium 1 CPU I doubt that you will be able to install XP anyway. 32 MBytes is defenatly not enough RAM. The slowest PC I ever tried on was a Pentium II 300MHz with 64 MBytes of RAM and it walked not ran. For a Pentium 1 you will need to use Windows 98SE or perhaps Windows Me and even then 32 MBytes would not really be enough. To be honest this sort of spec is now really past all use for Windows. Perhaps a Linux distro would be a better option? Kind Regards Simon

Hi, Well use the relevent settings in these Applications GUI to set the update and scan times to something more relevent for each user. This isn't rocket science you know! Kind Regards Simon

Hi All, According to the Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware List this application (MalWhere) is itself known to be suspect and to contain adware and trojans. According to this site: http://netrn.net/spywareblog/archives/2004/09/13/ the items installed include: BargainBuddy CommonName Ie Driver NetPal Favoriteman Promulgate UrlBlaze Win32.Wintrim.Trojan.B On that basis I would avoid installing this application. Kind Regards Simon

Hi, Dell and many other large System Builders do have special aggrements with Microsoft to distribute OEM builds of XP. Any attempt to replicate what Dell are doing without the special licence and OEM agreement in place is only likely to result in "tears before bedtime" when MS come down hard on you. I would suggest that you install the OS using the same fixed PID but change this after installation, either using a script / batch file or similar. There are tools out there which you can use manually, but there is a MSKB article which describes how to do this via VBS script. Once the PID has been changed, you can then active the installed OS in the usual way. Kind Regards Simon Edit: The MSKB article is here.

Hi Bash, I found a reference to "OEMFilesPath" on the MS site at: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documen...ff_mul_utpc.asp the context here is it's use when installing MUI Packs in Unattended Mode. Regards Simon

HI Guys, You might want to check our this thread on booting BartPE from USB Flash Drives: http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10806 Using Files from the Windows 2003 Server Beta (RAMDRIVE.SYS and SETUPLDR.BIN) it is apparently possible to use a RAMDISK loader to copy the PE Image into memory and boot it from there. This avoids the issues when PE resets the USB port and crashes the boot process. Kind Regards Simon

Hi Bashrat, Will you be including the Video drivers for other cards such as the SiS ones? There are quiet a few on their site for their IGP and GPU products: http://download.sis.com/ Quite a few motherboards with onboard graphics use them including those manufactured by PC Chips. Kind Regards Simon

Hi Bâshrat the Sneaky [quote}@Bâshrat the Sneaky I will definetely use cab compression for the winnt.sif method from now! Do you have any indication as to how much CD space this method might save? Do you intend to use this in the next release of your Driver Packs or will you re-release the current ones shortly using this method? Kind Regards Simon

Hi Bâshrat the Sneaky, SiS also produce WLAN chipsets, namely the SiS162 and SiS163. The SiS162 is used in an inexpensive USB 802.11b WLAN adapter by SafeCOM which is very cheap here in the UK. I use it for adhoc repairs to PC's (connect to WLAN powered by ADSL) as the drivers are quick to install and fairly easy to setup. You can also increase the output power to 100% from the Systray Icon. B) Anyway if you wish to include these in your WLAN pack you can get the drivers direct from SiS via: http://download.sis.com/ I get the impression that these drivers are used by several different vendors and the SiS162 v1.04 drivers are WHQL certified. There is a v1.05 but I've not checked to see if that has been certifed or not. Kind Regards Simon Zerafa --

Indeed, that did occur to me; however hotfixes clearly are able to replace system files which are protected by SFC so it can be done I was really just "wondering out aloud" as to what it might take. If we (you/me/someone) could create a mechanism to allow you to use your Update Pack to modify an existing installation then it would have a "double" use. I suspect that just creating a batch file which calls the hotfix files with the correct paramaters and then runs qchain at the end would be easier though B) Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi RyanVM Other than calling in a "Post SP2 Update Pack" or even a "Pre SP3 Update Pack" I'm not sure there is anything you could do to make things clearer Somewhat off topic; what would it take to allow your Update Pack to be applied after XP installation? Would there be an easy way to apply the hotfixes files and registry settings post OS installation? The reason I ask is that clearly all of the information required is inside your pack; it would just need some method to apply it. Just a thought ... Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi RyanVM, Apologies however the other thread seems to be discussing different topics and wandering all over so I thought it best to start a new one for what seemed a tangent to the discussion. That's what new topics are for after all! Thanks for the confirmation on my ideas I know that removing the registry setting is not strictly necessary however I like to be tidy and as it's not needed I will remove it for my project. Thanks for your packs; they are very useful! Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi Guys, Can I double-check that I have everthing right for creating my own 1.03 "Semi-Skimmed" Pack from the Full version I only want to remove the hacked files, sfc_os.dll and uxtheme.dll as the other items in the full pack are fine for my project. I am doing OEM intstalls of XP Home SP2 on new PC's so I don't need the features that these files offer. I customers what to do this themselves, that's fine but I want to ship PC's which are as near as possible as the XP Home OEM SP2 with just the HotFixes applied. If I remove the compressed versions of these file from the pack and amend the RVMUpPck.INF file to remove the "SFCSetting" registry entry, do I need to do anything else to undo the effects of these files? I have scanned everthing else in the 1.03 Full pack and it seems that's all you need to do; unless you know different! Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi RyanVM, That's good to hear ;-) Hope the testing goes well. Have you ever posted a full article which explains how you create you created and how to update your packs? I am sure it would make interesting reading and I for one would then understand what your pack does and how it does it Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi Guys, I have added the Driverpacks to my unattended install CD using Method 1 in Bashrat's instructions. The textmode setup portion of an install seems to work correctly; but once I enter Windows XP for the first time the HPT366 drivers have not been installed correctly This means the OS cannot boot from a drive on that controller, crashes and reboots (repeatedly). The workaround was simple; install the HPT driver from within the OS after moving the drive a "normal" ide controller. However, where do I start looking to resolve this issue? Which file controls the copying of the drivers files to the install drive or why were the files not installed or copied correctly? Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi All, @TheRealMethusela Yes, very nice The part number on my OEM CD's here in the good old UK is: 0304 Part No: X10-52148 I wonder if the OEM versions of XP Home are different in the US? If you could output your final version as a .png or something we can all use, that would be fantastic Kind Regards PsiMoon

Hi, Any chance you could do a set of CD Covers for Windows XP Home OEM SP2? I know that no one else here probably uses it, however I do as a System Builder so this would look goog on my internal copies of my unattended CD Kind Regards PsiMoon