johnhc

AGlobalThreatsK, it sounds like you are running nLite more than once on the same source. Please attach (not paste) your Last Session.ini. Make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. I think you could also benefit from a virtual system such as VirtualPC, VirtualBox or VMware Server - all free. Enjoy, John.

bengt66, here is the information on IE7 and WMP11. I run XP x64, so I don't use these, so I just DLed them. Let us know. You said SP3 worked - did you mean no hang? So, when do you get your hang? Is it with other stuff added to your ISOs? Please give us the details of what works and what fails, including Last Sessions if appropriate. Enjoy, John. IE7-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe 14.7 MB (15,452,536 bytes) MD5 EA16789F6FC1D2523F704E8F9AFBE906 wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe 24.5 MB (25,740,144 bytes) MD5 C5D9D62E35B4F8F5A6F495B41F532539

OP: The tweak title used 'deleted', so I don't know if this will work for you. I tried it on my VM (XP x64) and it seemed to do nothing, but that may just be my OS. It's a one liner - please give it a try and let us know. Enjoy, John.

roberta, the message indicates that your original CD has been altered, perhaps by Dell, although I have never heard of this. I assume both disks do this, since you said they were identical. Do your ISOs work? Were you able to get past the 'not finding HDD' problem? Have you tried both 'yes' and 'no' and if so, do either produce a working ISO? Since you don't know what is integrated on the CDs (I assume this is correct), perhaps you should not slipstream SP3 and allow Windows Update to determine what updates are required. To answer your earlier question, I don't know what happens if you answer no. I assume nLite will leave the integrated hot fixes in place and slipstream SP3. This may well make a mess. Please let us know where you are and what kind of problem(s) you have remaining. I hope you and yours are not in harm's way from the fires. Enjoy, John.

videobruce, sorry, I gave you a bad search argument. Try "Disable File Deleted Confirmation" without the quotes. I have not tried it, but let us know if it works. You cannot put .reg files directly into nLite. You could convert them to Reg commands (go to Help & Support and type reg add) and put them in the RunOnce of Unattended or you could call .reg files from RunOnce. Where did you place the Users\Default\Control Panel\Colors to get it to work during install? Enjoy, John.

roberta, you should NOT get this prompt! You did talk about it and I said if you answered NO you would get a bigger mess than you have. Please start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders. Also, please see my standard prose (admonition), posted earlier. I was also wondering if you included other drivers (regular, not text mode) in the previous CD? If so, you may need to get a complete set of drivers from the Dell support site. I don't know what kind of CD you have, but if it is a recovery disk, it may already have the drivers on it. Please attach (not paste) your Last Session.ini (in your source folder after running nLite - do no post Last Session_u.ini). I use a purchased OEM CD for my installs and have no experience with recovery CDs. Also note that I posted a link to the your Dell drivers page. Enjoy, John.

roberta, I would assume it works for one and not the other because the SATA drivers are not the same. Go to Dell's support site to get the drivers you need. I DLed R179638.exe and it looks like text mode drivers. Extract ( I used 7-Zip) these into a folder and point nLite to the folder. It looks like the two machines have different chip sets that talk to the HDDs. Hope this helps, John.

dforionstar, I think the reason these admonitions do not show up in the guides is that they are not absolutely true. If you look at the FAQs on the nLite site, the author (nuhi) says, for example, that you can remove additional components from a source folder that already has components removed. There are probably other examples of this. I have found it is dangerous and at the very least, ill defined. I do not do it and I admonish all to avoid it. The results can be really bizarre and difficult to understand. Your Last Session.ini will reflect the nLite run last made. There is a file in the nLite folder in you Program Files folder called Presets. It contains all Last Session files with a time stamp. You can Load from here or go to the folder to look around. When I start an nLite session, I select a Preset that represents what I want to do at the time. If I like the result I copy the .ini and _u.ini files and name them to suit the result. Enjoy, John.

dforionstar, as far as I know, nLite will never create a new folder. It always modifies your source folder. What I do is copy my CD contents one time to a folder on my HDD, then make a copy of the files/folders there to my working folder. BTW, if you look at the Properties of folders, they are all marked as Read-only (at least they are on my machine) and unchecking that has no effect because it is just changed back. As others have pointed out, Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

videobruce, here is a good place for Regitry Tweaks, look for the delete prompt. In order to change the background color to your liking, you need to change two files in three places. The files are NLITE.INF and HIVEDEF.INF (2 places). The NLITE file is compressed, so it will be named NLITE.IN_. Both files are in your i386 folders. Make copies of both files. For the NLITE.IN_ file, extract it (I use 7-Zip) but you can also use expand command at the command prompt. Edit the files with notepad and change HKCU,"Control Panel\Colors","Background",0x00000000,"0 78 152" the 0 78 172 (this will be 0 0 0, if you have change to black in nLite) to whatever you like. Make these changes after you have run nLite but BEFORE you make an ISO. Compress the NLITE.INF file using makecab command and copy both back to your i386 folder, replacing the originals. I suggest you open Paint or your favorite color maker and preview the color. I think you will find 30 30 30 will be so dark it will be indistinguishable from black. I suspect you really don't need to change all three places, but I have not played, so if you do, please let us know what you have learned. In any case, please let us know how it works for you. Enjoy, John.

GhettoFabulous, PTP - Picture Transfer Protocol?? Please attach (not paste) your Last Session.ini. Make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

Kev_83, the thing you are missing about nLite (and drivers) is that the .inf file (information), contains the instructions of what to do to install the drivers. NLite only recognizes the .inf, but uses it to copy the needed files. After running nLite, look in the NLDRV folder, probably in your i386 folder. You will see folders named 001, 002, etc. These will contain the necessary files for the drivers. I don't know why some drivers are really small and some large, but I have the same thing. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John. EDIT: I meant to comment on the missing CD. If you have trouble with the wireless adapter, I suggest just buying another. Here they can be had for $10, which makes the trouble of searching for a driver not worth it. Enjoy, John.

roberta, when you say that the second machine has no RAID or other exotic stuff, I wonder, are you trying to install on a SATA drive? If so, you will need to integrate the correct text mode drivers for the SATA HDD(s). If you answer NO, you will probably get an even greater mess than you got. In general, you should not run nLite more than once against the same source. Usually you get a mess with really strange symptoms. I also want to point out that you cannot use the same key for both machines. You will probably need to create an ISO for each machine from each of the machine's original CD, but try it with the first. Now here comes my standard prose. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

Recusant, I'll add my two cents worth. NLite does a perfectly good job of writing CD/DVDs. When I use one, I always let nLite do the writing. There are options on the Create Bootable ISO page for direct burn or burn from an ISO or just create an ISO. I think the best idea is to just create an ISO and use a virtual system for testing (VMware Server, VirtualPC, VirtualBox, for example and are all free). This prevents creating coasters and hopefully reduces the frustrations. It takes me less than 15 minutes to install XP x64 under VMware Server. I can cut and test several ISOs in one day. A hint I got from your post is that you are running nLite multiple times against the same source folder. I keep a copy of the CD files/folders and copy from it to start an nLite session. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Also I suggest you spend some time reading posts in this forum to see what others are encountering. Enjoy, John.

INTI, this is why you test on a virtual system. I use VMware Server and have used multiple partitions but not multiple HDDs. It has to work, because real users (vs testers) use VMware Server to run several large servers in one host. I am sure they use many HDDs. In VMware Server, you would just allocate several virtual HDDs and each would be a file on your host. With respect to the original, I suspect Windows is going to want to format the D disk or have it previously formatted. It will create the whole Documents and Settings structure on the disk. Please let us know what you learn. Enjoy, John.

INTI, your change to the Folders Option is correct, but your next question is very interesting. I think you need to try this on a virtual system before you try it on a real machine. There are several systems available for free - e.g. VirtualPC, VirtualBox and VMware Server. Usually the D drive is expected to be formatted and setup may notice that it is not and ask permission to overwrite it. Others who have done this may be able to comment. Have you tried searching these forums? Enjoy, John.

dj_ji.go, I don't know for sure because I cannot determine what Live Messenger you are talking about (I found one about 1 MB and one 24MB), but I suspect you will have to do it like you do IE8 and Office. Please post a link to the DL page for what you are looking to install. Enjoy, John.

videobruce, %SystemDrive% is an environmental variable and will resolve to C: if Windows is installed on your C disk. If you will open a Run dialog (Start-Run) and type %SystemDrive%, a Windows Explorer window will open to C:\. I don't know if you can specify Temp as WINDOWS is, but give it a try and let us know what happens. Enjoy, John.

Kelsenellenelvian, that's true for the setup portion, but when the final reboot takes hold, I am at full screen and my full resolution. Sometimes when I reboot my guest, it does come up smaller, but I think that is due to how it was set before the reboot. My Windows splash (or boot) screen is always small. videobruce, I think your OP was correct (before you edited it). At least in my nLite there is no Start Menu under Desktop. I am running XP x64, so my nLite does look different from yours. For instance, my 'Add Admin Tools menu' is first as yours , but my 'Use small icons in Start Panel' is last and the line number is 32. If you hover your mouse pointer on this option, a message is displayed at the bottom saying it does not apply to the Classic Start Menu. This is why it helps if you attach your Last Session, so we can see other options. If you are running VMware Server to test, I can comment on your screen questions but if you are using another virtual system or hardware, others will have to help. Try un-checking the Classic Start Menu and see if it behaves better. Enjoy, John.

dj_ji.go, I can answer the first part of question one for sure - no. I have only used IE8 a little and it seems fine. Release Candidate One is available but I believe it is in English only at this time. I would assume yes to the second question and suggest you try it. Question three I think is probably no. There is a program called WPI (Windows Post Install) that will install programs for you and I know there have been many discussions about MS Office. Go to their forum just below this one and do some searching. Overall, you should do some searching on all your questions. The IE8 question has been addressed here very thoroughly. Please look into a virtual system for testing your ISOs. VirtualPC, VirtualBox and VMware Server are free, reduce the count of coasters and allow you to experiment without fear. Enjoy, John.

videobruce, I think you should change it to %SystemDrive%\Temp. This will be C:\Temp if you install Windows on the first drive/partition and is more flexible in case you decide later to move your install to another drive. Enjoy, John.

bengt66, I assume since you are back that your hang has returned. I have DLed SP3 (WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe), the MD5 is BB25707C919DD835A9D9706B5725AF58 and the size is 316 MB (331,805,736 bytes). Please attach your latest Last Session.ini. Are you sure this is not an application problem? Have you asked the supplier? When you hang, what is your CPU doing - 100% or idle? What is your HDD(s) doing? Enjoy, John.

I don't have any of these problems, but I don't know what you mean by 'Customize Start Menu'. I have used a screen resolution and both the the options you mentioned and they work fine. I looked at my tweaks and I use the 'Customize Start Menu' and it is certainly stuck there. I think you will need to find a way to do these yourself. I suspect you can find a Registry tweak for the Recycle Bin item. I looked around for the background color setting and could only find references in HIVEDEF.INF. I would not think that is where the setup data would be, but I suggest you play in this area. I suspect your basic problem is running nLite more than once on the same source so, please attach (not paste) your Last Session.ini. Make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

styles, I see nothing in your Last Session that would cause your symptom and have never heard of it before. I see that you are running nLite under Vista. Sometimes this causes problems, although some say it works fine. Please do a search on your original and nLite folders for acpi.sys. I am running XP x64 and I have one in my DRIVER.CAB. Make sure it is in both before and after running nLite. I really suspect you have run nLite more than once on the same source. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

justdrew, I suspect you have run nLite multiple times on the same source. Please attach (not paste) your Last Session.ini. Make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.