mbouchard
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Posts posted by mbouchard
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I do not believe there is a way to set which letter PE will use, but you could write a script and include it in your run once that will run diskpart and configure the D drive after the OS has been installed. You may need to move the CD to E but I am have not done that before.
Mike
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I don't know if anyone has ever posted this before, but MS has a new tool that assists in building a script that can be used to tweak some registry settings. TweakoMatic
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I was wondering if anyone has gotten either Spybot or Adaware working with a clean version of Windows PE? I know that BartsPE can do this but I am trying to get it working with WinPE.
Thanks
Mike
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Use /y at the end of the format command.
I.E.
format c: /fs:ntfs /y
or
format c: /fs:FAT32 /y
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Yes, where I work we do most of our installs over the network. About the only thing that i have on our PE CD's is a HTA file that asks for username/Password and then maps a drive to the network which then launches another HTA page that prompts for some setup info. The i386 folder is xcopied to the HD and then the setup is launched.
If you want to see how I do this, I have uploaded a zip file in another thread that contains the files that I use.
Mike
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Just recently I was told about the /syspart:C switch, I had never really paid attention too it, which allowed me to take out a reboot.
Can you expand on this more please?
Basically, my biggest problem (and most annoying thing) - is the initial reboot to start setup.
To insytall XP currently on any computer (whether it has or hasn't got an OS), I'm doing the following
GDisk to format
reboot to detect new 2Gb fat16 partition
then start winnt.exe
If I could tell Windows XP setup (and windows 2000) inside setup itself, to format the first drive in the computer using NTFS to it's fullsize, and continue (because when you do a MANUAL XP install, you can EASILY do this) this will cutout the need to reboot which is what i want...
With PE, using the Diskpart code that likuidkewl posted you could run diskpart and configure the disk as one large partition, format the new drive, then run winnt32 with the /Syspart:C (from likuidkewl also IRC) /Tempdrive:C /Unattend:unattend.txt switches Which would allow you to do away with a reboot after partitioning the HD. I am still testing the /Syspart switch and have liked it so far. Ran into a weird problem with a 2000 setup that thought I was trying to upgrade PE but I think I may be able to get around that. Need to try and recreate the problem and see if it was something I did or just a fluke.
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To get back on topic,
Yes using PE can help you streamline your Windows setup and do away with reboots. At one time I used bootdisks to connect to the network and go through Fdisk and all with multiple reboots, converting to NTFS etc. About 12-16 months ago I started using WinPE and have continually learned how made our OS process smoother, moving from bat files to scripts. Just recently I was told about the /syspart:C switch, I had never really paid attention too it, which allowed me to take out a reboot.
Now, I just prompt the tech for their username/password, computername, Office version, etc and write several scripts to the HD that xcopies i386, Patches, and drivers to the HD then kicks off setup. Once that completes, it kicks off an application script that installs standard apps. If you search around on this board, I posted a zip file that contains the scripts to do this.
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That reboot loop u r talking about there.... elaborate plz as mine is just running in circles right now...
I guess I missed this reply, I gotta remember to turn on email notification.
The reboot loop I am talking about would occur if you needed to reboot to PE before the custom folder had been deleted, i.e. testing, editing files, etc. What happens is, startnet.cmd looks for a file (instos.vbs) and if it finds it, it will rename it (instos1.vbs) and then launch the new file.
When I first started using PE and was testing the original instos.vbs I found myself looping whenever I booted to PE. This is the way that I got around that.
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I finally got around to testing this and yes it did work off of the CD.
Mike
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Oh, and hey mbouchard... plz elaborate on your script to prevent the reboot loop off the installation as mine just went round in circles when i tried your setup technique.
Not sure what you mean here, was it something I posted some place else? What I do to launch it from startnet.cmd upon reboot (will need to try the /syspart:C switch) is to look for the file, i.e. continue.vbs and rename it to continue1.vbs, that way if the original file is not present it will just go on pass.
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How are you installing the OS, via BootCD, DOS using winnt.exe or WinPE using Winnt32.exe? If you are running this from CD you may want to try to add UnattendSwitch = Yes into the unattended section.
From the Ref file
Use UnattendSwitch only when you perform an unattended Setup with Winnt.exe, Winnt.sif, and the CD Boot method. This entry is not necessary if you use Winnt32.exe to run Setup.Note:
UnattendSwitch is not the same as the UnattendedInstall entry in the [Data]section of the answer file. UnattendSwitch controls Windows Welcome; UnattendedInstall does not.
Hope this helps.
Mike
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Tjabobom,
I had actually forgotten about that. In the process of testing PE a while back I found that a reboot was required. This is contrary to the instructions given to me by the MS consultant who gave me PE.
What I do is boot to PE, prompt technician (using HTA) for username/password, OS, Office ver, and computername. Then I diskpart and format the hd, write the scripts to a folder on the HD and reboot. I have a line in my startnet.cmd file that will look for a particular script that will then xcopy the i386 folder to the HD and then launch setup. All in all this adds a couple minutes to the time that the tech needs to "attend" the setup. After that the scripts pickup and everything else is automated.
Mike
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I used a VM. Have not checked on a CD. Will try it today.
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Everything looks fine to me, I am using a similar script file (only creating a primary partition) as you do. A couple things to try are to run diskpart manually, format, then launch the script for the unattended setup with the diskpart options commented out or, try the diskpart script without the extended section and see if it works.
Mike
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gnoremac,
How are you kicking off the setup? Via DOS boot disk? WinPE? or booting to the WinXP CD? etc
Mike
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I just tried the line below and was able to get it working, the picture was in the same folder as the hta
<BODY BACKGROUND="test.jpg">
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While I am not certain what pauldavey's answer was, I use the following command line to create an image and have never had it fail.
D:\PE\ImageCreationFiles\oscdimg -betfsboot.com -n d:\PE\Custom d:\PE\PE.iso
It is possible that he did not have etfsboot.com in the command line and this is why it didn't work.
Mike
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How does path work in WinPE? are they relative or absolute since they are on CD?
The way that I found to use PATH in PE was to use %systemdrive% as the CD is setup as the sys drive when booting to PE.
I have made some minor updates to the files (re-added OS support) and am testing them. I hope to post them today, if not it may be a couple weeks out as I am not working next week (in training).
Good luck. I will try to check in next week.
Mike
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Thanks,
I will have to try this. I take it I need to load the system hive and import it. Hope it works, have not been successful in doing this before.
Thanks again,
Mike
I gave this a try, but was unable to load the Registry Hive for Software. I load it and then try to import the key but get an error, i.e. error opening key. When I try to open the key from another version it works. Any Ideas of what I can do?
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Here are some files that I use when setting up a server. I need to continue workin on this to re-add support for Windows XP/2000.
I had to strip a lot out to get it posted but it really only files that can be downloaded.
1) Unzip file and place the Custom folder in the root of PE.
2) Take the OC.bat and Startnet.cmd and either replace your copies or combine them. OC.bat contains code that will prevent a reboot loop, while startnet.cmd contains an updated Path.
3) The server i386 folders. Place them inside the appropriate folder in the custom\server folder. I.e. Windows 2000 Server Standard would go in the W2KS folder and look like root\Custom\Server\W2kS\i386\
4) The patch file for MS03-039 (rename it to just the Q#) and place it in the respective folder in \custom\supportfiles\MS03-039\Media\Win2003\Q123456.exe
5) Build PE boot CD
6) Should be good to go.
If you have any questions please let me know. I will work on getting my OS version up here also. This will be built on the Server version.
Mike
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Question, I am still not using version 1.2 as I ran into an issue running script files from the network. I would be prompted about harmful files and would have to select "open" to run the script. I only have 1 script file stored locally (HTA) that prompts a user for their username/password then logs them on. The reason for this was to prevent having to make new CD's for the help desk every time there was a change to the OS setup.
I am wondering if there is a way to disable this security measure.
Thanks,
Mike
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I have configured WinPE to install Windows using a combination of HTA's and VBscripts. This setup takes the initial input from a user, (Computername, domain/workgroup, Admin Password, etc), and runs Diskpart and or formats the C drive, writes several scripts, copies the I386 folder locally, then runs setup.
I have a couple different versions of my WinPE OS load.
1) for work, will load OS, then launch a patches script, then launch our Standard Application script which will install all of the normal desktop apps that are used here, i.e. Office, WinZip, Acrobat Reader, Virus Scan, etc.
2) for home, will Load OS, then launch a couple patches (I.e. RPC patch).
The Work version stores all needed files on the network, while the home version has everything on the CD.
If there is any interest I can post my code here, but might be easier to post a zip file of the scripts. Not sure of the rules on the forum for that.
Mike
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best unintrusive method for data recovery in PE?
in Windows PE
Posted
Is the PC hooked up to a network? If not, can you bring in a laptop and hook it up with a crossover cable to the PC? While I have not done this, PE should have Automatic IP addressing or what ever it is called and if the NIC on the PC is picked up by PE you should be able to connect to the laptop.
Mike