sysadhater

John, Right now my major problem is that when I create my slipstream with Windows 2003 Standard x64 R2 SP2 with all of the updates I notice the following: Internet Explorer 7 is not set as the default browser (on the 32 bit ss, it is) The 'Windows Update' icon in the start menu does not work until after I open Internet Explorer for the first time. I know these are nit-picky things, but I can't really have a bunch of unexplainable things going on behind the scenes on my installs. Just for your information: I always use fresh media to do my slipstreams, as my media is already SP2 I don't integrate service packs. I slipstream my 32bit os on a 32 bit machine and my 64 bit os on my 64 bit machine. Attached is my config. Thanks, SYSAD I figured out the problem but not the cause, internet explorer doesn't have its file associations until after i run it the first time, which is really odd. sysad

John, Right now my major problem is that when I create my slipstream with Windows 2003 Standard x64 R2 SP2 with all of the updates I notice the following: Internet Explorer 7 is not set as the default browser (on the 32 bit ss, it is) The 'Windows Update' icon in the start menu does not work until after I open Internet Explorer for the first time. I know these are nit-picky things, but I can't really have a bunch of unexplainable things going on behind the scenes on my installs. Just for your information: I always use fresh media to do my slipstreams, as my media is already SP2 I don't integrate service packs. I slipstream my 32bit os on a 32 bit machine and my 64 bit os on my 64 bit machine. Attached is my config. Thanks, SYSAD nl.txt

Just change the registry key for wpeinit to cmd.exe. Copy procmon.exe to your WinPE image and launch procmon and set it to record registry and file monitoring. Then launch Wpeinit. That will usually point you to the culprit. I know with our HP servers it was really slow because of hardware enumeration. The amount of device ID's in the servers I was using just dwarfed your average desktop. I think it had some ~200 device ID's. This was a Proliant G5 370 (IIRC). If you install devcon.exe into your WinPE image you can verify that too. Just in playing with various bios options i've been able to speed it up tremendously, now i have to figure out which specific BIOS option did it, hah! SYSAD

Hi there. I have been using nLite to create slipstreamed installs of the Windows 2003 editions for awhile: standard 32 sp2 r2 enterprise 32 sp2 r2 web 32 sp2 r2 ----------------------- standard 64 sp2 r2 enterprise 64 sp2 r2 certain editions do "wacky" stuff that other editions don't do even though i'm slipstreaming the exact same thing into them. Like for example: Enterprise 32 bit with all updates slipstreamed including the latest version of WindowsUpdate still makes me install the latest version of WindowsUpdate when I go to updates.microsoft.com the standard and web versions of 32 bit don't. If I add a line into my winnt.sif that runs the *WindowsUpdate-30* update package on that particular one it doesn't ask me to update it but it is an anomaly, and I hate anomalies like that, they drive me crazy. Another thing is on Enterprise 64 'show the clock' is unticked only for remote desktop. I didn't set it up this way anywhere, it just does it on its own and for some reason the 'Windows Update' Start menu item doesn't work until after I open Internet Explorer 7 for the first time. (I am guessing some registry keys are missing until after IE 7 runs???). Does anyone know why there are these little anomalies between versions? I am slipstreaming the same drivers/updates into all of the versions (obviously not between x64 and x86). Thanks, SYSAD

Just make a script that does the following... Imagex.exe /mountrw %PATH_TO_YOUR_SOURCE% C:\mount %UPDATE_KB123456%.EXE /update C:\mount\$WIN_NT$.~LS Or just update the source and remake the WIM from a virtual machine. As always, you trade speed for complexity. You can use WinPE 2005 instead. Then you won't have to use bootsect.exe but this thread asked about PE2.1. You run winnt32.exe /switches, wait for it to finsih, then your back to your WinPE command-prompt. Now use ImageX.exe. Microsoft has actually been recommending it to be done like that since NT. The changes to this tech article is that instead of installing the drive into a another computer, we're taking an image of that drive and then applying that image to another computer. Just grab it out of the WinPE image. I believe that version works on XP. Or install the WAIK or the Windows OPK. They all contain ImageX among some other tools. You don't need to use ImageX. Ghost will work as well. The flexibility of being able to access the filesystem after applying with ImageX is nice though. We use a script that detects what type of machine you have and then it will copy over the appropriate OEMBIOS.BIN, OEMBIOS.SIG, OEMBIOS.CAT, etc. after applying the image. We also use a script before applying the ImageX that asks a series of questions (eg What role does this machine have? X,Y or Z?) then takes those answers and modifies the hard drive afterwards (ie, copies over certain programs and sets them to auto-install, changes the unattend.txt [which is actually WINNT.SIF at this stage] for certain computer names, copies over appropriate drivers for $OEM$, etc.). In this way, we actually modularize our install. We have the "base" which is kept pure, then a scripted layer for things that can't be auto-detected (ie, what role does the machine play?), and then add scripted layers on top which run silently. This allows us to completely image a machine in about ~15 minutes from WinPE boot to desktop. Naturally, this didn't occur overnight but took about 5 years of evolution starting with WinPE from XPSP1. Though, I think I could implement a solution that matches it in functionality in about a week if I had to start from scratch. Have you ever figured out just why certain machines take 3+ minutes to get past wpeinit while other machines do it almost instantly? it seems certain server machines such as Dells have problems with this while desktop machines that i use to test are immune. very strange. I was thinking about trying to roll more drivers into my winpe image to see if maybe that would help. SYSAD

The more annoying delay for me has got to be the stupid 3 minutes winpeinit takes. SYSAD

Hm, I appreciate the new idea for an approach I always feel like i am digging new tunnels etc when i'm doing stuff like this its nice to see someone else doing the same thing. So you're saying essentially I can make an image of the C: drive after the first 'graphical mode' where you give it the unattend file, etc. I get that part, so it would essentially make text-mode ready images (which is smart, i should do that once i'm 100% happy with everything). The part I don't get is how do you use imagex without WinPE, etc? Are you using WDS? SYSAD

I've gotten my deployment to the point where it is almost perfect, i've slipstreamed everything and it works great there are two annoyances that I haven't been able to eliminate on Windows 2003 yet. When the server first starts up and I open Internet Explorer it always pauses for 10 seconds at "Detecting Proxy Settings..." I have this in my winnt.sif: [branding] BrandIEUsingUnattended = Yes [Proxy] Proxy_Enable = 0 AutoConfig = 0 and i thought that meant that it wouldn't do that? The other annoying thing is that I have to add windowsupdate.microsoft.com to the trusted site list. Does anyone have any tips on how i can eliminate these final little annoyances? thanks, SYSAD

well, what I have it doing now is copying the contents of $OEM$\$1 to c:\ which includes i386 and the R2 install files. SYSAD

Howdy, I have built somewhat of a custom install system utilizing Windows PE 2.1 and doing installs using WINNT32, etc. It currently takes about 20 minutes to install any edition of Windows 2003 using this system and I am trying to shave this. Here is what the system currently does: 1 Initializes net 2 network share 3 creates partitions/formats/bootsector 4 copies files over network share 5 runs the installer (winnt32.exe via the network share) then it completes an automated install using an unattend file. If i am not mistaken the installer copies the files across the network AND i am copying the files across the network (so i'm doing it twice). But I am trying to figure out the best way to do it. I figured it would be much faster to copy the installer/media to the C: drive and the run the winnt32.exe file from the c:\drive but it doesnt work for some reason. Does anyone have a good way to speed the process up? I'm getting complaints from folks who used to like the fact that ghost was quicker but you had to maintain a ghost image for every hardware type (which was tedious). SYSAD

You are of course correct, I was looking in the NLDRV\015 folder and obviously it wasnt there. I found out that if you just use the default "integration" that NLite does with this particular driver and then just copy/paste: PCI\VEN_1028&DEV_0015&SUBSYS_1F011028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1028&DEV_0015&SUBSYS_1F021028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1028&DEV_0015&SUBSYS_1F031028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1000&DEV_0060&SUBSYS_1F0A1028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1000&DEV_0060&SUBSYS_1F0B1028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1000&DEV_0060&SUBSYS_1F0C1028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1000&DEV_0060&SUBSYS_1F0D1028="percsas" PCI\VEN_1000&DEV_0060&SUBSYS_1F111028="percsas" into the txtsetup.sif it works fine. I'm going to hit up my guy at dell to see if they can figure out why this particular driver won't nLITE properly now that I have evidence that it is a problem with the driver. SYSAD

Hi, thanks for the info, sorry if this is a dumb question but there is no such thing as a txtsetup.oem in the Dell Perc6/Perc5i driver set. where do you edit these things? SYSAD

Well, I noticed that there are two INF files in the driver directory and that before it was using nodev.inf so i switched it to oemsetup.inf and it still didn't work, now i'm going to try and include both. [Main] Env = 1.4.9.1 - 2.0.50727.3053.Microsoft Windows NT 6.0.6000.0 Target = Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition SP1 - 5.2.3790.1830 - English (United States) [Tasks] Integrate Drivers Create a Bootable ISO [Components] ;# Compatibility # [KeepFiles] msconfig.exe [RemoveFiles] clock.avi yahoo.bmp swtchbrd.bmp [Options] ProfilesDir = "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings" TargetPath = "WINDOWS" temp_dir = %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp [Patches] [services2] [Tweaks] [unattended] ComputerType = Automatic MaximumDataStorePercentOfDisk = 12 RestorePointLife = 30 DesktopTheme = Default|| PerSeat AutoUDay = 5 AutoUHour = 15 ProgFilesPath = "\Program Files" [NetAdapter1] connname = "" macaddress = "" ipaddress = "192.168.0.1" subnetmask = "255.255.255.0" defaultgateway = "" dnsserver1 = "" dnsserver2 = "" winsserver = "" netbiossetting = "0" ipxnetworknumber = "00000000" ipxnetworkframetype = "0xFF" [GuiRunOnce] [Drivers] C:\Dell\Drivers\R194162\oemsetup.inf,PERC_64 [Hotfixes] SYSAD Yeah. doesn't seem to matter what I do it will not integrate this driver properly, it is kind of funny that if i simply copy the files from the driver folder to a floppy disk and hit f6 while its booting it works fine, but the integration doesnt seem to work, while the windows setup text mode is running i even see it say PERC 5 PERC 6 etc but after windows starts it says no disk drives were found, etc. ugh, this is so wierd as the x86 one works fine and even the one for the SAS 6 works fine, its just this one driver. SYSAD

Well, I noticed that there are two INF files in the driver directory and that before it was using nodev.inf so i switched it to oemsetup.inf and it still didn't work, now i'm going to try and include both. [Main] Env = 1.4.9.1 - 2.0.50727.3053.Microsoft Windows NT 6.0.6000.0 Target = Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition SP1 - 5.2.3790.1830 - English (United States) [Tasks] Integrate Drivers Create a Bootable ISO [Components] ;# Compatibility # [KeepFiles] msconfig.exe [RemoveFiles] clock.avi yahoo.bmp swtchbrd.bmp [Options] ProfilesDir = "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings" TargetPath = "WINDOWS" temp_dir = %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp [Patches] [services2] [Tweaks] [unattended] ComputerType = Automatic MaximumDataStorePercentOfDisk = 12 RestorePointLife = 30 DesktopTheme = Default|| PerSeat AutoUDay = 5 AutoUHour = 15 ProgFilesPath = "\Program Files" [NetAdapter1] connname = "" macaddress = "" ipaddress = "192.168.0.1" subnetmask = "255.255.255.0" defaultgateway = "" dnsserver1 = "" dnsserver2 = "" winsserver = "" netbiossetting = "0" ipxnetworknumber = "00000000" ipxnetworkframetype = "0xFF" [GuiRunOnce] [Drivers] C:\Dell\Drivers\R194162\oemsetup.inf,PERC_64 [Hotfixes] SYSAD

Hi, The Dell executable is http://support.dell.com/support/topics/glo...amp;file=268016 i installed nlite on a new server, put my Windows 2003 x64 Enterprise R2 disc in the drive, told nLite to use that disk, and to integrate the driver folder and then burnt the cd. I didn't integrate any SP or anything. SYSAD