BAReFOOt

Allright. I thought you meant the first post of this thread, because i could not imagine a reason for enforcing that one should post a set of answers an one posting. But to clear things up, i hve two questions: 1. What happens if i start writing the first post, while somebody submits a new message, and then i want to answer to that message? Do you expect me to wait until another one has answered (if ever)? If not, what do you expect me to do then? 2. Is that server so weak that it gets problems from some more posts? If yes, then i have a tiny litte server that can handle them for you. It just makes no sense... (I don't have to add "...to me" after evey scentence, because we're all intelligent poeple, do I?) Ok, you could not know that, but as i said above, at that moment i still thought the problem were my first post in this thread, not the ones below. I'll watch it now, if you absolutely must have it and it makes you sick for whatever strange reason that I am not told and don't get by myself. I've no idea where you got that "belittle" thing from now. I can tell you that how ever you interpreted my messages: This is not what I think i have said in my messages. Additinoally it would make no sense, would it? It's not as if there is only one single dimension of knowledge. I'm sure your english is way better than mine, for example. To be honest: Te reason i'm not asking you right now, to come off your high horse of "i'm right. you're wrong. period.", is that it may misunderstand you too and that i'm certain, that this would not make things better for anybody. About the registry settings: 1. I CAN'T show you the registry settings. Yeah, physically i could. But I'd probably lose my job. (Even if the private data were removed). And if i remove everything that i'm not allowed to show, then the lesf suff would be useless and misleading. 2. It is absolutely irrelevant, what settings they are, isn't it? It's just a value that's written. When ran manually, it's written. When ran via RunOnceWhatever, it's written. And there it stays, until it gets overwritten or the system forgets it's existance. So the question is unrelated to what key/value it is. It's about when explorer.exe writes it's registry keys, and how to get to an execution hook that's after this writing, but before the user can work on his system. To be a generic solution, the speciifc key or value is not allowed to play any rule. Else it would not be generic and could come up again, as soon as I add another key. Now let's not forget that little gift that i got from you "off the record": Ah nice... now the personal attacs because you can't stand it. Our big brother would be proud. But whatever. This is how I see it. And that's how you see it. It's just that I can not make any sense of your opinion. And you don't even care to help me make sense of it. Instead you prefer to punish me "because you can". I think I explained you my view quite clearly to help you make sense to it. Now how about accepting other opinions too, for a change. Be happy that you're in that situation. If I could punish you the same way, just because you have another opinion, that would suck pretty bad, would it? And btw: I could NOT merge this message with the previous one, because ther were extremely unrelated and reading them woul mike no sense at all. And i don't know if there were nome additional messages (maybe even by you) that came in, in the 30 minutes it took to write this thing. But as I said, lf I can, I'll do you the favor of merging them. Now let's get back to whit this thread and this forum was about, instead of such irrelevant stuff...

Unfortunately i've tried it, and it did not help. butt thank you. I'll find some solution... sooner or later... --- stupid as f*** answer merging... WARNING... the stuff below this line is totally unrelated to the stuff above it --- See my post below for an explanation. I like my job... Hey, who said you're stupid?? I certanly don't know you well enough to judge this. Now I'm interested to know, where I talked gibberish that's not the result of a loss in translation, a misunderstanding or missing information on your side (often results in things that look like riddles). Maybe you could even enlighten me with the knowledge that i seem to miss. Oh, and missing information or misunderstandings are never a bad thing. Ignoring them is. I'm always happy to fix my weakest points, so I can finally get above that IQ of 140. (Only two more points to go... ) But I think I'll leave you now... I have to kill this partiton...

When do the registry values of explorer.exe for the new user get created (as seen from reg or regedit)? My expectation is: They already exist in the default user, but some get added trough Active Setup. What I begin to fear: On the first EXIT of explorer.exe. I tell you... one more such thing and i'll throw that whole thing away, kill my xp partition and go with gentoo only... I did not realize what an incredibly poor child's OS XP is, until I saw this mess from the inside...

What series of three posts? I've just done one "bump" post, because sometimes a thread goes under in the others, and it would be extremely stupid to let it just die then, because why write it in the first place when you don't care?But I heard there are levels of alcohol that make 3 things out of two (just before you see double). I *repeat*: The exact code is perfectly *irrelevant*. But maybe others are so stupid, that you expect that there's crap in the code that's not mentioned by the user. I tell you something: Pleast disable retard mode by default. ok? Then if you're to disgusted by those that drive you crazy, rather go somewhere where it's better, than enablang retard mode by default. Would be nice. Thank you.Now imagine my code as this: reg import "desktop.reg" reg import "taskbar.reg" reg import "explorer.reg" reg import "control panel - accessibility.reg" reg import "control panel - internet.reg" reg import "control panel - user accounts.reg" rd /s /q crapdir1 rd /s /q crapdir2 rd /s /q crapdir3 del /s /q *.crap del /s /q crap.* del /s /q *.crap.*(of course this are NOT the real files [oh god, why do i think you'd really tell me this?]) And to mention it AGAIN: They The script is proven in YEARS of tests and usage with manual execution. Just now when i run it in RunOnceEx, Active Setup or RunOnce, the registry settings don't get included. (While the files get deleted without problems when ran in RunOnce or Active Setup [in RunOnceEx Active Setup still has to create some of them].) If that is "not enough information for you", then just leave us alone, ok?

===== Post Nº 1 ===== Because I don't want to. It's pretty internal stuff that shouldn't get into the net. But it's just some registry imports for explorer, winlogon & lsa, internet settings, internet explorer, keyboard, desktop & folder settings, then some rearranging of the start menu items and deletion of unwanted files. If you can expect that there is no difference in how a registry key is written and stored, then this should not differ. Besides, everything except the registry changes works fine. Even on a user-specific basis. That's why I'm baffled. Registry keys get ignored for no reason. ===== Post Nº 2 ===== Ah, that's interesting, because I thought RunOnce runs only when explorer.exe has finished loading 100%. It's worth a try. Thank you! Here comes the funny part: I'm already doing this. It fact I began with RunOnceEx, and only added "HKCU...RunOnce" after I found out about "Active Setup", and that this does not make it better too. So I guess the keys get overwritten even after RunOnceEx, Active Setup and RunOnce. That's where i began to get stuck. Now your idea from above could help... Lol. What a dirty, dirty hack for a delay function. But it's a nice idea. Because, this could finally solve it. Let's see... starting new installation in ...3 ...2 ...1 ... ===== Post Nº 3 ===== Just a quick note: 1.1.1.1 does not work. ping does not wait at all. But with 3.3.3.3 or 111.111.111.111 it does work. Until someone takes the adress. Oh, and 192.168.254.0 or 0.0.0.1 work too (and make more sense, if there is any... )

I've no idea too. Right now there are too many possibilities. I just with there were a way to get it to run last. I may try the follwoing dirty trick: Put my script in Autostart. I've tried RunOnce already, and it does not help. But I saw many poeple complaining that their registry keys don't "stick", watever that means. Maybe we can search for this, to get a solution... Or else i will just stop caring, and put a link in autostart or on the desktop. This part of windows really sucks. (Unfortunately installing gentoo sucks just as much, when you have to set 200 badly described USE-flags, and emerge is failing on every other packet. )

This WINNT.SIF works fine for me: ;SetupMgrTag [Data] AutoPartition=0 MsDosInitiated="0" UnattendedInstall="Yes" AutomaticUpdates=No [Unattended] UnattendMode=ProvideDefault OemPreinstall=Yes TargetPath=\WINDOWS FileSystem=* OemSkipEula=Yes WaitForReboot=No DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore AutoActivate=No UnattendSwitch="yes" [GuiUnattended] OEMSkipRegional=1 TimeZone=110 AdminPassword=<SECRET> EncryptedAdminPassword=Yes OEMSkipWelcome=1 [UserData] ProductKey=<SECRET> FullName="Some Name" OrgName="Some Org" ComputerName=mycomputer [TapiLocation] CountryCode=49 Dialing=Tone AreaCode=0123 [RegionalSettings] LanguageGroup=1 Language=00000407 [Branding] BrandIEUsingUnattended=Yes [URL] Home_Page="http://google.com/" Help_Page="http://www.mozilla-europe.org/de/" Search_Page="http://www.google.de/search?q=%s" [Proxy] Proxy_Enable=0 Use_Same_Proxy=1 [Identification] JoinDomain=SOMEDOMAIN [Networking] InstallDefaultComponents=Yes [Components] Msmsgs=Off Msnexplr=Off Freecell=Off Hearts=Off Minesweeper=Off Pinball=Off Solitaire=Off Spider=Off Zonegames=Off Deskpaper=Off Paint=Off Calc=Off Mswordpad=Off Media_clips=Off Media_utopia=Off Rec=Off [Shell] CustomDefaultThemeFile = "%WinDir%\Resources\Themes\dragonstyle.theme" Maybe you can work your way from mine to yours, until it stops working, to find the error...

Hmm, i don't know exactly what WPI is, but if it runs silent installers, try finding a switch to disable restarting for those installers. If, for example, your script gets called like this: setup.exe /q try to get the parameters with one of the following: setup.exe /? setup.exe /help setup.exe -help <-- seldom, maybe does not work as intended. setup.exe /h <-- maybe does not work as intended. setup.exe -h <-- maybe does not work as intended. (or look at the documentation?) Add the switch to your command line. It could then l look like one of this: setup /q /r:s setup /q /W setup /quiet /norestart <-- works especially for msi-installers A bit over-detailed, but I hope this helps.

...and it has a bug! If the has deleted all his files, then how will he send the mail? (Assumed he has deleted his adress book too and no other computer avaliable.) Btw: This thing is really old. More than five years at least. And it has many variations.

I'm going crazy here... I have one batch script, which, when run at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\RunOnce, does have another behaviour than when run manually. WTF? It's a sample batch script. Just some registry imports and file moves (if they aren't moved already). As long as the global variables aren't different, this can't be, can it? This is madness... And, Leonidas, you're not helping very much... even if "THIS IS SPARTAAA!" Has anyone else seen or heard of this monstrosity?

===== Post Nº 1 ===== Hmm, unfortunately, for me, zzz did not work! Can you maybe show me the part of your script, that did it? ===== Post Nº 2 ===== I'm going crazy here... I have one script, which, when run at HKEY_CURRENT_USER...RunOnce, does have another behaviour than when run manually. WTF? It's a sample batch script. Just some registry imports and file moves (if they aren't moved already). As long as the global variables aren't different, this can't be, can it? This is madness... And, Leonidas, you're not helping very much... even if "THIS IS SPARTAAA!"

That's ok. I'm thankful for any help. We'll see... for now I've given up. --- EDIT: Ok, i think i found a solution... - I use RunOnceEx.cmd to write ste StubPath for some helper script to "Active Setup\Installed Components". - The helper script then writes the real user-specific script to "RunOnce" while "Active Setup" runs. - This user-specific script fixes the things that got overwritten in "Active Setup". Of course this only works if there's nothing in RunOnce, that's executed late, and that's overwriting it again. I'm creating my test-installation right now. Let's see how it works...

1. [...] As a token of intergalactic friendship, they present you with a small but incredibly sophisticated device that is capable of [...]. You decide to: a. Present it to the president of the United States. b. Present it to the secretary general of the United Nations. c. Take it apart. d. USE IT! (Then take it apart. And last but not least show it to the pathetic losers at the UN.) 2. As you grow older, what lost quality of your youthful life do you miss the most? a. Innocence. b. Idealism. c. Cherry bombs. d. Non-existant security and government rulings in the Intertubes (Hey, I was joung. O:-) 3. When is it okay to kiss another male? a. When you wish to display simple and pure affection without regard for narrow-minded social conventions. b. When he is the pope. (Not on the lips.) c. When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino and this is the only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for business reasons, you have to have him killed. d. NEVER (And for c: If he's dead he doesn't care anymore. ;P) 4. What about hugging another male? a. If he's your father and at least one of you has a fatal disease. b. If you're performing the Heimlich maneuver. [...] c. If you're a professional baseball player and a teammate hits a home run to win the World Series, you may hug him provided that: [...] d. NEVER 5. Complete this sentence: A funeral is a good time to... a. ...remember the deceased and console his loved ones. b. ...reflect upon the fleeting transience of earthly life. c. ...tell the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer's disease and cancer. d. ...do the same thing they do at evey marriage: Telling them "You're next! " 6. In your opinion, the ideal pet is: a. A cat. b. A dog. c. A dog that eats cats. d. A woman. e. A huge and aggressve dinosaur (...that eats ex-woman and approaching concurrent men... oh... and cars of course). 7. You have been seeing a woman for several years. [...] What do you say? a. That you sincerely believe the two of you do have a future, but you don't want to rush it. b. That although you also have strong feelings for her, you cannot honestly say that you'll be ready anytime soon to make a lasting commitment, and you don't want to hurt her by holding out false hope. c. That you cannot believe the Jets called a draw play on third and seventeen. d. "Of course we have a future, honey. I love you too... ...Wanna f***?" [Censorship as a crime. No exceptions!] Mod edit: Do not bypass the filters. 8. Okay, so you have decided that you truly love a woman and you want to spend the rest of your life with her -- [...]. How do you tell her? a. You take her to a nice restaurant and tell her after dinner. b. You take her for a walk on a moonlit beach, and you say her name, and when she turns to you, with the sea breeze blowing her hair and the stars in her eyes, you tell her. c. Tell her what? 9. One weekday morning your wife wakes up feeling ill and asks you to get your three children ready for school. Your first question to her is: a. "Do they need to eat or anything?" b. "They're in school already?" c. "There are three of them?" d. "What about the other 397? Did they have their yet?"10. When is it okay to throw away a set of veteran underwear? a. When it has turned the color of a dead whale and developed new holes so large that you're not sure which ones were originally intended for your legs. b. When it is down to eight loosely connected underwear molecules and has to be handled with tweezers. c. It is never okay to throw away veteran underwear. A real guy checks the garbage regularly in case somebody -- and we are not naming names, but this would be his wife -- is quietly trying to discard his underwear, which she is frankly jealous of, because the guy seems to have a more intimate relationship with it than with her. d. When the "war" is over. (Ok, this one is on you.) 11. What, in your opinion, is the most reasonable explanation for the fact that Moses led the Israelites all over the place for forty years before they finally got to the Promised Land? a. He was being tested. b. He wanted them to really appreciate the Promised Land when they finally got there. c. He refused to ask directions. d. There is no such fact. There's just a Storybook for Loonies. (In fact there are many.) But Moses was a real man. And the first one to be really successful. He got so many poeple to follow him that I think I'm gonna start such a scam too... 12. What is the human race's single greatest achievement? a. Democracy. --> Oh come on. As ultimately non-working as communism. Just more subtle. b. Religion. --> Yes. As seen from the evil overlord's perspective. MUHAHAHAHAHAAA! c. Remote control. --> Dito. MUHAHAHAHAHAAA! d. Quantum theory. e. Theory of relativity. f. The computer. How to Score: Give yourself one point for every time you picked answer "c." A real guy would score at least 10 on this test. In fact, a real guy would score at least 15, because he would get the special five-point bonus for knowing the joke about the guy who has Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Doctor: I've got your test results and I have some bad news. You have cancer and Alzheimer's. Patient: Boy, am I lucky! I was afraid I had cancer! (Ok, there are better ones...)

===== Post Nº 1 ===== Hmm... I read the stuff and I now understand where the calls come from. But what I don't understand is, why I would want to completely get rid of it. As far as I understand it, this are components that get installed in the new user's registry-hive (or their user-specific parts to be exact). So they're needed, aren't they? The best way would be, to add my script as one of those components, so it gets called every time the other components got installed. This opens two questions: 1. What GUID can I take? just generate one? Are there rules, like adding the guid somewhere else in the registry? 2. How can I enforce my script to be the absolutely last to be called? If I've no better option, I think I could just 1. Ignore the GUID-stuff alltogether and 2. Call the new key "zzzzzz" or something alike. Except that it sounds veeery spaghetti-code-hackish. Has anyone got a better idea? *hopes* ===== Post Nº 2 ===== Ok, i've got it to work. Thank you. Well... it works... partially... I can't make my entry in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftActive SetupInstalled Components" the last. So the other things are still called after my script. I'm beginning to understand why someone would want them to be removed. But if i remove them, then i still want them to work. I don't want to lose their changes. And an additional problem arises. I have to restart explorer.exe (or run everything before it gets started and without it being overwritten) to make the registry changes of my script visible. Unfortunately, doing this in my script, creates an infinite loop of recursive runs when running in "applying personal settings". (Because it re-runs that thing everytime explorer.exe is started without my script being finished.) I don't even know remotely, how to solve that.

Hello, i'm just creating my first unattended windows xp cd (well, it became a dvd), and everything goes pretty well, except for one thing: I use a self-written batch-file to apply some tweaks to the file system and the registry. Now this script is well-tested and works fine in normal use (e.g. by manually running it, right after the installation.), but when i run it trough RunOnceEx (like explained in the guide), there's another dialog coming up later. This dialog is entitled "persönliche einstellungen einrichten" in german. I could not find a proper translation, but i guess it's "applying personal settings". The problem with this dialog is, that it overwrites my settings. Obviously i searched for a way to run the script later, which would be possible by only writing the real call for my script to "HKCU\...\RunOnce", when in RunOnceEx. All fine, but this does not work for other users that are created later. They get that dialog too. But adding a call to my script to their RunOnce isn't possible, and everything in "HKU\.DEFAULT\...\RunOnce" seems to get ignored. I'm toally perplex. Why doesn't windows copy those settings from the default user, when it's applying the personal settings? And where is that dialog coming from anyway? (Google cant help me here, i searched for 3 hours straight.) The optimum would be, to add my script right to that ominous dialog, so that it's getting applied at the creation of every user. Has anyone done something similar or does anyone know more about this (e.g. where are the registry settings to control this dialog and add my own script?) P.S.: Please excuse my bad grammar. English is not my first language, but my third from four. And i worked trough the whole night to solve this problem. P.P.S.: Any help would be greatly appreciated, of course... and seeing how rare this information is on the internet, this would probably help even more poeple. So, many thanx in advance!