HeyMister

MHz, Thank you! I had set the problem aside. This addresses my biggest stumbling block.

I misunderstood what WPI was for. I see my error now. Thank you for your quick reply.

First, global replace &_ with & _ Then, on line 1 the RunErrorsFatal flag has been removed in favor of an @error setting. I haven't written an error handler yet. Right now, it just fails without report. I don't know how much farther I'm going to precede with debugging this. Just FYI.

Crahak, Because I'm working on a personal/custom install disk, and IMHE the devil is in the details. Two install systems tied together like this is just ... weird. I distrust weird. Let me propose that if there is no sequence control, and a dll is installed from TXTSETUP.SIF overwriting one from ASMS, that it would be absolutely undetectable. indistinguishable from, say, Automatic Updates. Does that sound like a good thing? Right now, I haven't an install disk. I have a license, but a fat lot of good that does me. So I'm working from available images that aren't exactly what I want. I'm putting things in and I'm taking things out. One does not take things out without understanding how they fit in and how they got there. More information is better than less.

Can it remove applications that it didn't install?

I'm guessing the numeric folders in ASMS are to control the order and perhaps to synchronize with the rest of the installation process. Am I getting warm?

Crahak, First, being rude worked. Kelsenellenelvian thinks I'm an id*** for not googling the files within ASMS, and I think he's an id*** because he can't read English. Honestly, we're both right. The good news is I have the information I needed and I now know that the CEO of his company isn't just a salesman. Being nice has gotten me long threads of posts answering questions I didn't ask and others telling me that I shouldn't ask at all because there is a workaround, lots of evasion and no information. What I understand you to have said is that there are two systems because either two design teams got in a ****ing match, or it was just another industrial accident at Microsoft. Either way, all the evidence has been destroyed and nobody is going to confess. Have I understood you?

AHA! Information! On the second try, too. Obviously my patience, kindness, understanding, and encouragement in my previous efforts to get questions answered on other forums were counter-productive. OK, so ASMS is structured like an old style extension for Firefox 1.x. MAN files are manifests, not like Unix MAN pages. CAT files are catalogs, but not in the sense I have understood a catalog before. So now I can ask a better question. I'm seeing two approaches to assembling ( putting together, not symbolic replacement ) Windows XP. First TXTSETUP.SIF - your basic find it in box A and put it in slot B approach, and then ASMS secured insertion into a framework. Why are there two systems?

OK, Kelsenellenelvian doesn't know what it is ( they are? ) for, and assumes I have a problem. Please forgive me in my frustration, but I swear before God that I am fluent in English and I asked exactly the question I intended. All of my google searches have been for naught. I have read through a hundred pages of posts at Microsoft support, Elder Geek, Minasi.com, Microsoft TechNet, eggheadcafe, wincert.net, and here. I'll be monitoring this thread as closely as possible, because I am very, very interested in the answer. Everybody knows how to fix it. Nobody seems to know what it's for.

What is the ASMS folder and contents used for? It is with scant hope that I will get an answer, but y'all have been very good on so many other things I had to try. READ THE QUESTION. I did not ask about fixing a problem. Thank you,