kingsc

Hi all. Here's what is being proposed: 1. Create a C: partition for the OS 2. Create a D: partition for profile and storage data. Benefits: * Better utilization of the HDD. * Can re-image the OS partition without touching profile and storage partition. So here's my question: 1. Would it be better for me to start from scratch utilizing the ProfileDir= section of Unattended Installation so that ALL profiles, including the LocalService and NetworkService are created there? - OR - 2. Manually edit the image in place in the registry and then copy all profiles except the LocalService and NetworkService profiles. My concern is this: * It isn't clean if I don't start from scratch, there will be a Docs and Settings folder on the C: and D: partition. This will more then likely be transparent, but may confuse the user if they are familiar with the default location of profile data. * However, if I do have ALL profiles on the D: partition, including system ones, will that mean that those profiles could possibly become corrupt resulting in me having to reimage the D: partition and lose data anyway? Until I recieve an answer, I'm going to be doing #2, but was curious about your experience/advice. Thanks.

Fixed those too, based on your previous code. attrib -h -s "%userprofile%\My Documents\desktop.ini" echo [DeleteOnCopy] >"%userprofile%\My Documents\desktop.ini" echo Owner=%username% >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\desktop.ini" echo Personalized=5 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\desktop.ini" echo PersonalizedName=My Documents >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\desktop.ini" attrib +h +s "%userprofile%\My Documents\desktop.ini" attrib -h -s "%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo [DeleteOnCopy] >"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo Owner=%username% >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo Personalized=13 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo PersonalizedName=My Music >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo [.ShellClassInfo] >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo InfoTip=@Shell32.dll,-12689 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" echo IconIndex=-237 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" attrib +h +s "%userprofile%\My Documents\My Music\desktop.ini" attrib -h -s "%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo [DeleteOnCopy] >"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo Owner=%username% >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo Personalized=39 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo PersonalizedName=My Pictures >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo [.ShellClassInfo] >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo InfoTip=@Shell32.dll,-12688 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\mydocs.dll >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" echo IconIndex=-101 >>"%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" attrib +h +s "%userprofile%\My Documents\My Pictures\desktop.ini" pause

Dude..... Problem SOLVED. Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much. My lack of knowledge made it harder to understand what you were telling me to do.. but once I figured it out, works perfectly! THANK YOU!! Just to show you the things I had to change: 1. Code is perfect but you need a attrib -h -s line before you start appending the echos. 2. You load the default user ntuser.dat file, browse to HKU\defuser(what I named it during load)\software\microsoft\windows\current version\RunOnce(Created, not there normally). 3. create string value point to the batch file. The batch file I placed in the root of the default user profile. 4. UNLOAD THE HIVE. I kept forgetting to do this. ;p 4. Jump for joy. Again Ninja, thank you! EDIT - LOL... darnit that just fixes the my docs folder... still gotta fix the my pics, etc..... DARNIT!

Alright, I hear you, let me recap however. I've been using this image, for over 6 months, in a company environment, that's accessing SQL servers, SharePoint, accounting systems, file servers, exchange... and absolutely NO issues. The only issue is one that I can only see myself, or by another admin. It doesn't do any harm to the system. It's not 'that' big of a deal. I fear however, if I go to the next step of my image, where I create two seperate partitions, it may become an issue. I can't believe this is 'that' hard to fix. I also can't believe that no one can fix it or that Microsoft hasn't pulled this procedure off their system, maybe they don't even know it breaks their OS? All I need to know, if there are any computer scientists out there, or programmers, or whatever... is where in the registry is the naming, or mirroring or whatever the proper term is, of new accounts from the default user account. I'm beginning to wonder if it's actually in ntsuer.dat. But it has to be, if what causes it is copying your reference profile to your default. PLEASE someone, try it yourself inside a VM if you have one. 1. Follow the instructions provided in Microsoft's KB319974. Name your profile TESTUSER. 2. Create a new profile, then log into it. 3. Log out of it, and then log into any profile EXCEPT the new one that was created using your modified default user account. 4. Navigate to c:\documents and settings\<new profile from modified default user>\ You will see instead of <new profile from modified default user>'s Documents, TESTUSER's documents. I'm about willing to buy a gift card for anyone who can fix this!!!

Ok so if I'm understanding correctly, I will need to add the source XP installation files to the PE ISO?

I must be completely misunderstanding you. How can you have those files locally if the hard drive if it gets wiped when running the batch file?

Sorry one more question: Where do you put your setup files? Do you keep them 'and' bartpe on a disk? Do you keep them on a network location? External hard drive/thumb drive?

Thank you very much. I know how annoying it can be for someone to ask simple questions repeatedly, so thank you for your patience. I've just been working on this for several days now and I'm very tired and frustrated.

Where do I put the winnt.sif file? I've never used this, only sysprep. EDIT - Is there a good article I can read on the full use of this and how it works that you would recommend?

So could anyone tell me how to edit this and re-import it into the registry? Or could anyone tell me what parameters in the ntuser.dat file that I can supposedly edit to fix this? I can't find anything readable that partains to my issue. EDIT - Asked 3 of my instructors last night, no answer found.

Well, after correcting the code a bit it executed properly, however I couldn't figure out how to get it to run in a runonce from the default user profile.... if .DEFAULT 'is' in fact the default? I created a key under HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion called RunOnce since it wasn't there, only run was but it didn't work... EDIT - Just noticed that .DEFAULT does not appear to be the default profile... I think? If I browse through that hive, the desktop wallpaper doesn't match what it should be ..... GRRRRRRRRrrRRRrr

Also found another procedure, tried doing a dumb compy of everything in the test user folder to the default folder. This didn't work either... created a new profile and even when viewing from a different profile it shows that profile's stuff as "My Docs, pics, etc."

If this is possible, I'd love to know how. I looked over the deployment guide and ref.chm to try and find some parameters that even lets me do something like this. Please enlighten me. Thanks.

So I exported the .DEFAULT hives from a computer that had not been imaged, and one that has, and used windiff to compare the two.reg files. I really couldn't find much, except for entries in HKU\.DEFAUL\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders Editing these appears to do nothing to resolve the issue however. I'm bummed, I may have to resort to a batch file and entry in RunOnce after all.

I copied the ntuser.dat file to the default user profile inside of a VM and it didn't work. When I created a new account and logged in, some stuff was transferred over but the my docs folder was empty; there was no my pics or my music folders. EDIT - And the docs folder was still incorrectly labeled. Is there a cleaner way where you just make a few edits to registry entries (the same that would be inside of ntuser.dat) to achieve the desired results?

Thank you for the excellent replies. I think I've had a lack of knowledge and am mixing up Sysprep and installation. This is all new to me, I'll give it a shot and let you know how it goes, thanks again!!!!!

That's a very good idea, thank you. I'd have to do that for the music, pics, etc as they are all incorrectly named as well, I would think? I'd really like to identify the issue and correct it though, as I write documentation for everything I do. So the cleaner, the better.

Hello I'm tired and need your help. I've read over the deployment help files, searched google, with not much luck. So here's my situation. Following a microsoft KB article basically broke the OS. I created a customized profile, copied it to the default user profile. I know now that there is probably a 'better' way to do that, but I didn't know that when I originally created it. The "break" isn't a major one at all, but I just want to make the image perfect. I won't get into details about it as I've already asked for help with it and have been unable to resolve it. So, I want to revamp my image. Since I'm doing this, the first part of my question is this; how can I utilize sysprep or -something- to create a C: partition for the OS of around 20GB to account for updates, and a D: partition for everything else. Realize, there's a reason why this needs to happen BEFORE the OS even loads, which leads to the next part. I need to somehow change the profiles path: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList I need to change the ProfilesDirectory value to D:\Documents and Settings instead of %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings Why do I need to do all of this BEFORE the OS loads you ask? Because, I did this after the install, inside of a VM and ran into a problem. The registry change works perfectly, problem is that there is still a C:\Documents and Settings. Inside of this, hidden and system attributed, are the NetworkService and LocalService profiles. I want these on the D: partition like everything else. I can't seem to cleanly move these as they are in use by the OS. I'm afraid if I try to just move them, it will break the OS. Summary: I need: 1. C: partition of 20GB for the os, and D: partition utilizing the rest of the HDD. 2. Somehow change the ProfilesDirectory value to the D: partition. 3. All of this needs to happen during the initial unattended install, unless there's a better way to do this. Any ideas?

You can also download a mass storage driver pack for intel... I forgot where I got it though, sorry.

I would love to know if someone figured out how to correct this. This is exactly what I'm trying to do now. It's no problem doing it locally, but we have over 200 computers in the network, and new ones being set up all the time. So if there's an image modification(registry) that I could do, or worst case scenario bug my sysadmin to enable a group policy or script... any insight would be helpful.

That would be a good temporary fix, I agree. I'd really like to make this perfect however. I'm afraid that even doing temporary fix will be a problem later on in future modification plans.

You are pretty much spot-on. Thank you and others for your replies. There's gotta be something coded somewhere that takes care of this outside of desktop.ini and maybe even ntuser.dat. Let me see if I can summarize clearly, I'm troubleshooting a strange rdp app issue and about to start testing VMWare View with thin clients so my mind is in a million places right now. So... in a fresh install of XP... or should I say "unmodified", in the default user profile, it is as you describe submix8c. However, upon following a Microsoft KB article... they say to create a master profile, customize it as you like, then copy it to the default user profile. This works perfectly, EXCEPT for the issue I currently have, which I didn't notice for what... 3 months? If you have VMWare, or some other VM you can utilize, try it yourself and see. Create a test profile, write down the name of that test profile; i.e. "testuser". Then customize as you like. In my case, I guess in the big picture I didn't really do much, just configured the start menu and desktop icons(At least thats all I can remember). Now, log out of that profile, log into another admin profile, go into System Properties and click the advanced tab, then click user profiles. Copy that profile you just made to the default user profile(You need to enable showing hidden folders), and make sure you set the "Permitted to use" to "Everyone"(There is a KB article about how to do this whole thing). Once you're done, go into control panel > users and delete that profile you just made. -- EDIT - This is where you effectively break the OS. -- Now, when you create a new user, it uses the "new" default user profile. Which is nice. I've customized it so the user has everything they'd ever need right there for them. That way I don't have to spend the extra 10 mins per computer, and alleviate any dumb questions like "where's my email?" because the icon isn't on the desktop. Now, log into that new user. Browse to my documents. Everything looks ok. However, if you log out of that profile, and into another admin profile, manually browse to c:\documents and settings\ to the user, and you'll see the problem.... everything will show as "testusers docs, pics, etc." All efforts to repair this has failed. Even if I try to revert the default user's my docs folder to what it would look like in an "unmodified" situation doesn't fix it. There's something in the registry I'm missing. It's not really causing a problem now, but when I start working on the next step to improving the image, which is going to deal with partitioning and redirecting my docs, etc., I'm afraid this will become a serious issue.

Well.... in my Virtual Machine in the default user profile I edited the desktop.ini to read: [DeleteOnCopy] Owner=%userprofile% Personalized=5 PersonalizedName=My Documents Works perfectly. Doesn't work when applied to my problem however. Bummer. I guess the answer lies in ntuser.dat somewhere... EDIT - Curious.... in the desktop.ini file..... why doesn't the [DeleteOnCopy] section get deleted when a new profile is created?? Hmm...

My apologies, that was over the line.

Wow..... this is why "good" administrators don't deploy XP with images? Are you kidding me? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but I notice a bit of snobiness there? Good thing I'm not an administrator then, eh? So what's your suggestion? Not use an image? Do an unattended install including installation and configurations of all programs? Imaging is just a small part of my job and I handle over 300 users. I think I would MUCH rather deal with an incorrectly named documents folder(Which isn't even used that often since all users are/should be saving their work on there home folders on network storage) that has had absolutely zero effect on any programs they use so far; and be able to re-image a computer in 14 minutes and it's ready to go. Go ahead and try to tell my IT Manager you want to spend an hour plus setting up a computer. You wouldn't have a job for long. EDIT - Long story short - I don't have time to learn scripted unattended installations, how RunOnceEx works with that, and to sit there and wait for a computer to the OS installed, setup, programs installed, setup, added to the domain, etc etc.. EDIT #2 - And don't tell me that's the only way, you can do ANYTHING with the right know-how. Acronis told me I couldn't create a universal image without paying them for an Universal Restore license for every seat we deploy due to hardware differences, and now I saved the company money and got a pay-raise to boot.