Phoneywar

The simplest solution is to add it to 'cmdlines.txt' and append 'add /q' to the command line. This will perform a totally silent install without automatically rebooting which will happen anyway at the end of the O/S install. EDIT: I forgot to mention it cannot be integrated in any way. Security issues.

If you mean 'Can you set a custom desktop background automatically during an unattended install' then I would have to say Yes, but there are problems with it. If you set the relevent registry key from cmdlines.txt it doesn't 'stick'. Both the Default User and any user accounts you have created will have the original default setting. If you set the reg-key at first logon then it will 'stick'. Basically you need an $OEM$\$$ folder on your CD containing your custom background image and an .INF file to set the appropriate registry key. I seem to remember Silvereyes posting some info on this a while back. Try searching his posts.

Ah... I rather suspected this was a windows issue. The names are being entered during the unattended install configuration phase of nLite which is probably how it's getting past XP's own checking mechanism. I don't normally use the same name for both, which of course is why I've never encountered this before, but this was a special build for someone else.

For most 'everyday' stuff like email, web browsing etc. there is no effective difference between AMD and Intel processors of comparable spec. It's only when you get into high-end number crunching tasks like video processing/encoding, gaming etc. that you might notice a difference. Of course, having said that I've not noticed any difference between the Turion X2 and the Core 2 Duo even when running multiple VMs.

I encountered a rather weird issue yesterday. Using nLite to create an unattended install CD for XP Home SP1a slipstreamed with SP3. If I assign the same name to both the machine and the new user being created by the unattended install process, the user is not created as a member of the Administrators group, only as a member of Users. Changing either the machine name or the user name resolves this issue. Anyone else encountered this?

Sounds like the same issue as the Dell machines had. Some id*** in their engineering dept thought it would be an absolutely marvelous idea to built an OS image using a machine with an AMD processor for deployment on machines with an Intel processor. I seem to recall that there is a fix for this but I cannot remember what it is offhand. Perhaps one of the others can.

My package is just a little old

The clock issue is a red herring. If you've ever hung out in or searched the VMware forums you would see there is usually a fairly steady trickle of questions about guest, and sometimes host, clocks losing and/or gaining time. The number of VMs you were running is also a bit of a red herring. If you had 'overloaded' the machine you would have see two effects, an apparent slowdown, ie. host and VMs would have appeared less responsive, and the hardware would have run a bit hotter. I honestly don't know of anything which can damage a CPU other than the Terrible Twins - Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) and Heat.

This would be of considerable interest to me as well. Providing it could be converted from batch files to a make style build system, but I have a sneaky suspicious that's something I would have to do myself

No, that not true at all. The NTFS filesystem needs regular defragging just like any other.

As far as I am aware you can just run the installer and it will update the existing drivers.

Oh, right. Not as bad as it sound then I would have to agree with you about Teac and Lite-On drives. I've never had one of those fail on me yet. In fact, I have an antique Teac CD/RW drive which saw a lot of heavy use, was put into storage for several years then resurrected as an external drive using a USB housing. Still works perfectly despite being the best part of ten years old.

As I understood his question he wants to setup one machine then copy that setup to all his other machines.

It was still using the .gho extension up to and including v8.0, the last one I evaluated. The Ghostexp from that version may be able to open images created with earlier versions.

I must admit I've never even heard of such a thing, never mind actually encountered it. Running a VM does put an additional load on the host machine but providing it's properly cooled that shouldn't cause any problems.

Ah! The good old mass rollout ploy This is a bit more complex than you might think. There are a number of things which can go wrong from HAL and driver incompatibilities to hardware based license keys becoming invalid, ie. Flexlm etc. You might even find some applications complaining or even just failing simply because they are now running on different hardware from which they were originally installed. Moving from an AMD to an Intel CPU, (and vice-versa) is a classic example of this as Dell found out with XP-SP3 There are tools which can assist you with this, True Image Workstation with Universal Restore comes to mind but there are others. Most of these will automatically install the proper HAL, drivers and change the SID but even so they are limited to just the OS and I don't know of any which can address the AMD <-> Intel CPU issue. OEM system install or recovery images are usually created on the exact same hardware which it is going to be shipped with. These are then 're-sealed' using Sysprep and a master image created. It is this master image which is then 'restored' during the final assembly stage before the new system is shipped. There is also another issue with XP. Product keys and activation. Moving XP to another system will cause it demand re-activation which will, in all probability fail. Sorry dear boy, I really wish I could be more help.

It sounds like you forgot to select the 'Create Bootable ISO' option on the Task Selection dialog. Other than that I can't think of anything which would cause it to skip like that.

Blimey. One has to wonder what on earth you are doing with them However a quick, off the top of my head guess is overheating. That will knacker them just as throughly as it will a CPU. EDIT: Speeling Earors

Stop being such an arse hannubys. Some people tested it for considerably more than the 2-3 days you assumed and found it wasn't suitable for their purposes. Other people simply don't see the need to fix something which isn't broken, ie. Windows XP. This does not make them archaic, nor is moving to Vista necessarily a move forward in many cases. In our case, we are waiting to see if the specific issues which concern us are going to be addressed before we re-evaluate it. Only then after a proper evaluation will a decision be made. At the moment we are leaning towards skipping Vista and waiting for Windows 7 which Microsoft has stated will be modular. That will suit our needs very nicely thank you

Do you mean recreate an XP install CD from an existing system? If so then no, it's not possible. Far too much information is missing or customised for your specific hardware to do that. If what you want is a way to restore your system with all your apps etc. without having to re-install each one indvidually then System Imaging is the way to go. This will allow you to backup and restore your entire operating system along with all your applications as one entity. You need to be aware that this will restore your system to the exact same state it was in when you did the backup. Any changes since the backup will be lost unless you back them up separately and restore them after the system image restore. Either Acronis True Image Home or Norton Ghost will provide you with tools which will perform both of these functions, system imaging and data backup. True Image Home is both cheaper and more user friendly for a beginner but it's mostly a personal choice. I would suggest downloading the trial versions of both see which one you like best. Do watch out for Norton Ghost's less user friendly features like it's license EDIT: Speeling Earorrs

Yes, I think that was the point he was trying to make, that it might be a bit awkward for a beginner, particularly with something like system imaging which has such a huge potential for disaster. The problem with a forum such as this is not so much what you write but what other people read into your writings. I've been on the receiving end of some really nasty flames over the years and thought "WTF?, what on earth did I do to deserve that?". I seriously doubt it's much different for you or Silvereyes. Getting back on topic, I do know some people who use hot imaging for servers but it's not something I'm comfortable with and frankly, I can't really see any use for it at all in a desktop environment. Personally, I think the hot imaging facility in tools such are TIH and Ghost is aimed at people who can't or won't find something else to do while a backup is in progress. Which is a bit silly as system imaging is primarily for deployment and disaster recovery, not normal day-to-day data backup operations. As you said there are far better tools for that. The problem is they require configuring and that's something Joe Public won't do. He will fiddle with parts of the system he's not supposed to. He'll delete essential operating system files despite all obstacles you put in his way but he won't take the time to properly configure a backup tool

I'd have to agree with that. The real issue is that a virtual machine is going to put an extra load on your machine anyway and if your cooling solution is not doing it's job properly then that could push it over the edge. Getting back to the OP's original question, Most, if not all, virtual machine products should run 9x based OSes without any problems even if it's not listed as a supported option. I would suggest downloading the trial and/or free versions of VMware, VirtualBox, etc. and see which one you like best.

As I understand it DVD+RW doesn't need a separate erase cycle the way CD-RW does.

The only way you could physically damage the drive itself is to overburn past the physical limits of the drive. Some drives are protected against this, ie. they reject the cmd and return an error. While others will dutifully attempt it and either jam and/or damage the stepper mechanism. It's a firmware thing for the most part. Unfortunately there is no quick easy way to tell which you have or even when such damage has occurred. The first indication is usually a refusal to read discs. @mazmorbid We always disable System Restore as it doesn't give a clean restore. It's not intended to as that would usually result in the loss of user data as well as undoing system alterations. Having said that most people do not have any problems with it. EDIT: And the reason I did not reply to this yesterday is I didn't see it in the new posts list.

ME's bad reputation was earned, and well earned in my opinion, when it was first released. Not enough or not strict enough quality control is my guess. Naturally this has since been addressed and it's really rather stable now