AMDTWraith

I get that if there isn't a restart between me installing DX and trying to install codecs. I install DX from my cmdlines.txt and the install codecs sin the guirunonce section. I have had a couple of other problems with dxdiag finding invalid entry points buti solved those by causing a dx reinstall as the guirunonce section exits.

The vbscript and wscript msdn reference are all i use. They even have a good regex reference in there.

Why? read the language specification, \ isn't important to vbs, it doesn't use c style escapes. Perhaps you'd be better of writing it in javascript if you're used to that.

Theres paranoia there's taking it too far. Yes that'll break the association but couldn't you just not double click the things? VBS is a useful little scripting langauge, a great many of the IIS tools are vbs scripts, you won't be able to use any of the after that little alteration. You also break VBS for any unsuspecting users on the machine who have no idea what you did. As someone who supports some relatively complicated (in my opinion anyway) scripts used to install/uninstall an open source project this sort of thing causes me major headaches with id*** users. Double quotes in vbs are "". By which i mean if you want a string to contain " you use "" , so a "a quote ""quoted text""" will be printed as a quote "quoted text" You'll soon get tired of couting up double quote characters. Sometimes its better to use "a quote " & chr(32) & "quoted text" & chr(32) for clarity, its a matter of personal preference.

Yes.

Can anyone confirm that /silent and /installmanageddx (from the redist notes) work together? I get no error message but the managed extensions aren't installed, win2K if it matters.

Did they break the DirectXSetup api or will that method still work?

Setting up windows the way i like it, and getting tools installed to a point where i find it usable can take a while for me. I have to find half a dozen CD's, install a bunch of things, change path variables, dabble in the registry and so on. Also i tend to have problems building my system meaning i have to wipe and start again. A generic image would mean i can't shuffle drive letters about, its easier to have a slipstream install i can just pop in and point at a partition letting windows setup do the work of locating everything. I also don't need a clean machine to build a new slipstream install disk.

Personally i'd say compiling a small executable is considerably easier than hex editing someone else's installer. I hex edit when i need to but its always as a last resort because there is usually a better option. In this case there is an option that allows anyone to use only freely provided files without any risk of violating any license agreements, given the choice personally i'll use that option because i'm slightly obsessive and i like to do things in what i consider the "right" way. Each to their own. I was greatly irritated when i started trying to create my slipstream install that there wasn't a legitmate way to install dx silently. I'm sorry but a hack is a hack and using an opk version installer when i'm not entitled to use it (though it may be easy to get) is a bar to my using it. When i did find that there was a way to do it i thought it'd be a good idea to tell people because there may other people out there who don't want to use hacked or illicit files in their distribution media. Using the provided api may also allow localised versions of direct to be slipstreamed which will help some people no doubt. Certainly this method is harder than simply downloading someone else's files and using them. But its also more elegant in my opinion, its using the resources provided to achieve the goal the way it was designed to be achieved. I like that.

No, i mean 220 meg. Actually 223237 KB according to microsoft, and its their file so they'd know. Its the SDK, full retail and debug versions of everything plus libraries source code examples documentation and all sorts. SDK's are big but if you want the original files then thats what you need. You don't need anything but 2 small files form this and none of it gets put on the distribution media in the end. As i said while i've provided all the required files its really much better if you use the resources i've linked to and make your own, i'm not sure its permitted to provide those files like that. Do it right and you've broken no agreements, not even implicity or by proxy, which can be important for some people. The redist is smaller but thats just the client files, its only 35 meg. The setup api should work with localised versions, there is nothing specifying language in the setup, all it requires is the redist files (which could well be the dutch version) to install. Make up a virtual machine and give it a try, i'm using english windows so i don't use localised versions myself.

Resources: DirectX 9.0b SDK Download (220 MB) Directx SDK, from which the dsetup.h file and dsetup.lib files are taken. DirectX 9.0b Redist Extract the contents to a folder with /C /T:<path> commandline arguments. Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 C/C++ compiler and basic compilation tools package. Take the attatched file and extract the contents to a folder. If you want to use your own versions of dsetuplib and dsetuph replace the versions in the folder with your own. Edit the batch file to correctly setup your compilation environment and then run it. The output (if it works) is silentsetup.exe. Take silentsetup.exe and place it in the folder that the dx9 redistributable files were extracted to, this folder should contain some cabs, an exe, an msi and most importantly the dll files dsetup.dll and dsetup32.dll. Call silentsetup.exe in your setup and a progress dialogue will be shown, no interaction will be required though and dx will be fully installed. The executable is included in the zip file but i'd really much rather your all learnt how to make it for yourselves than use my version. silent_dx.zip

The windows 2000 version of reg.exe (which may or may not be identical to the XP one) is in the support tools package on the distribution media, the support tools aren't installed by default but they're a standard msi package. I just pulled the exe out of the cab file, stuck it in $OEM$ and ran it from the media during install. I also silently installed the support tools package so its on path in windows when it completes installing.

I use the DirectxSetup api as i said. You write a very very small program that calls the api and causes the install to start, part of that program is to pass the arguments required to make it install silently. The program guts can be found a few posts down in this thread. You need the DX headers, which are free in the DX sdk, the lib file, which is also in the sdk. the redist which is free and a c (or possibly any other language you like i suppose, all it requires is the ability to call the dll with parameters) compiler, i use the microsoft compiler myself but you can get that from them free as well. It installs with a progress dialogue, at no point am i prompted to agree to the eula or asked to confim anything. I've got this working in my 2K unattended install and its installed dozens of times without problems or interaction. This method uses unhacked standard redist files that are entirely freely available from microsoft if you have the time to find and download them.

That isn't the only way. It is entirely possible to install the standard dx9 redistributable silently using the DirectXSetup api. There is no need to use either a hacked version or the opk distribution version.

At no point does the dotnetfx.exe file get copied to the hard drive, it is run from the cd, the .\ syntax is used in the commands.cmd file i run from cmdlines.txt. This part of the setup runs from the distribution media. If i wanted to run it from the hard drive i'd use the %SystemDrive% environment variable and i'd have to have it copied there. I've got dx9 ie6 .net and a number of tools not normally available on path running from the distribution cd at t-12 (or is it 13?), entirely possible. All i did was read the guides here and other places on the net and then look for the silent install switches, no magic and certainly no copying to the hard drive required.