Phylum

This is an old thread, and I hear what you're saying, but I have to ask: What Microsoft literature states KB2639308 was replaced by KB2676562? I see no mention of supersedence on any of these pages: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2639308https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2676562https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms12-034https://technet.microsoft.com/library/security/ms12-may

I'm working on a friend's Toshiba Satellite (AMD X2, ATI Radeon running Windows Vista Home Premium) that's got a very unusual problem. While the system turns on and boots, Windows does not load in the traditional sense. When the GUI begins to load, the background is completely black and all I have is a mouse cursor. I'm aware that this symptom manifests itself in a few distinct ways: When booting normally the system is responsive to CTRL+ALT+DEL or pressing the SHIFT key 5 times allowing one to launch Explorer & 'get by' When the system isn't responsive when booting normally, the system can boot into Safe Mode & function normally, allowing one to try a barrage of techcniques. When booting normally or into Safe Mode, the system is not responsive to anything. I'm in the latter category: When booting in Safemode, either regular Safemode, Safemode with Networking or Safemode with Command Prompt, the mouse cursor can be seen, it moves around but that's it - buttons don't do anything, no amount of key strokes does anything. I Googled 'Vista Black Screen', or something along those lines, and got a significant number of results. I jumped on the first result, where a wall of text defeated me: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistadesktopui/thread/193b7008-ce4b-4d03-acc3-b8d7ffe610d5/ I tried everything that was on there, and more, but nothing worked: renamed event logs folder & created a new empty folder system is non-responsive to ctrl+alt+del or ctrl+shift+esc booted into safemode (regular, with networking & command prompt) - system is non-responsive like above tried 'Startup Repair' (says nothing is wrong) tried System Restore (no restore points!) tried 'Last known good state' (no change) confirmed 'Shell' registry key is just explorer.exe (and not something else) confirmed RpcSs is set to NT Authority press shift key 5 times; I hear the sound but no display window appears leaving the system at the screen for several minutes does nothing (system actually goes to sleep/hibernates but comes back to the same place; keeping it awake for even 45-60ish minutes does nothing) ran chkdsk (saw a few 'cleaning up X unused index entries from index $SII/$SDH of file 9' messages, one 'cleaning up x unused security descriptors', one 'fixing mirror copy of the security descriptors data stream' and it finished with 'found no problems'. Interestingly enough, when I slave the drive, Windows says there are problems so I check it again. ran icacls and gave everyone full access to c:\* cloned the drive problem still exists installing from scratch is fine I've already backed up what needs to be backed up, but there are some particulars that need to be exported from applications for use on another machine. This is why we're trying to get into Windows, just once , to launch the apps, export whatever, then ditch the machine since its already been replaced. The owner of the system is very non-technical so its difficult to say what happened. She doesn't believe any software was added or removed from the machine, but also couldn't say whether or not it was receving & Installing Windows Updates automagically. Even so, if there was some sort of update that foobar'd this machine, there's no way for me to uninstall it now...or is there? About Startup Repair: I tried it a few times on both the original hard drive and the cloned hard drive with no change. Each time it claims it doesn't detect anything wrong, and/or that it cannot be fixed, but, when expanding the details section, you can see that something did fail at some point: Root cause found: ------------------------- Unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem. Repair action: System files integrity check and repair Result: Failed. Error code = 0xa I tried 'sfc /scannow /offbootdir=DRIVE /offwindir=DRIVE:\Windows' but it says 'There is a system repair pending which requires a reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again.' every time. I rebooted a few times and it reported the same thing every time. The 'solution' for that was to remove the 'pending.xml' file in '%windir%\winsxs\' but I don't know what possible rammifications that may cause. In any event, it did its thing then reported that 'Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them'. Using this as my guide, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928228, I discovered there weren't any "[sR]" entries in the CBS.log, but there were a few "err"ors and "fail"ed entries. For brevity's sake I'm not going to paste the log here but you can find the log here: http://www.juli.us/support/forums/technet_VistaKSOD_CBS.txt I'm still combing through it but its hard to identify what's of concern vs. an acceptable, non-threatening warning/error. Is there another option for sfc to forcibly repair any/all corrupt files with good files from the CD? I also tried `bootrec /rebuildbcd` twice but that didn't work either. I remember it distinctly because it scanned for Windows installations, said it successfully scanned Windows installations, reported 0 identified Windows instllations then finished saying 'the operation completed successfully.' Seems a bit unusual to me. I ran ScanOS after that which also reported 0 installations and FixMBr, and FixBoot don't do anything to correct the problem either. My coworker believes/is convinced this is a video driver issue. when booting into safe mode I see a few references to ATI drivers, like atipci.sys, being loaded. Based on that and what we've seen on some other forums we think that may be a cause/source of the problem. Who knows for sure. So we're going to see if we can fix it from that angle. Is there a basic/vga-only boot option for Vista that will not try to load any advanced video drivers? Is there an option to selectively choose which drivers Vista loads when booting? (interactive boot) Oh how I long for the 'Repair Windows' feature on Windows XP. *sigh* Why oh why is that no longer an option? I've reached the end of my rope and am looking for any insight into this. Thanks again - I look forward to hearing more suggestions from anyone/everyone on this. Your assistance is very much appreciated as always. Resources http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946532 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945681 http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistanetworking/thread/56310e15-32df-457a-bc38-4cc2fce0a5e5/ http://blogs.computerworld.com/15170/black_screen_of_death_fix_for_windows_xp_vista_7 http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/12/vista-black-screen-after-login.html http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2008/12/the_mysterious_black_screen_of.php http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistadesktopui/thread/ab595ed2-866e-4984-8aa6-daae8e01f832 http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Search/en-US/?query=black%20screen%20mouse%20cursor&rq=meta:Search.MSForums.GroupID(61387a6d-9d6d-4421-894a-1c8d0bb945d8)+site:microsoft.com&rn=All+Windows+Vista+IT+Pro+Forums

I've seen this site http://www.deployvista.com/Blog/tabid/70/EntryID/18/Default.aspx which gave me hope and I tried my hand at it this morning with no success. Its possible I made a mistake or missed some mundane, but crucial, detail vital to success, but without knowing where I went wrong, its hard for me to correct my process. Despite my failure I had another engineer, one with far more experience than I, take a look at the site and his initial response was that it might be for a RIS install, which is slightly different than what we're doing. Unless someone has better suggestions, I only see 3 options at this point: Reverse-engineer the way sysprep currently does it. Look for a device ID of a driver we have and see what exactly the sysprep process does to it. (Although, what worries me is that if it was easy, there wouldn't be a convoluted way in sysprep to manuall add mass storage drivers.) Stand up another vanilla Win XP machine, add the drivers to it then run 'sysprep -factory' & see if I can update our existing image with the files sysprep produces. Start from scratch. Again, many thanks for any advice, or assistance.

We recently received new hardware a few months shy of our Windows 7 upgrade from Windows XP SP3. This new hardware is different enough that our existing WinPE/BartPE boot CD's wouldn't work which required us to create new CD's with updated drivers. (This is not a big deal and isn't the source of our problem.) The problem though is this: Even though we can image (ghost) the new machines with our Windows XP SP3 image, the image itself still needs to be updated with the drivers. As it stands, after imaging, Windows attempts to boot up and bluescreens. Presumably this happens because it lacks the storage controller drivers. How can I manually update drivers of an already sysprepped image (contained within a .gho file)? Can I drop the INF's and SYS files in some folder that Windows will recognize & pull drivers from? (If so, what goes where?) Is there a sysprep INI, or other configuration, file I can update with the hardware ID's? (If so, what's the file name & where is it?) What recourse do I have?

To say 'there's nothing I hate more than someone saying "I fixed it" or "I found the solution" in a forum and not post the solution' would be a lie as there are many, many, things competing for that same level of hate. (Ok so hate is a strong word, but darn it people it makes it nearly impossible for others to learn or otherwise solve their issues when you don't circle back with confirmation that suggestions worked, or if you found something on your own.) I'm very much pro-open source and sharing the wealth of knowledge, following my Father's example, so I've circled back to close the loop. So, for what its worth I believe I have found a solution to this... For starters, if you want XYZ apps pinned to the start menu or taskbar, you'll need to create a script that invokes the Pin command on the apps in question. I decided an array was the simplest thing to do. This script runs during the users first logon and is called via wscript because I don't need them seeing a dos box or clicking 'OK' on every echo. I feel this process is very slow and will explore a PoSH alternative/replacement. This was found online and I modified to suit. '========================================================================== ' ' VBScript Source File -- Created with SAPIEN Technologies PrimalScript 2009 ' ' NAME: Pin & Unpin items to/from Start Menu & Taskabar ' ' AUTHOR: Phylum , ' DATE : 4/8/2010 ' ' COMMENT: ' '========================================================================== Dim sPath, sPinSMArray, sPinTBArray, sUnpinTBArray, PinItem Dim sMOW, sMOO, sFOX, sLN, sNuance, siMAN, sEXP, sWMP Const CSIDL_COMMON_PROGRAMS = &H17 Const CSIDL_PROGRAMS = &H2 Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application") Set wshshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set oAllUsersProgramsFolder = oShell.NameSpace(CSIDL_COMMON_PROGRAMS) sPath = oAllUsersProgramsFolder.Self.Path & "\" sMOW = "Microsoft Office Word 2007.lnk" sMOO = "Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.lnk" sFOX = "Mozilla Firefox.lnk" sLN = "Notes.lnk" sNuance = "Nuance PDF Professional 6\PDF Converter Professional.lnk" siMAN = "iManage.lnk" sEXP = wshshell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%WinDir%") & "\Explorer.exe" sWMP = wshshell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%ProgramFiles%") & "\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" sPinSMArray = Array(sLN,sFOX,sMOO,sMOW,sNuance,siMAN) sPinTBArray = Array(sMOO,sMOW,sFOX,siMAN) sUnpinTBArray = Array(sEXP,sWMP) dim strScriptHost, output_echo strScriptHost = LCase(Wscript.FullName) If Right(strScriptHost, 11) = "wscript.exe" Then output_echo = False Else output_echo = True End If Dim item For Each item In sPinSMArray If Not fso.FileExists(sPath & item) Then PinItem = False debugecho "File, " & item & ", to pin does not exist in " & sPath & "." debugecho "Please check the input and try again." 'WScript.quit Else PinSM(sPath & item) End If Next For Each item In sPinTBArray If Not fso.FileExists(sPath & item) Then PinItem = False debugecho "File, " & item & ", to pin does not exist in " & sPath & "." debugecho "Please check the input and try again." 'WScript.quit Else PinTB(sPath & item) End If Next For Each item In sUnpinTBArray If Not fso.FileExists(item) Then PinItem = False debugecho "File, " & item & ", to unpin does not exist in " & sPath & "." debugecho "Please check the input and try again." 'WScript.quit Else UnpinTB(item) End If Next Function PinSM(shortcut) Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application") sFolder = fso.GetParentFolderName(shortcut) sFile = fso.GetFileName(shortcut) debugecho "Pinning " & sFolder & "\" & sFile & " to Start Menu." Err.Clear Set oFolder = oShell.NameSpace(sFolder) Set oFolderItem = oFolder.ParseName(sFile) Set colVerbs = oFolderItem.Verbs For Each itemverb In oFolderItem.Verbs If Replace(itemverb.name, "&", "") = "Pin to Start Menu" Then itemverb.DoIt Next End Function Function PinTB(shortcut) Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application") sFolder = fso.GetParentFolderName(shortcut) sFile = fso.GetFileName(shortcut) debugecho "Pinning " & sFolder & "\" & sFile & " to Taskbar." Err.Clear Set oFolder = oShell.NameSpace(sFolder) Set oFolderItem = oFolder.ParseName(sFile) Set colVerbs = oFolderItem.Verbs For Each itemverb In oFolderItem.Verbs If Replace(itemverb.name, "&", "") = "Pin to Taskbar" Then itemverb.DoIt Next End Function Function UnpinTB(shortcut) Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set oShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application") sFolder = fso.GetParentFolderName(shortcut) sFile = fso.GetFileName(shortcut) debugecho "Unpinning " & sFolder & "\" & sFile & " from Taskbar." Err.Clear Set oFolder = oShell.NameSpace(sFolder) Set oFolderItem = oFolder.ParseName(sFile) Set colVerbs = oFolderItem.Verbs For Each itemverb In oFolderItem.Verbs If Replace(itemverb.name, "&", "") = "Unpin from Taskbar" Then itemverb.DoIt Next End Function Function debugecho(msg) if output_echo Then wscript.echo msg end if end Function There are loads of useless icons on the Start Menu that are seemingly impossible to remove, like Sticky Notes, displaySwitch, Calculator etc. After scouring the file system for ages and checking and rechecking the registry and combing Google et al, I uncovered that the aforementioned shortcuts (and others) listed on the Start Menu are located in: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist There are two GUIDs in that location but they're 'encrypted', albeit very poorly. Microsoft decided to use the ol' rot13 encryption for the entries for whatever reason. Encrypting/Decrypting something with ROT13 is very simple Function Rot13Fixer(sString) Dim n, i, StringROT For i=1 To Len(sString) ' We don't want to convert numbers. If Not IsNumeric(Mid(sString,i,1)) Then individual_asc = Asc(Mid(sString,i,1)) 'WScript.Echo "IASC: " & Chr(individual_asc) & " (" & individual_asc & ")" If individual_asc >= 97 And individual_asc <=109 Then individual_asc = individual_asc +13 'WScript.Echo "IASC+13.1: " & Chr(individual_asc) & " (" & individual_asc & ")" Else If individual_asc >= 110 And individual_asc <= 122 Then individual_asc = individual_asc -13 'WScript.Echo "IASC-13.1: " & Chr(individual_asc) & " (" & individual_asc & ")" Else If individual_asc >= 65 And individual_asc <= 77 Then individual_asc = individual_asc +13 'WScript.Echo "IASC+13.2: " & Chr(individual_asc) & " (" & individual_asc & ")" Else If individual_asc >= 78 And individual_asc <= 90 Then individual_asc = individual_asc -13 'WScript.Echo "IASC-13.2: " & Chr(individual_asc) & " (" & individual_asc & ")" End If End If End If End If StringROT = StringROT + Chr(individual_asc) Else StringROT = StringROT + Mid(sString,i,1) End If 'WScript.Echo StringROT Next Rot13Fixer = StringROT End Function Now that I can properly decrypt Rot13, and as such the contents of that registry location, I don't have to worry about hard coding GUID's, which probably change from machine to machine, in the script. The following functions read the path, enumerate the Keys then enumerate the Values under each key decrypting accordingly. Function EnumKeys(HKEY,Path) Dim EKHKPath, GUIDPath, arrSubKeys, i Select Case HKEY Case "HKCU", "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" Const HKCU = &H80000001 EKHKPath = HKCU Case "HKLM", "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" Const HKLM = &H80000002 EKHKPath = HKLM Case "HKU", "HKEY_USERS" Const HKU = &H80000003 EKHKPath = HKU Case "HKCR", "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT" Const HKCR = &H80000000 EKHKPath = HKCR Case "HKCC", "HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG" Const HKCC = &H80000005 EKHKPath = HKCC Case "HKDD", "HKEY_DYN_DAT" Const HKDD = &H80000006 EKHKPath = HKDD Case Else WScript.Echo "ERROR: Invalid HKEY Type Specified (" & EKHKPath & ")" WScript.echo "Please use HKCU, HKLM etc, or the long name equivalent." WScript.Sleep(15000) WScript.Quit End Select Set objReg=GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:StdRegProv") objReg.EnumKey EKHKPath, Path, arrSubKeys if isarray(arrSubKeys) Then For i=0 to UBound(arrSubKeys) GUIDPath = Path & "\" & arrSubKeys(i) & "\Count" 'WScript.Echo "GuidPath: " & GUIDPath EnumValues HKEY,GUIDPath Next end If End Function Function EnumValues(HKEY,Path) Dim EVHKPath, arrValueNames, arrValueTypes, i const REG_SZ = 1 const REG_EXPAND_SZ = 2 Const REG_BINARY = 3 Const REG_DWORD = 4 Const REG_MULTI_SZ = 7 Select Case HKEY Case "HKCU", "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" Const HKCU = &H80000001 EVHKPath = HKCU Case "HKLM", "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" Const HKLM = &H80000002 EVHKPath = HKLM Case "HKU", "HKEY_USERS" Const HKU = &H80000003 EVHKPath = HKU Case "HKCR", "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT" Const HKCR = &H80000000 EVHKPath = HKCR Case "HKCC", "HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG" Const HKCC = &H80000005 EVHKPath = HKCC Case "HKDD", "HKEY_DYN_DAT" Const HKDD = &H80000006 EVHKPath = HKDD Case Else WScript.Echo "ERROR: Invalid HKEY Type Specified (" & EVHKPath & ")" WScript.echo "Please use HKCU or the long name equivalent, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE." WScript.Sleep(15000) WScript.Quit End Select Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:StdRegProv") oReg.EnumValues EVHKPath, Path, arrValueNames, arrValueTypes if isarray(arrValueNames) Then For i=0 to UBound(arrValueNames) 'WScript.Echo "Unencrypted Value Name: " & arrValueNames(i) arrValueNames(i) = Rot13Fixer(arrValueNames(i)) 'WScript.Echo "Value Name: " & arrValueNames(i) ' #region Disabled code ' Select Case arrValueTypes(i) ' Case REG_SZ ' WScript.Echo "Data Type: String" ' Case REG_EXPAND_SZ ' WScript.Echo "Data Type: Expanded String" ' Case REG_BINARY ' WScript.Echo "Data Type: Binary" ' Case REG_DWORD ' WScript.Echo "Data Type: DWORD" ' Case REG_MULTI_SZ ' WScript.Echo "Data Type: Multi String" ' End Select ' #endregion 'WScript.Echo "this: " & HKEY & " " & Path & " " & arrValueNames(i) FixStartMenu HKEY, Path, arrValueNames(i) Next End If End Function From there I call yet another function to remove the entries that match (InStr()) words stored in an array. Example: mylist = Array("snippingtool","calculator",..."displayswitch") For each item in Array If ((Instr(1,RegPath,mylist,1) > 0) Then delete the registry key End if Next Thank you Jesus!

Is it possible to pin items to the start menu and task bar for the default user so that when a new user logs on, they have whats been customized? The setting the Copy Profile to true doesn't seem to catch these customizations. If its not possible, what work-arounds could I employ to pin specific apps to both the Start Menu and Task Bar?

Thanks for the reply. Per at least one, if not more, of the links I included, they advised against that action: * - Coping a customized profile, and associated registry entries, over to the Default profile. The primary reason was because of the hard-coded user GUID (I believe) that's still associated with files & registry settings copied. Although setting the copyprofile to true in the unattend.xml does seem to get the majority of the settings, several obvious items, and presumably many more less obvious ones, remain incorrectly configured - that is to say the Windows 7 default vs what I want it to be. My guess is that the pinned taskbar & start menu objects are not only updated on the file system somewhere, perhaps in the location I listed in my previous post, but also, a binary registry entry may be updated as well to include the new application this making these types of changes difficult to identify.

Thanks for the reply. Just so its known, I posted this on TechNet and this appears to be a 'known' flaw. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mdt/thread/771c18da-de2a-46b8-9a3a-1d0e07d127a9 The suggestion was to populate the XML file but that's just not feasible because there are properties (like the computer name and OU it needs to go into) that are unique to each machine. With multiple system types and departments, we've got quite a listing of OU's in AD. Desktops in the Desktop OU, Laptops in the Laptop OU, both of which reside under the appropriate department OU which resides under the Office (city) OU, which resides under the Region OU and so on. You eventally end up with something like CN=WASH-D760-12345,OU=Desktop,OU=Engineering,OU=IT,OU=Puget,OU=Washington,OU=NA,DC=dom,DC=dom,DC=dom At this point I only see two ways of accomplishing what I need/would like to have done. 1) During Specialize, run a script that will generate the correct computer name & rename the computer. It reboots & logs on for the first time and have it run another script (via FirstLogonCommands) to determine the correct OU and join the domain, into the correct ou, via Add-Computer. Also, for me, Add-Computer isn't working the way I expected - perhaps I'm doing it wrong: Add-Computer -DomainName "our.domain.com" -Credential $cred -OUPath "OU=Washington,OU=NA,DC=dom" -Server F.Q.D.N\DC1.F.Q.D.N Add-Computer -DomainName "our.domain.com" -Credential $cred -OUPath "OU=Washington,OU=NA,DC=dom" -Server F.Q.D.N\DC1 Add-Computer -DomainName "our.domain.com" -Credential $cred -OUPath "OU=Washington,OU=NA,DC=dom" -Server DC1.F.Q.D.N Add-Computer -DomainName "our.domain.com" -Credential $cred -OUPath "OU=Washington,OU=NA,DC=dom" -Server DC1 and some other variations with and without quotes for the domain name and OU. If I leave off the -Server parameter, it works, but frequently it joins a workgroup, not a domain. Odd. Ideas? 2) Populate bogus information in the XML file, like the computer name and OU, then, like above, have the machine run some scripts at some point to rename itself and move itself to the appropriate OU. The last option was to create some custom properties in the customsettings.ini (CS) file to call an external script that would do what I need it to do. However, I've not found any samples/examples of this online, nor have I located any literature that covers this. I'm aware one can create multiple custom properties but I don't know what the proper syntax is, or how I can ensure it (my code/script) will run before a certain stage to make sure processes that need to happen actually run.

I need a method of renaming or otherwise setting/specifying the computer name *prior* to the machine joining the domain. Because the computer name must follow a specific pattern, and it must go to a specific OU, I can't just let good-ol windows name it to whatever, and I can't hardcode the OU in the XML. I have a method of generating the computer name that works. I have a method of assigning the correct OU that works. I have placed unique markers in the sysprep XML so that I can perform a find/replace to assign the correct values. The powershell script that does the find/replace works. After being perplexed for hours, & testing within a PowerShell script during the specialize stage, I discovered that the machine joins the domain *prior* to processing the RunSynchronous commands. This is a problem. Whats the processing order? Can I move things around in the XML to 'force' X to run before B? Since I had a prompt open during the specialize stage, I decided to try a different approach by renaming the computer via VBScript and PowerShell. However this failed because the Win32_ComputerSystem class isn't available. I have not found a way of making my script run or otherwise setting the correct computer name before it joins the domain. How can this be accomplished without requiring something to take place in the OOBE pass?

I'm preparing an image and I'd like to pin some of the more frequently used applications to the Task Bar and Start Menu as we did with the Quick Launch bar in Windows XP. (We don't want to use the Quick Launch Bar; we want our users to leverage Windows 7's built-in features, and why not?) I haven't found much on this subject, but from probing around, it appears that applications pinned to the Start Menu and the Task Bar are stored in: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar On the assumption that the location above is correct, if I want to apply a specific configuration to all users, would I Create C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\StartMenu (since it doesn't exist by default) Create C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar (again, doesn't exist) Copy the files from a preconfigured profile into the newly created 'Default User' folders In addition, I'm looking to remove certain items that show up on the Start Menu & Task Bar by default, like Windows Media Player & Explorer for starters, and adding the Switch between Windows ('Flip 3-D') button that was present in Vista, but removed in Windows 7. (Users might find it handy to click a button then use left/up or down/right or the mouse scroll wheel to flip through apps vs dealing with two buttons. ) I've researched the 'Default User' copy profile issue, found a number of blogs and instructions online, even from other forums, http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/springboard/archive/2009/10/30/configuring-default-user-settings-full-update-for-windows-7.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289 http://www.sd61.bc.ca/windows2000/VistaWin7/Profiles.htmlhttp://copyprofile.blogspot.com/2009/12/sysprep-with-copyprofile-setting-right.html http://joeelway.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2095EAC3772C41DB!2708.entry?sa=774324192 http://blog.brianleejackson.com/sysprep-a-windows-7-machine-%E2%80%93-start-to-finish-v2 (and v1) But, they didn't specificaly say whether or not the customizations I wanted to make would follow. How do I go about setting this up? Has this been done before? Do I try the 'enabler' workaround and try to copy the Administrator profile over the Default profile? (Will it really work?) Just seeking instruction & confirmation.

I'm preparing an image (WinXP SP3) for an upcoming roll out and incorporating the appropriate drivers prior to running `sysprep.exe -factory`. I first tried those that came with the machine (Dell supplied then from the website) before moving onto the drivers from the Intel website. In both cases, during the XP factory preinstallation stage (read: the first boot after sysprep where hardare is detected, drivers loaded, among other configuration items), once the Intel drivers are loaded, the screen goes blank and the the display tears completely. The system continues to respond normally, but you can't make heads or tails out of what's being displayed. Moving the cursor around you can detect some type of movement but its unusable. (Will try to get a screenshot) The load process continues fine and the system reboots as expected. After the machine reboots to stat sysprep, everything works fine. This 'tearing' only occurs once and only during the factory preinstallation step when the driers are loaded; this is the step just before sysprep starts. This is a big problem as we've got scripts that run during the factory preinstallation stage that display messages on-screen for an IT person to take note of if necessary.

Having spent more time reading each distro's isolinux.cfg file, in an attempt to understand syntax, layout, purpose, and examining each distro's file structure, I have a [slightly(?)] better understanding of this whole process. Taking Jetman's suggestion, I decided to start small. I've followed the instructions to a T, have gotten the ISO created and the CD boots to the menu as expected. Thank you. However, despite my attempts at doing exactly what the instructions say, and after rechecking my work a few times, I've run into a few unusual , yet I'm sure trivial, problems. For one it didn't load the splash.png and the background is all black (as opposed to white/gray) but I can care less. I'm more interested in the problems below: I am nearly positive that it has to do with my isolinux.cfg file which I copied & pasted then updated with the correct file names for SysRescCD. I also double checked paths in the .cfg & file system to make sure I didn't do somethin silly. DSL says it can't find the knoppix kernel. ZenWalk gives me a kernel panic, & says to try passing the init= option Rescue CD simply won't display anything after loading vmlinuz & initrd.gz Memtest86 works - w00t! After making the ISO using the following command: DEFAULT /boot/isolinux/vesamenu.c32 # I even tried just vesamenu.c32 PROMPT 0 TIMEOUT 3000 TOTALTIMEOUT 4500 #### MENU BACKGROUND /boot/isolinux/splash.png # I even tried just splash.png MENU TITLE Super-Disc ** 09Mar07 Edition #### #### The 1st byte of the fgnd color is brightness. #### blue MENU COLOR title 1;36;44 #ff0000ff #00000000 std #### blue MENU COLOR unsel 37;44 #ff0000ff #00000000 std #### white MENU COLOR sel 7;37;40 #c0ffffff #ff000000 std #### red MENU COLOR hotkey 1;37;44 #ffff0000 #00000000 std #### green MENU COLOR hotsel 1;7;37;40 #ff00ff00 #ff000000 all #### LABEL sysresccd1 MENU label ^1 System Rescue CD VESA Display MENU DEFAULT KERNEL /boot/sysresccd/rescuecd APPEND initrd=/boot/sysresccd/initram.igz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc vga=788 looptype=squashfs loop=/sysresccd/sysrcd.dat setkmap=us subdir=sysresccd cdroot forcevesa splash=silent LABEL sysresccd2 MENU LABEL ^2 System Rescue CD fb1024x768 Display KERNEL /boot/sysresccd/rescuecd APPEND initrd=/boot/sysresccd/initram.igz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc vga=791 looptype=squashfs loop=/sysresccd/sysrcd.dat setkmap=us subdir=sysresccd cdroot splash=silent LABEL sysresccd3 MENU LABEL ^3 System Rescue CD fb800x600 Display KERNEL /boot/sysresccd/rescuecd APPEND initrd=/boot/sysresccd/initram.igz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc vga=788 looptype=squashfs loop=/sysresccd/sysrcd.dat setkmap=us subdir=sysresccd cdroot splash=silent LABEL sysresccd4 MENU LABEL ^4 System Rescue CD fb640x480 Display KERNEL /boot/sysresccd/rescuecd APPEND initrd=/boot/sysresccd/initram.igz root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc vga=785 looptype=squashfs loop=/sysresccd/sysrcd.dat setkmap=us subdir=sysresccd cdroot splash=silent LABEL dsl MENU LABEL ^5 **** Small Linux 3.2 KERNEL /boot/dsl/linux24 APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=/boot/dsl/minirt24.gz dma acpi nomce noapic quiet tz="America/New York" knoppix_dir=dsl BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix LABEL zenlive MENU LABEL ^7 ZenLive Linux kernel /boot/zenlive/vmlinuz append max_loop=255 initrd=/boot/zenlive/initrd.gz init=linuxrc load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_size=4444 root=/dev/ram0 rw vga=791 splash=silent changes=zensave.xfs LABEL memtest86 MENU LABEL ^Memtest86 (RAM Diagnostic) KERNEL /boot/isolinux/memtest86 To boot, here's a[n archaic looking] view of my Super-Disc Volume in drive C is AnP Volume Serial Number is 60F1-0DC3 Directory of c:\Super-Disc 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 02/11/2009 03:17 PM <DIR> boot 02/11/2009 03:29 PM <DIR> dsl 02/11/2009 03:21 PM <DIR> sysresccd 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> zenlive 0 File(s) 0 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\boot 02/11/2009 03:17 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:17 PM <DIR> .. 02/11/2009 03:32 PM <DIR> dsl 02/11/2009 03:59 PM <DIR> isolinux 02/11/2009 03:21 PM <DIR> sysresccd 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> zenlive 0 File(s) 0 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\boot\dsl 02/11/2009 03:32 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:32 PM <DIR> .. 08/12/2007 11:48 AM 1,005,209 linux24 11/09/2008 07:59 AM 299,115 minirt24.gz 2 File(s) 1,304,324 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\boot\isolinux 02/11/2009 03:59 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:59 PM <DIR> .. 01/25/2009 06:21 PM 12,628 chain.c32 02/12/2009 06:07 PM 14,336 isolinux.bin 02/12/2009 06:46 PM 2,525 isolinux.cfg 01/25/2009 06:21 PM 20,048 memdisk 11/22/2006 12:03 PM 94,760 memtest86 02/10/2009 06:01 PM 921,654 splash.png 01/25/2009 06:21 PM 145,680 vesamenu.c32 7 File(s) 1,211,631 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\boot\sysresccd 02/11/2009 03:21 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:21 PM <DIR> .. 01/01/2009 08:06 PM 12,647,586 initram.igz 01/01/2009 07:14 PM 3,315,728 rescuecd 2 File(s) 15,963,314 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\boot\zenlive 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 3,757,134 initrd.gz 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 2,897,884 vmlinuz 2 File(s) 6,655,018 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\dsl 02/11/2009 03:29 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:29 PM <DIR> .. 11/17/2008 11:01 PM 50,570,245 KNOPPIX 1 File(s) 50,570,245 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\sysresccd 02/11/2009 03:21 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:21 PM <DIR> .. 01/01/2009 07:23 PM 212,545,536 sysrcd.dat 1 File(s) 212,545,536 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\zenlive 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 02/11/2009 03:36 PM <DIR> base 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 250 livecd.sgn 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 906 make_iso.sh 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> modules 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> optional 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> persist 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> rootcopy 2 File(s) 1,156 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\zenlive\base 02/11/2009 03:36 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:36 PM <DIR> .. 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 493,256,704 01-zenwalk.mo 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 50,868,224 02-zenlive.mo 2 File(s) 544,124,928 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\zenlive\modules 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 0 File(s) 0 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\zenlive\optional 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 0 File(s) 0 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\zenlive\persist 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 884 README 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 132,335 save128.zip 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 262,577 save256.zip 06/17/2008 02:27 PM 523,131 save512.zip 4 File(s) 918,927 bytes Directory of c:\Super-Disc\zenlive\rootcopy 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> . 02/11/2009 03:35 PM <DIR> .. 0 File(s) 0 bytes Total Files Listed: 23 File(s) 833,295,079 bytes 41 Dir(s) 5,450,575,872 bytes free As always, thanks for reading this and nudging me in the right direction. It's much appreciated.

Thanks Jetman I appreciate it. Now that I've started this process I've already run into, I'm sure, trivial problems: 1 Is there a way to determien an initrd.gz file is a gzipped cpio or gzipped ext2 image? (more of that trial an error I suppose!?) 2 After cpio -id < initrd, I see a lot of "Function not implemented" messages. Is that ok? 3 Since I'm in windows, what editor should i be using to the init & script files (once gunzipped)? 4 Step 4 says to copy vmlinuz1 and vmlinuz.igz but I'm not finding it in the ISO, suggesting I may not have downloaded the right ISO (systemrescuecd-x86-1.1.4.iso)? FYI, I'm not looking to be spoonfed, and I don't mind getting my fingers dirty. I just need some guidance is all.

I'm a *n?x lover but sad to see that there's no Windows app. to simplify this process. Such a shame. We're not a *n?x shop which means I gotta load up a Live CD. In any event, thanks to all who have posted. Naturally I'm here because I'm doing the same as everyone else: Trying to create a one-stop-shop CD/DVD with various tools. In addition to various distro's of linux (Gentoo, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, BackTrack 3, GParted, RIPLinuX) I'm also trying to get some useful utilities on there a well. Speifically the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor and Maxtor MaxBlast 5. (Yea, there's some overlap, but I won't always be available to guide my co-workers through how to use it the other tools.) I imagine it won't be too difficult to get the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor working as its based on some flavor of linux so I can deal with a bit of logic, trial & error there. But what about getting Maxblast, or any other non-linux app (like a Windows Install), as an option? I've not tried any of this yet, but I am in the process of doing so. Big thanks to Jetman & Jotnar for keeping in the spirit of open source and helping others! (http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94398&st=220&p=780896entry780896 - very useful) A thanks to all those who have been contributing to this is also.