Jito463

This is your lucky day http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp Deep Freeze is an awesome tool. I've played with a trial of it and it works. Here's a quote from their website: You can also specify "unfrozen" areas where they can save their documents and they will not be overwritten, but if they save anywhere else - upon reboot - everything is reset back to the way it was when DF was installed. We're playing with using it on our demo machines at work so customer's can't break the systems. Or if they do, we just reboot to get it back in working order

If I recall correctly, there is a way to encrypt the winnt.sif from MS so that things like the Admin password and Product Key are not readable, but then you have to rebuild it every 60 days (that's the max amount of time you can alot). http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;328356&sd=tech

Or, I've just overwritten the files in the VirusDef dir with the ones from the updater.

No, not any key will work, but they are not tied to the CD. Each licence type has a different key generating algorythm. In other words, any OEM XP Home key will work with any OEM XP Home CD. But an OEM XP Home key will NOT work with a Retail XP Home CD (and visa versa) because they have different algorythms to create the keys.

Blacklisting is when certain copy protection companies (like SecuROM and StarForce for example) try to prevent a game from running if they detect the presence of a program like Alcohol. One of the ways they detect Alcohol is through the driver names. By changing the names of the drivers that Alcohol uses, you've removed one avenue of detection for the copy protection makers. Just replace the xxxx with whatever you want. You might also be interested to know that you can edit the comments in the SFX RAR file itself so it automatically applies those commands. Just open the package in WinRar, press ALT+I, click the Comment tab and modify the Setup= line with the switches above. Keep in mind that you MUST reboot after installation before running Alcohol for the first time. If you do not, Alcohol will not work properly.

Two things: 1) For the reboot suppression you should use REBOOT=ReallySuppress. That's direct from the Alcohol Soft team 2) A nifty little trick I learned is how to change the driver names during a silent install (to avoid blacklisting). /qn REBOOT=ReallySuppress DRIVER0=xxxxbus DRIVER1=xxxxscsi Hope this helps.

Thank you, gentlemen. I have now included MP10 on my preinstall's. There's less and less we need to install now after the install is finished. At this rate, I'll have it so automated we can install and sysprep without doing anything more

Also, make sure your Windows Installer service is running.

pthomas: That only works in XP Pro. XP Home has no option to disable simple file sharing. Most home users wouldn't have a need for advanced file permisions through the network, so they do not get that option.

http://flyakite.msfnhosting.com

He means make sure it's not named winnt.sif.txt (as in, unhide file extensions in explorer options).

Just FYI, you can only sysprep a computer 3 times before you have to reformat. Btw, your boss is a very strange man....

5 minutes is rather short for MemTest. I've seen it require several passes before it started showing errors, and each pass can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours (depending on amount and type of RAM). Also, be aware that test 5 has been giving people some issues lately so if you get a ton of errors on test 5, it may be just a glitch in the test. One other thing to keep in mind is that errors in RAM can occur if the CPU was damaged. It's far more susceptible to static discharge than the RAM is. The amount of static electricity it takes to destroy a CPU is so low you won't even feel it.

bucketbuster: Check your hosts file. Maybe they got blocked somehow.

Unless you're booting using UBCD, the cdshw.com, and cdsh.bin should be in BOOT, along with the modules folder

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=27733 I tried the same thing here. Basically, the MS guy on the newsgroup (Erik) told me that I had to specify a drive letter (e.g. D:\blah\bleh) where bleh contains the $OEM$ directory.

Alanoll: One problem with findcd (or finddrv for that matter) is they don't work with CDShell. I don't know if that's what he's using, but that's what I've discovered. I've been e-mailing back and forth to Mike about this issue. I haven't heard back from him yet, but what I did finally to fix it (at least temporarily) was put a blank file on my DVD and did IF EXIST statements to find it. Not as clean, but it works.

Oh, come on Alanoll. You're not psychic like the rest of us? You can mentally reach into his computer through the internet/phone lines and determine exactly what his problem is? For shame.

Sorry, don't know what to tell you. I slipstreamed SP2 into an actual SP1a WinXP CD (both Home and Pro) and didn't have any problems. And just for kicks, slipstreamed SP2 into a XP Pro Corp with SP1 integrated, no problems there either.

Did you just *** out your workgroup, or is that how it is in your winnt.sif?

Well, you could use a batch file to run on GuiRunOnce with sleep.exe set to however long you need then run shutdown -L (nb: You don't need it capitalized, I just did that to make it easier to determine what I typed). Or, you could use shutdown -L -t xx where xx = the amount of time until it logs off, but doing so will leave a window in the middle of your screen showing how much time left until log off. *EDIT* Well, I discovered that shutdown -l -t 60 won't show a timer display in the middle of the screen. That only happens using shutdown -r or shutdown -s. However, do not use shutdown -l unless you really intend to log off...shutdown -a won't stop it, heh.

Well, I did a format/reload about a month ago (give or take) with a slipstreamed SP2 and I don't find any directx.cpl file at all.

Well, shucks. They've done and killed the Proxomitron. :/ Ah, well. You can still download the last release (stable and works) from http://www.proxomitron.info

They will if you tell them you just had to reinstall Windows. Trust me, I know what I'm doing (arcane reference for those who know)

How does that help? @drip_lizard Have you checked to see if you have any viruses? Open Task Manager and look for any suspicious processes or run a virus scan if you can. Maybe check your RAM for problems. www.memtest.org is your friend If that passes, download the trial of Ontrack Data Advisor (or buy it, it's only $20) and scan your HDD for errors. Barring that, I'd suggest a full format/reload of the system as something has obviously corrupted Windows.