midiboy

Hey Benjamin, I will write the following in German ( sorry to all English speaking folks here but I think we have a communication problem here and it may be language related so I have to do this in German ! ) Benjamin, ich glaub du hast nicht ganz verstanden was ich gemeint hab. Also ich benutze keine fix angelegten User. Auch keinen "default user". In Wihu 2.0 war das kein Problem, da war meine user.ini einfach leer und die shell folder die ich in install.ini eingetragen hab bezogen sich dann auf den user den ich in Wihu direkt auf der ersten Seite eingegeben habe. Nachdem die unattended CD auf verschiedenen Rechnern laufen soll ist es für mich absolut notwendig daß kein vordefinierter User angelegt wird sondern nur der, der auf der 1. Seite in Wihu angelegt wird bzw. die user die dann unter "Benutzerkonten" auf der 2. Seite eingetragen werden. Mit Wihu 2.0 war das möglich, mit Wihu 2.1 geht das nicht mehr bzw. wenn ich in Wihu 2.1 die user.ini leer lasse dann gibts auch keine shell folder mehr. Also ich seh 2 Lösungsmöglichkeiten: 1. Eine Art übergeordnete Shelfolder sektion in user.ini (oder wie bisher in install.ini ) , die für alle user übergeordnet gilt falls sie nicht durch shell folder für einen einzelnen user ausser kraft gesetzt wird. Dadurch könnte ich die user.ini ansonsten leer lassen und es würden keine user angelegt die ich nicht in Wihu direkt eingebe. Diese bekämen dann aber alle defaultmässig mal die übergeordneten shellfolder verpasst. Das wär mir am Liebsten so. Als 2. Möglichkeit könntest du ja auch einen switch einbauen sodass der default user nicht anlegt wird. Aber dann besteht wieder das Problem daß die in Wihu direkt angelegt user auch nicht die default shell folder "erben". Also die 1. Möglichkeit wär da besser. Wär doch cool zb. so: users.ini: [defaultShellFolder] Personal=D:\%NewUserName% My Video=D:\%NewUserName%\Eigene Videos My Music=D:\%NewUserName%\Eigene Musik My Pictures=D:\%NewUserName%\Eigene Bilder Favorites=D:\%NewUserName%\Favoriten [Users] Default=0 User.0=New User Group.0=1 Status.0=0x0020 Script.0=logon.cmd Comment.0=This is a new example user created with WIHU users.ini My Video.0=c:\%ThisUser%\Videos Auf diese Weise würde der user 0 jetzt die Default shell folder erben bis auf My Video, das wurde ja für diesen user geändert. Wenn ich nun die komplette [users] Sektion lösche, würde kein default user angelegt und die default Shell folder würden dennoch für alle user mal defaultmässig gelten die ich dann in Wihu direkt anlege. So stell ich mir das zumindest vor. Wär das ned machbar ? BIIIIIITE !! Danke und schönen Tag noch, Alex

Hi Benjamin, your latest changes to the user creation process have good and bad effects for my needs, maybe you can help a bit here .... I am not using Wihu the same way you might. I use it for a CD that will be used on different PC´s and therefore on each PC there are different users to be created. I cannot allow a predefined user to be created and I need to be sure that someone who uses my CD does not accidentally forget to delete or change the "default user" so please add a possibility to NOT use predefined users but to still have default shell folders which a new user gets by default. This was possible with Wihu 2.0 by leaving users.ini empty and adding shell folders to install.ini Now, with Wihu 2.1 this seems to not be possible anymore. I just tried it. The "default user" in users.ini will always show up on the second dialog under "Benutzerkonten" . Of course it can be deleted there but people might forget about this ... I also cannot use the /users= switch as you suggested because I would need to know in advance what the new user will be and I do not know this at the time I create my unattended CD. All the other changes look great. If I am not mistaken one can now define multiple users in Wihu and change shell folders for each of them ? However, I just tried this and the default shell folder definitions in users.ini seemingly did not affect them ? Are they only for the one default user ? If so, could you please add default shell folder definitions for ALL users created in Wihu ? ( using %ThisUser% variable) I hope I am making myself clear and I am not explaining to complicated Ah ... one more thing .... I see now that you added a way to change the default Windows environment variables. Is this only for the first user ? Is it possible to define Homepath and Homedrive to point to the current "Personal" shell folder like this: Personal Shellfolder: D:\Data\%NewUserName% Homedrive therefore: D: Homepath therefore: \Data\%NewUserName% ? I currently also do not understand what difference there is between %NewUserName% and %ThisUser%. Sorry for the long post, I would appreciate it very much if you could add a few comments to each question Thanks, Alex

I think it should, no ? But that´s just my opinion ! :-) Good Morning by the way ! Alex

Ok, just downloaded it again and now it works. I should be autodownloading from your website every 20 minutes or so Thanks, Alex

Hey Mazin, you a genius ? It was indeed an Installshield type app. Worked fine with the iss file ! Thanks ! But isn´t it strange that an Installshield app uses msi ?? Anyway, thanks ! Alex

Hey Benjamin, I am using this to start Wihu: wihu.exe /SkipSoftware /NoCancel /Ds It is perfectly alright if the variables (%NewUserName%) do not get expanded, they should just be visible. On my system it works like this: If I start Wihu, add a new user and get to the shell folder setting dialog, "Zielort" will be empty at first. Dropdown menu shows "Eigene Musik" on top. Choosing any other folder except "Eigene Dateien" will not change this, but if I choose "Eigene Dateien", only then will the default values used in install.ini be shown for the other shell folders like "Eigene Musik" etc .... Thanks, Alex

Hey ! @Mazin: Thanks, I tried your switches. Issscript.msi seemed to work with the /qn switch but Anti-Hacker.msi with the /QN switch resulted in an error message (see attached picture). Using the /QR switch as you suggested did not work either ( got an error message saying that this installation could not be installed through the msi package and one should use the setup.exe --- it was in German so I am not attaching a picture. @Bashrat Thanks, I will probably do that if there is no other choice but I would prefer an application switch. Looks nicer and does not allow the user to somehow use the mouse or keyboard thereby accidentally causing the script to break. If there are more ideas, please keep them coming !

Hey Benjamin, I think we have a communication problem here I already use install.ini to set default shell folders. I am just wondering why those default values do not visually appear under "Zielort" for Music, Video, Favorites and Pictures shell folders. I have attached a picture. When "Eigene Musik" is choosen the "Zielort" is empty. When "Eigene Dateien" is chosen, the default value from install.ini is used. My suggestion was to show all the shell folder values from install.ini, not only "Eigene Dateien" Thanks, Alex

Hi everyone ! I searched the forum but could not find silent installation switches for Anti-Hacker. Does anyone know what to do ? I tried unpacking the exe file and I get two msi files ( one issscript.msi and the application msi ) similar to Kerio Personal Firewall. However, trying to run those silently did not work. I tried the usual /S /v/qn switches but without success. Any help would be greatly appreciated ! Thanks, Alex

Hey Benjamin, thanks for fixing these bugs. But you could read from install.ini, right ? You seemingly do this for the Personals folder anyway, at least in my case "D:\%NewUser% appears in the path field. The strange thing is that if I first choose "Eigene Dateien" from the drop down list, THEN the path field for Music, Pictures and Video will show "D:\%NewUser%\Eigene Videos" etc. My only wish is that this could be done for all the shell folders that have default values in install.ini so that the user sees where the shell folders would be created. After all, I know the values in install.ini but another user who gets the unattended CD would not. Thanks, Alex

Hi Benjamin, I have not constantly updated Wihu over the last few days but I installed your last 2.0.0.1 ( bugfix11 ) today and have to report a small bug: The /SkipSoftware switch does not work as expected anymore. It skips the software installation but also skips the user creation and shell folder dialogs and goes directly to the last "finish" dialog. Also, if used together with the /NoCancel and /Ds switches the latter will not work. One small suggestion: I just saw that you moved the most used Shell folders ( Music, pictures, personals etc. ) to the top in the Shell folder list. THANKS ! Didn´t think you would do this ! Thanks ! If one has defined default shell folders in install.ini ( f.i. D:\%NewUser% etc.) ... would it be possible to show this for each of the defined shell folders in the Wihu shell folder dialog ? You already do this for the Personals folder but by default the path is empty for Music, Pictures, Favorites etc. .... Thanks, Alex

double posting

pah ! have found the solution myself .... FOR /F "TOKENS=3" %%i in ('reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Personal') do REG ADD "HKCU\Volatile Environment" /v HOMEDRIVE /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "%%~di" /f FOR /F "TOKENS=3" %%j in ('reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Personal') do REG ADD "HKCU\Volatile Environment" /v HOMEPATH /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "%%~pnj" /f and calling it from the registry did not work because the type was REG_SZ and not REG_EXPAND_SZ so it did not expand the %USERPROFILE% variable and therefore did not find the cmd. Bye, Alex

PLEASE !! Could someone help out ? I spent 10 hours now trying to get this to work. I came up with this: FOR /F "TOKENS=3" %%i in ('reg query "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Personal') do REG ADD HKCU\Environment /v HOME /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%i /f What it does is, it gets the location of the Personal folder from the registry and then add this path to the Environment variables. THIS WORKS when calling the batch file in Windows. However, it does NOT work when calling it from the RUN key in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\. I tried all of this: cmd /c "%USERPROFILE%\home.cmd" or cmd /c %USERPROFILE%\home.cmd or cmd /c %USERPROFILE%\\home.cmd or cmd /c %%USERPROFILE%%\\home.cmd or cmd /c %%USERPROFILE%%\home.cmd or cmd /c "%%USERPROFILE%%\home.cmd" or without the cmd /c .... Nothing works. The key does not get written to the registry Alex

No one ?

Hi ! @Alanoll Thanks, but this looks similar to the part in my code that already works. The part that does not work yet is seperating driveletter (homedrive: D:) and path (homepath:\Alexander ) ... Also ... why does the cmd work from within windows but not when called from the RUN registry key ? @rdalling: No, that is not what I am looking for. I do not need a way to change shell folders, I need a way to adapt the global HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH variables to point to the current User Shell folder "Personal" after each reboot. So if the user changes the Personals folder, then the Homedrive/Homepath variables should change accordingly. Thanks for your help ! Alex

@rdalling: Is this a joke ? I wouldn´t not go through all this if I wanted to do this manually. What if username is not Alexander ? What if the Personals folder is on E:\Data\2536myfolder87 ?? Bye, Alex

Hey Benjamin, haven´t been writing much here lately. I was busy optimizing other parts of my Unattended DVD and also I didn´t want to keep suggesting new features so other users get a chance to do this However, I thought I might give you some feedback on the shell folder feature in users.ini since you wrote that you coded this for me Well, unfortunately I have to tell you that I cannot make good use of this feature currently because this only works for predefined users in user.ini and not for the users created interactively in Wihu. I know that if your Unattended Windows CD is to be run on one system with more users than the users.ini approach is a very good one. I will use my CD differently though. If I use it on my PC only one user will be created ( after all I am single ) and if I use the CD on other computers the users will be different ones of course so for me it does not make sense to use predefined users currently. So if you have time and want to do it, maybe you could consider adding the shell folder feature for all the users created interactively in Wihu. Other than that I am still very grateful for what Wihu does currently ! Thanks, Alex

Hi guys ! Maybe someone can help me here. I have this little batch file to extract the Personal folders name from the registry and set HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH variables accordingly: Now I have two problems:1. The first part ( the extraction off the registry ) works fine when calling the cmd in Windows. However the second part does not. I always get the following results: Any ideas ? 2. The second problem appears when running the cmd from the run command in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run with this command: When I then call the environment variables, HOMEPATH still points to the default USERSPROFILE and not to D:\Alexander. Maybe someone can help ! Thanks, Alex

probably .... I guess this sounded too easy to me so I must have thought of something more complex ! Thank you ! Alex

Ok, in case anyone else comes across this problem one day ... I had to tweak the command some more. This one works finally ! REG ADD %KEY%\022 /V 1 /D "CMD /C copy /Y %CDROM%\Setup\Nero\Plugins\*.dll \"%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Ahead\AudioPlugins\\"" /f Bye, Alex

Ah ... I found ...this by using the search in the forum ---- I will give it a try .... Thanks, Alex

jdoe, thank you very much ! I have no idea what this script of yours does ( I am complete newbie with scripts ) but it works fine now ! THANK YOU ! killerbee: thank you but the problem starts earlier I guess ... I just tried it again and I always get the following messages: "copy" could not be found .... The same applies to other commands like "md" etc ... This is very strange, isn´t it ? I tried searching for "copy" on my harddisk, but this is just a command in the cmd and no file so why does Windows not find it when called from a runonceex.md ?? Anyone ?? Thanks, Alex

Hi ! Mhh, I hope I am not too much a pain in the a**. Yes, I like to communicate in a verbose and detailed way. I don´t think that this is a bad thing but of course it depends on the situation. On a forum it is ok though, I think ... ? While this may be true for most people I would glady donate or pay reasonable amounts for shareware if 1. The programm does what I need 2. The programmer is open to suggestions and provides good customer support 3. Is not a "big player" who asks unreasonable amounts of money Benjamin has been very helpful and made great part of Wihu just for me, it seems so I would be more than willing to pay for this work!! There is no "Kissing You" smiley but I very much appreciate it !! OK, I accept ! As long as you won´t forget about this and my other "suggestions" in the long run ! No, really, thank you I am thankful for what you did altready! The usershell folders Environment strings in install.ini will be default values for all created users, not just for the first user, right ? If that´s the case, I can live with it for a while ! Bye, Alex

Hi guys, I have learned soooo much here over the last few weeks just by reading and trying out things ... wonderful ! I have finished and finetuned my first unattended Windows DVD which is also a Multiboot DVD and it works fine mostly. However, two nasty problems remain and I cannot by the life of it find a solution so maybe someone can help out ! First problem: I am trying to copy a few Nero plugin dll´s from CD to harddisk during the installation process. I am calling a cmd called copy.cmd from runonceex like this: REG ADD %KEY%\022 /V 1 /D "%CDROM%\Setup\Nero\Plugins\install_nero_6.cmd /C" /f The copy.cmd looks like this: copy *.dll "%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Ahead\AudioPlugins" Problem is ... the files never get copied! If I call the cmd by double clicking on it, then they get copied but it never works when calling the cmd from runonceex. Second problem: I have created a simply vb script: Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") WshShell.Run ("trueimage.exe") WScript.Sleep(2000) WshShell.SendKeys ("{ENTER}") WScript.Sleep(200) WshShell.SendKeys ("%{n}") ... If I call the script in Windows by doubleclicking on the vbs, Trueimage will start and the script works. If I call the script from runonceex, I get a script error message that something cannot be found. I then tried to call the setup.exe first, and then the script, like this: REG ADD %KEY%\023 /VE /D "True Image /f REG ADD %KEY%\023 /V 1 /D "%CDROM%\Setup\trueimage.exe" /f REG ADD %KEY%\023 /V 2 /D "%CDROM%\Setup\install.vbs" /f but then the exe opens, but nothing happens afterwars. I also tried the other way round. I also tried calling csript like this: REG ADD %KEY%\023 /V 2 /D "%windir%/system32/cscript.exe %CDROM%\Setup\install.vbs" /f but again, it does not work. Either the script seemingly does nothing or I get an error message. So both of these problems have in common that the files I call work fine if started directly but do not during the runonceex process. I would like to add that all my other apps install fine, both from CD and from %SYSTEMROOT% ( after having been placed in the $OEM$ folder ) so the %CDROM% variable definitely works. Any ideas ?? Thanks for your help ! Alex