Maelstorm

I have the following code: Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject ("WScript.Shell") wscript.echo "Argument Count", wscript.arguments.count For I = 0 to wscript.arguments.count - 1 Wscript.Echo wscript.arguments.item(I) Next set cdrom = wscript.arguments.item(0) set basedir = wscript.arguments.item(1) wscript.echo cdrom, basedir When I run it from the command line I get the following output: G:\Deployment\CDROM\INSTALL>cscript.exe test.vbs g: g:\deployment\cdrom\install Microsoft ® Windows Script Host Version 5.6 Copyright © Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved. Argument Count 2 g: g:\deployment\cdrom\install G:\Deployment\CDROM\INSTALL\ test.vbs(9, 1) Microsoft VBScript runtime error: Object required: '[string: "g:"]' Why? I thought that the item is a string value, but it doesn't seem to like it. What I'm trying to do is to make a VBScript to install software that requires user input, but also takes arguments as to where the install executable is located. Here's what I have so far for lookout120.exe, which gives the same type of error: Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject ("WScript.Shell") Set Ag = Wscript.Arguments ' Process command line arguments if Ag.count < 2 Then WScript.Echo "Command Line Error. Need <CDROM> <Base Dir>" & vbcrlf WScript.Quit End if set cdrom = Ag.item(0) set basedir = Ag.item(1) ' execute program WshShell.Run (basedir & "\COMPONENT\LOOKOUT\LookOut120.exe /S") ' wait for startup and then start sending keystrokes WScript.Sleep 5000 WshShell.SendKeys "{SPACE}" ' Wait for install to finish WScript.Sleep 10000 ' Quit WScript.Quit What am I doing wrong?

There seems to be a lot of broken links in older forum posts by members. Any way to get these either updated or removed?

I am looking for some information about the image resources in winntbbu.dll. I have found the following information that was posted by aadipa here: 100 -> Top Left Logo 101 -> Top Left Logo 102 -> Top Left Logo 103 -> Main Background Bitmap 181-192 -> Animation in left bottom Now my question is what are the other resources used for? Thanks.

Thanks for understanding. The site looks pretty good. I find it is much easier to find the information that I'm looking for. Good job.

Um... Never mind. Seems the site was updated and my browser's cache had the old copy of the site. Sorry about that. That's what happens when one doesn't get enough sleep.

In both places that I'm aware of, the link for $OEM$ files overview is broken. I get a 404 error.

You know what? I think I found it. The key is HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage and the value is Favorites. It's a binary data type. If you edit it, you see some binary data, but in the ASCII print to the side, it has the location of the link, the long name in unicode, and where to find the icon. The position in the start menu is determined by the position of the items in this list. Items that are at the top edge of the list start at offset 0, while the item at the bottom of the pinned list seems to be the last record. Going by the fact that this must be using variable length records, there must be some flag byte or a length counter that tells explorer where the start and end of each variable length field is. I currently have 4 icons pinned to the start menu in this order: E-Mail, Internet Explorer, Internet, and Command Prompt. Below is the actual data: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage] "Favorites"=hex:00,16,00,00,00,14,00,1f,80,f5,a1,59,25,d7,21,d4,11,bd,af,00,c0,\ 4f,60,b9,f0,00,00,02,76,00,00,00,74,00,32,00,5b,03,00,00,37,32,42,b9,80,00,\ 49,4e,54,45,52,4e,7e,31,2e,4c,4e,4b,00,00,58,00,03,00,04,00,ef,be,23,32,76,\ 64,23,32,76,64,14,00,40,00,49,00,6e,00,74,00,65,00,72,00,6e,00,65,00,74,00,\ 20,00,45,00,78,00,70,00,6c,00,6f,00,72,00,65,00,72,00,2e,00,6c,00,6e,00,6b,\ 00,00,00,40,78,70,73,70,31,72,65,73,2e,64,6c,6c,2c,2d,31,31,30,30,31,00,00,\ 1c,00,00,00,00,16,00,00,00,14,00,1f,80,f4,a1,59,25,d7,21,d4,11,bd,af,00,c0,\ 4f,60,b9,f0,00,00,02,c8,00,00,00,5a,00,31,00,00,00,00,00,23,32,78,64,11,00,\ 41,43,43,45,53,53,7e,31,00,00,42,00,03,00,04,00,ef,be,23,32,7d,63,23,32,78,\ 64,14,00,2c,00,41,00,63,00,63,00,65,00,73,00,73,00,6f,00,72,00,69,00,65,00,\ 73,00,00,00,40,73,68,65,6c,6c,33,32,2e,64,6c,6c,2c,2d,32,31,37,36,31,00,18,\ 00,6c,00,32,00,e5,06,00,00,3e,32,a7,49,20,00,43,4f,4d,4d,41,4e,7e,31,2e,4c,\ 4e,4b,00,00,50,00,03,00,04,00,ef,be,23,32,80,63,23,32,80,63,14,00,3a,00,43,\ 00,6f,00,6d,00,6d,00,61,00,6e,00,64,00,20,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,6d,00,70,00,\ 74,00,2e,00,6c,00,6e,00,6b,00,00,00,40,73,68,65,6c,6c,33,32,2e,64,6c,6c,2c,\ 2d,32,32,30,32,32,00,1c,00,00,00,ff Now if someone can break out what the other fields are and write a program that manipulates it, we will be off and running. The NoShellRoam just has the cached folder views. When you set a folder view, that's where Windows places the value.

How is it done? I've found a couple of threads that said that Microsoft does not allow programatic access to the start menu pinned items because that should be a user customized function. But, on the other hand, we know it can be done because Microsoft's "Setup your computer" program does it. I would like to make a common starting point for all users of the computer and let them change it from there.

Now that was quite interesting. Boots straight off a CD and allows access to the HD where I can run most commands. Thanks for the tip.

Is there a recovery console replacement? Is one even available? The one that ships with WinXP is more or less useless if your machine will not boot and you need to do something special to recover it... Like running a batch file to restore the registry hives from a backup if the working copy gets corrupted, like what happened in my case...

Ah. Thanks.

What is nlite and where to I get it? Thanks.

I think that I figured something out, but it doesn't seem to work. In addition to the InstallShield section on MSFN, I also found this link here: http://helpnet.installshield.com/Robo/BIN/...h%2Fgsearch.asp which documents the commnd line options. So, what I have done thus far is start the install, locate the install temp dir, and then copy the files into another directory. You will need to make a second copy. Then I did a setup /r and created the setup.iss file and merged it and the original setup.iss file together and rn setup /s. It seems to run, but when the system reboots, there doesn't seem to be any change. Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?

How does one do a silent install of the VIA 4-in-1 drivers? I need to install all 4 drivers for my mainboard.

The problem is the d1 line. I'll bet that the directory \Disk1 does not exist on your CD? I'm not sure what that last field is for, but here's the line from my TEXTINFO.OEM file for my SCSI controller: d1 = "SIIG AP-20/AP-40 SCSI Pro Windows XP MINIPORT DRIVERS",winxp\sc247xu.sys,winxp In my $OEM$\TEXTMODE directory, I do have a WinXP directory. Note there is no leading backslash. I'm still working on getting my hardware to work, and this will be the first time that I try method 2. Method 1 flat refused to work.

I'm trying build a CD that has my SCSI drivers slipstreamed into the install package. I have a SIIG AP-40 SCSI controller in addition to IDE devices on the motherboard. The DVD-ROM drive and the CD-RW drive are both on the SCSI (Yes, they are true SCSI devices). I initially tried using F6, but when the install tried copying files to the HD, it coundn't find the need files. But, it works if I don't do the unattended install. I followed the instructions on GreenMachine's website about TXTSETUP.SIF and it does see the driver and it copies it over, but it also pauses right at the beginning and asks for a OEM setup disk. Here's the relevent entries from my txtsetup.sif file: [sourceDisksFiles] sc247xu.sys = 1,,,,,,3_,4,1 [HardwareIdsDatabase] PCI\VEN_1191&DEV_8020;&SUBSYS_80201191 = "SIIGAP40" PCI\VEN_1191&DEV_8010;&SUBSYS_80101191 = "SIIGAP40" [sCSI.load] SIIGAP40 = sc247xu.sys,4 [sCSI] SIIGAP40 = "SIIG AP-40 PCI SCSI-2 Controller" There is an INF file that seems to do a few things in the registry, so I'm worndering if I need to include that in TXTSETUP.SIF somewhere. I also have the driver copied over to the $$\DRIVERS folder with the path in WINNT.SIF. Everything seems fine, but I cannot get past this error. Any ideas?

Hmm... Interesting. Then that means that the /? is lying then, which is what I was basing my assumption on. What I was doing was running Qxxxxxx.EXE /? from a DOS box and making note of what switches came up in the resulting help box. I did try the default switches though, and they do work anyways despite what the help box says. I wonder why Microsoft did it that way. Ok then, I guess there is still only 2 major types of switches then. I stand corrected. On my CD builds, I install all critical and recommended updates to save download time, which I'm sure that alot of other people do as well. That's why I posted the command line switches, that I have found that work, for those installation packages as well. Later.

Seems there are 4 different sets of switches that hotfixes use in addition to Type 1 and Type 2. There doesn't seem to be any ryme or reason as to which set of switches that the hotfixes/recommended updates use. I'll list all the sets that I have discovered here. These are the ones that we know about: Type 1: /Q /N /O /Z Type 2: /Q:A /R:N And now the ones that we don't know about: Type 3: /O /N /quiet /norestart Critical Q828741.EXE Q835732.EXE Recommended Q826942.EXE DX9 Update Q839643.EXE Type 4: -u -o -n -z Critical Q824105.EXE Q810217.EXE Q811114.EXE Recommended Q822603.EXE Q821253.EXE Q820291.EXE Q814995.EXE Q322011.EXE Q327979.EXE Q810243.EXE Other interesting things that I have found: HighMAT Support package uses /Q /N switches only. Supplying anything else will result in a error. It does install correctly from svcpack.inf. The .NET package uses a similar format to the MDAC update. Here's my command line in svcpack.inf: "DOTNET11.EXE /C:""install.exe /qb""/Q:A /R:N" That /qb switch to install.exe does not appear anywhere in the help. I found it using strings on the install.exe file. The Help & Support information update uses only 1 switch for silent install: /Q. I'll post more as I discover additional switches. Later.