Maelstorm

Nope. This was the first time that I have heard of it. Well, the source code is available. Maybe some enterprising individual could take up the cause and run with it. Mhh, actually the only tool I found during a quick look on MSFN that seems to do a similar thing as Wihu is Xplode. However, this tool seems EXTREMELY complicated to use/setup from my point of view, not only because it relies on XML. Other than that, I could not find a similar thing to Wihu anywhere. I can´t talk about other people here obviously, but I use Wihu regularily. Actually I wouldn´t even know what to do with my precious unattended installation DVD without Wihu ! Just so you know how important Wihu is to some of us .... I actually use both WIHU and XPlode. The select install of XPlode is clunky at best. So what I do is select the options with WIHU and use XPlode to install them. A note to Benjamin: There are only 3 programs that allow unattended installs, that I know of. WPI, WIHU, and XPlode. WPI does what I want in the wrong way and there is a somewhat steep learning curve with XPlode. Don't think that because people don't post a whole lot doesn't mean that they don't use it. For what it's worth, I use it. It is a good tool. Hmm... Now that I have VS2K3, I might try a couple of things with the source code...

You may want to try reading here: http://unattended.msfn.org/beginner/winnt_sif.htm But that is kinda strange. If the winnt.sif doesn't exist, then it should use the winnt.si_ file instead...Unless of course you deleted the file by accident.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad that someone found it usefull. There is an update in the works that will add more record types such as user/group management, registry, and misc. I have a minor update ready now, but it just includes a command line enhancement: It does not popup a dialog box indicating that it is finished. If run from the command line with all the required parameters, and there are no semantic errors in the data to be processed, then it will run completely silent. Good for scripting. The idea that I have is to run a program like WIHU to select all the options, and for each command do something like this: command0.1=CMD.EXE /C %BASEDIR%\SCRIPTS\SYSTEM-MAININDEX.CMD 284 My system-mainindex.cmd has 2000 IF statements. The parameter 284 corresponds to an echo command that echos the scriptname 1 or more tabs and a description to a file, which happens to be the correct format that gendata.vbs uses to generate the db file for genxplode.vbs. The reason behind doing this is to do a conditional install with Xplode, which Xplode itself doesn't support. If anyone is interested, reply to this thread and I'll post the entire package of what I have now in the first post. But remember it's in extreme alpha stage.

***NOTICE*** This post has been superceeded by this thread. This thread does contain alot of usefull information about how to use this software though. Well, this was my learning excercise in VBScript programming, so if you find any bugs, let me know. Oh, I know most of you don't care, but !!!READ THE GENXPLODE.VBS FILE!!!! If you didn't read the comments that I put in there, then I will not help you, period. I have made the code as bullet proof as possible, but I still may have overlooked something. Reply to this thread if you find a bug or need assistance. I will not respond to emails. I'm logged in here every couple of days or so. There are two programs invloved here. GenXPlode.vbs - Generates XML data from preconfigured database GenData.vbs - Generates database for GenXPlode.vbs My install architecture is that everything is installed from a script. One script per program. All operations for that one program (installing, moving, copying, deleting, registry, tweaks, etc) is handled by that one script. Futhermore, all my scripts are in one directory and are labeled as follows: SOFTWARE-*.CMD - software packages FONT-*.CMD - font families and packages MEDIA-*.CMD - icons, themes, sounds, wallpapers, etc... So the defaults in the code generator make sense on my system and setup. Just about everything is declared in constants at the beginning of the two programs, so they should be easy to modify for your system. Remember, all files that are used are tab delimited between fields, so keep that in mind if you manually edit a file. Also, the XML code generator only understand 5 record types, so hence it will only generate the 5 main header/action tags that are used: ITEMSOP - <items> ITEMSED - </items> ITEMOP - <item> ITEMED - </item> EXEC - <execute> and all related sub tags. </execute> So with this in mind, I perform the following actions: dir /b software-*.cmd > software.txt That results in a file like the one below. Note that the file is not in order as I have already sequenced the order in which software is to be installeded. This is just an example. SOFTWARE-DIRECTX.CMD SOFTWARE-DOTNET.CMD SOFTWARE-DOTNETSP.CMD SOFTWARE-MOZILLA.CMD SOFTWARE-FIREFOX.CMD SOFTWARE-THUNDERBIRD.CMD SOFTWARE-SUNBIRD.CMD SOFTWARE-NETSCAPE.CMD SOFTWARE-FLSWMOZ.CMD SOFTWARE-FLSWMSIE.CMD SOFTWARE-ITUNES.CMD SOFTWARE-WMP.CMD SOFTWARE-QUICKTIME.CMD SOFTWARE-QUICKTIMEPLUGIN.CMD SOFTWARE-REALPLAYER.CMD SOFTWARE-REALPLAYERPLUGIN.CMD SOFTWARE-MUSICMATCH.CMD SOFTWARE-ACROBAT.CMD SOFTWARE-AOL.CMD SOFTWARE-STAROFFICE.CMD SOFTWARE-STAROFFICEPATCH.CMD SOFTWARE-WEBWASHER.CMD Then I open the file in notepad and at the end of each line, I add one or more tabs and add a title to it: SOFTWARE-DIRECTX.CMD Microsoft DirectX 9.0c SOFTWARE-DOTNET.CMD Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 SOFTWARE-DOTNETSP.CMD Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 SOFTWARE-MOZILLA.CMD Mozilla Browser Suite SOFTWARE-FIREFOX.CMD Mozilla Firefox Web Browser SOFTWARE-THUNDERBIRD.CMD Mozilla Thunderbird E-Mail Client SOFTWARE-SUNBIRD.CMD Mozilla Sunbird Calander SOFTWARE-NETSCAPE.CMD Netscape Communicator SOFTWARE-FLSWMOZ.CMD Macromedia Flash/Shockwave Player for Mozilla SOFTWARE-FLSWMSIE.CMD Macromedia Flash/Shockwave Player for Internet Explorer SOFTWARE-ITUNES.CMD Apple iTunes Media System SOFTWARE-WMP.CMD Windows Media Player 10 SOFTWARE-QUICKTIME.CMD Apple QuickTime SOFTWARE-QUICKTIMEPLUGIN.CMD Apple QuickTime Plugins SOFTWARE-REALPLAYER.CMD RealNetworks RealOnePlayer SOFTWARE-REALPLAYERPLUGIN.CMD RealNetworks RealOnePlayer Plugins SOFTWARE-MUSICMATCH.CMD MusicMatch Jukebox Media System SOFTWARE-ACROBAT.CMD Adobe Acrobat Reader SOFTWARE-AOL.CMD America Online SOFTWARE-STAROFFICE.CMD Sun Microsystems Star Office SOFTWARE-STAROFFICEPATCH.CMD Sun Microsystems Star Office Patch SOFTWARE-WEBWASHER.CMD Cyber Guard Web Washer 3.4 Once that is done, then I run the GenData.vbs on the file. The resulting file is as follows: ITEMSOP ?? ITEMOP Microsoft DirectX 9.0c ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-DIRECTX.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-DOTNET.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-DOTNETSP.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Mozilla Browser Suite ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MOZILLA.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Mozilla Firefox Web Browser ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-FIREFOX.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Mozilla Thunderbird E-Mail Client ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-THUNDERBIRD.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Mozilla Sunbird Calander ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-SUNBIRD.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Netscape Communicator ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-NETSCAPE.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Macromedia Flash/Shockwave Player for Mozilla ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-FLSWMOZ.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Macromedia Flash/Shockwave Player for Internet Explorer ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-FLSWMSIE.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Apple iTunes Media System ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-ITUNES.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Windows Media Player 10 ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-WMP.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Apple QuickTime ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-QUICKTIME.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Apple QuickTime Plugins ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-QUICKTIMEPLUGIN.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP RealNetworks RealOnePlayer ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-REALPLAYER.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP RealNetworks RealOnePlayer Plugins ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-REALPLAYERPLUGIN.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP MusicMatch Jukebox Media System ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MUSICMATCH.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Adobe Acrobat Reader ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-ACROBAT.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP America Online ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-AOL.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Sun Microsystems Star Office ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-STAROFFICE.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Sun Microsystems Star Office Patch ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-STAROFFICEPATCH.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMOP Cyber Guard Web Washer 3.4 ?? EXEC %SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-WEBWASHER.CMD %BASEDIR% F T ?? ITEMED ?? ITEMSED ?? Then I run the GenXPlode.vbs script against the file that GenData made. This is the result: <items> <item display="Microsoft DirectX 9.0c"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-DIRECTX.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-DOTNET.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-DOTNETSP.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Mozilla Browser Suite"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MOZILLA.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Mozilla Firefox Web Browser"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-FIREFOX.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Mozilla Thunderbird E-Mail Client"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-THUNDERBIRD.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Mozilla Sunbird Calander"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-SUNBIRD.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Netscape Communicator"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-NETSCAPE.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Macromedia Flash/Shockwave Player for Mozilla"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-FLSWMOZ.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Macromedia Flash/Shockwave Player for Internet Explorer"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-FLSWMSIE.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Apple iTunes Media System"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-ITUNES.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Windows Media Player 10"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-WMP.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Apple QuickTime"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-QUICKTIME.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Apple QuickTime Plugins"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-QUICKTIMEPLUGIN.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="RealNetworks RealOnePlayer"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-REALPLAYER.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="RealNetworks RealOnePlayer Plugins"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-REALPLAYERPLUGIN.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="MusicMatch Jukebox Media System"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MUSICMATCH.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Adobe Acrobat Reader"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-ACROBAT.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="America Online"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-AOL.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Sun Microsystems Star Office"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-STAROFFICE.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Sun Microsystems Star Office Patch"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-STAROFFICEPATCH.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> <item display="Cyber Guard Web Washer 3.4"> <execute> <program>%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-WEBWASHER.CMD</program> <arguments>%BASEDIR%</arguments> <hide>False</hide> <wait>True</wait> </execute> </item> </items> Now just drop this code into your xplode config file and away you go. Depending on how well this is recieved, I'll implement more tags that this program recongizes. [EDIT] Download has been removed. See new thread which has the new version here.

Like I said, I can write the extensions if need be. But I need the source code to do it. What I plan on doing is using WIHU at the T-12 stage to setup what is to be installed, and using conditionals in XPlode to check what is and is not to be installed.

That answers my question. Thanks.

Is there a way to specify conditional execution of items in XPlode? The docs don't make any mention of it, and there really isn't a alot of forum posts on the subject either. I'm thinking something like this: <execute> <program>Program1.exe</program> <condition>REG:\HKLM\Software\Custom\Install\program1.exe=1</condition> <arguments>/silent</arguments> <hide>true</hide> <wait>true</wait> </execute> I really don't care what form the conditional is in, but it would be nice to have this functionality as it currently seems there is no way to do this. Other keywords to use would be ENV for environment and FILE for file that would take on the following forms: <condition>ENV:INSTPROG=TRUE</condition> <condition>FILE:%INSTALL%\FILE1.TXT=Program1.exe</condition> The ENV keyword would test if an evnironment variable was equal to some value and the FILE keyword would test if a file existed or if the file had the specified line using something similar to a grep function. That's my request anyways. I'm not above writing this code myself, I can to it, but it will take me awhile to analyze your source and determine where to add the additional keywords and their actions.

Well, because this program is kinda big, I have option explicit set to force variable declarations.

Consider the following code: const cMaxRecords = 32767 ' Maximum number of tag records dim FDI(cMaxRecords) ' Input file record database dim FDO(cMaxRecords) ' Output file record database I keep getting a VBScript compilation error with this construct. Does VBScript support this?

I'm working on one myself. It's written in VBScript, which I don't know a whole lot about. This is what I would call one heck of a learning experience in writing VBScript programs and in writing a XML code generator. My goal with this is to write a code generator that will generate a XPlode4 XML file so complete that the only thing that the user needs to do is drop-in the config section. Features: Uses a tab-delimited text file for input which makes it easy to use unix style utilities like vi, emacs, grep, awk, sed, etc... Supports <item display="text"> constructs. Supports <!-- and --> style comment generation. Will build the entire <items> block from start to finish. Modular design so it's easy to add more XML elements to the code generator. Full support of optional elements. File interaction operates in command line or GUI mode.

I'm looking for something for 2000 ORKT myself. And the /? doesn't work. [EDIT] I figured it out... Since I have 7-Zip installed, I used that to extract the SFX file and it gave me everything that I need so I can re-package it. Try using my method and see if that works. You can also try to extract the files using WinZIP and WinRAR as well.

Never mind. I found the problem. The window mode GuiRedraw was the problem. For it to show the custom layout, it needs to be standalone.

Consider the following code: <!-- Display Plugin Parameters --> <display plugin='#XPLODE#\XPlodeOriginalInstall.x4d'> <show total='6' after='4' subcount='true' /> <font face='Tahoma' antialias='false' small='8' large='13' /> <window width='340' position='5' fixmain='0' /> <windowmode mode='GuiRedraw' border='false' /> <colours> <header back='#003399' fore='#FFFFFF' image='%XPLODE%\images\head.png' /> <footer back='#003399' fore='#FFFFFF' image='%XPLODE%\images\foot.png' /> <progress border='#000000' back='#FFFFFF' fore='#008800' fore2='#00AA00' /> <main back='#6699FF' fore='#FFFFFF' current='#FFFF00' description='#FFFFFF' image='%XPLODE%\images\main.png' overlay='#FFFFFF22' /> </colours> </display> The problem is that the images, head.png, foot.png, and main.png, do not display when xplode runs with the above code. What I do get is the explode window without the images. I have tried several different combinations, even replacing the % with # to see if that would work. The code above was taken almost verbatim from the example XML files, and I have checked it with the docs, and it all checks out. I have tried the logfile, but there are no errors being listed there either. So what's going on? If I'm doing something wrong, I sure don't see what it is. Or, could it be a bug in the XPlodeOriginalInstall.x4d plugin? Any suggestions or ideas are appriciated.

That was fast. I'll go and test it out now. Just out of curiosity, I downloaded the source code and tried to compile it, but it seems there is a development package that you are using that I do not have loaded. It keeps telling me that a header file is missing...nppeapi.h if I remember correctly. All I have loaded is Microsoft Visual C++ to compile and the Platform SDK for SP2 right now. Anyways, thank you for writing such a great tool.

I'm using WIHU v.2.1.16.0. Consider the following code: [Microsoft Office 2000 Professional] selected = 1 collapsed = 0 description=Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition command=cmd.exe /c @echo command helptext=This branch controls the installation of Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition for Small Business. Please click the arrow to expand the list to all all available options. description.0=Installation Disk 1 selected.0=1 command.0=cmd.exe /c @echo command.0 group.0=1 description.0.0=Full Installation (Default) selected.0.0=1 command.0.0=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD1A.CMD %BASEDIR% description.0.1=Default Installation command.0.1=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD1B.CMD %BASEDIR% description.0.2=Minimal Installation command.0.2=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD1C.CMD %BASEDIR% description.0.3=Custom Installation command.0.3=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD1D.CMD %BASEDIR% description.1=Installation Disk 2 selected.1=1 command.1=cmd.exe /c @echo command.1 group.1=1 description.1.0=Full Installation (Default) selected.1.0=1 command.1.0=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD2A.CMD %BASEDIR% description.1.1=Default Installation command.1.1=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD2B.CMD %BASEDIR% description.1.2=Minimal Installation command.1.2=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD2C.CMD %BASEDIR% description.1.3=Custom Installation command.1.3=%SCRIPTSDIR%\SOFTWARE-MSOFC2KD2D.CMD %BASEDIR% What happens is that when I click Select All, it highlights 0.3 and 1.3 (Custom Installation) for Microsoft Office 2K even though I have selected 0.0 and 1.0 to be the default? (Or is there another way to specify the default on a select all?) If I swap .2 with .3, the select all stays highlighted at .3. I think this is a bug, but more than likely it could be something that I'm doing wrong.

This is in addtion to MTC's request for expand/collapse categories. In addition to that, if a item is selected and has sub-items, have the subitems displayed on a expandable menu. Kinda like the following: - Category - Program 1 Option 1 Option 2 - Option 3 Sub-Option 1 Sub-Option 2 I would do it myself, but I don't know the first thing about javascript.

It is in the registry. The key is [HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace] There you will need to place a CLSID key that is also in [HKCR\CLSID]. Here's my reg file for the User Installed Software folder. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}] @="User Installed Software" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\DefaultIcon] @="shell32.dll,110" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\DefaultIcon\InProcServer32] @="shell32.dll" "ThreadingModel"="Apartment" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\Shell] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\Shell\Open] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\Shell\Open\Command] @="explorer /root,C:\\Program Files\\User Installed Software\\" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\ShellEx] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\ShellEx\PropertySheetHandlers] @="{e33898de-6302-4756-8f0c-5f6c5218e02e}" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{801eb159-9ede-4dcb-919f-b55376cd4ceb}\ShellFolder] "Attributes"=dword:0000003c You can change this line @="explorer /root,C:\\Program Files\\User Installed Software\\" to point to any program that you want to.

Additional Information: If you have Internet and E-mail under "Show on Start menu" in the "Customize Start Menu" checked, then those settings will carry over in the reg file as well. Also I have discovered another tweak. In the registry key [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] there is a DWORD value called Start_MinMFU that directly controls how many items appear in the start menu under recent programs. The default is 6, but you can change it to anything you want...within reason. I generally set it to 0.

I have figured it out. The following thread details how to do this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=40866

After some research, I have figured out how to pin items to the start menu. Here's what you do. 1. Set the pinned items the way that you want. 2. Open regedit and navigate to the following key: [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage] 3. Export the above key to a reg file. 4. Using Notepad or a similar text editor, open the reg file and remove all values EXCEPT FavoritesChanges, FavoritesResolve, and Favorites. 5. Set the DWORD value of FavoritesChanges to 2. (Or, if you want to test now, add 1 to the current value and set it to that. 6. Save the reg file. 7. If you want to test now, then make sure you did the test now part in step 5 and then merge the data into the registry. 8. Add this tweak to your reg tweaks on your AIO CD. Hope this Helps. As for what the exact data is, I'm not sure. But, if you go and edit Favorites and FavoritesResolve, you will see in the ASCII portion of the editing window pathnames, filenames, and other binary data. Because path names and filenames are variable, it could be using a character counter or a end of field marker. I'll leave it up to the guys who hack DLL files figure this one out.

Additional information about this subject.... It seems that there is another key in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage that also has a bearing on how items get pinned to the start menu. Favorites - List 1 (Described above) FavoritesResolve - List 2 (Seems to follow list 1) FavoritesChanges - Running tally of how many times the pinned items have been changed. I guess this tells explorer if the list has changed, to go and reload it. I'm still experimenting with this though. I will post more here as I figure it out.

The registration screen is mandatory as there is no way to bypass it. Your best bet is to use a vbs script to auto-datafill the fields. The problem with that is the setup screen does not have the focus when it comes up. I'm currently researching how to get around that.

Any reason you didn't edit the .Default registry hive? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Because I want the images displayed during RunOnceEx setup. Editing the registry, to my knowledge, has no effect in this matter until after explorer starts up. Furthermore, the image files are jpg which requires a program to set the wallpaper.

Nope. I'm running it live on another machine from a DVD-RW. Anyways, for some reason, it could not find start, which is a little weird because it's used elsewhere. I opened a command prompt from RegOnceEx and tried it manualy, and i_view32.exe aborted saying that it does not recongize the file header: Unknown file type. But, it works if I run it from the HD, even without explorer loaded, which is also strange. I have to wonder if during RegOnceEx that certian DLLs that are involved with processing the image are not being loaded but are loaded later on by explorer, but that makes no sense since it works without explorer running. Go figure. I'm going to do some more troubleshooting and see if I can figure out what the problem with the software is. Is it calling a DLL resource that is not being loaded or what? [EDIT] Something else that I just discovered... If I open a command prompt during regonceex and type the filename of one of the image files directly, Windows brings up the Picture and Fax viewer Furthermore, if I tell it to set it as the background from Picture and Fax viewer, it will set it as the background during the rest of RegOnceEx. I'm beginning to wonder if the problem is with i_view32.exe itself. [EDIT] Ok, it's definately a problem with i_view32.exe. From a command line during regonceex, it will not open the image because it says that it does not recongize the header... But, if I open the program normally and then open the same file, it accepts it and loads the imge just fine. It will even set the background image. I'm going to see if I can locate a different program to do this. I'll post back to this thread when I have something. [EDIT] I have found another command line wallpaper changer, but it only works on BMPs. It was written by some guy over at Microsoft. It does seem to work, so I'll test it. Oh, and that start not being found issue...It seems that start is an internal command to cmd.exe, so the command line now reads like this: REG ADD %KEY%\002 /VE /D "Fork Image Rotator" /f REG ADD %KEY%\002 /V /1 /D "%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\CMD.EXE /C START CMD.EXE /C %SCRIPTSDIR%\SYSTEM-IMAGEROTATE.CMD %CDROM% %BASEDIR%" Yeah, I know it's redundant, but I want to make sure that the process forks off and detaches itself into the background so that runonceex can continue. Something else. When I ran the DVD, after Java 1.50-01 installed, it rebooted the system? the command line that I was using is this: START /WAIT MSIEXEC.EXE /passive /norestart /I %APPLICATIONDIR%\JAVA\JAVA15001.msi I take it that there is some kind of problem as it seems that a number of people are having issues. I'm going to try this command line when I burn a new DVD: START /WAIT MSIEXEC.EXE /passive /norestart /I %APPLICATIONDIR%\JAVA\JAVA15001.msi REBOOT=Suppress It seems to work running off the DVD without explorer.exe running (no user interface, just a command window). [EDIT] Ok, the other command line utility does work, but only for bitmaps. I have yet to find a program that will work correctly on jpegs. For now, the only thing that I can do is use bitmaps. I'll try compressing the images into cab files and uncompressing them at runtime. The command line program is called setdesk.exe and it can be found here.

With the help of another member, I figured out how to get the screen resolution for i_view32.exe resize option. If anyone is interested, that thread is here. Attached below is a zip file that contains the vbscript utility to get the screen resolution and the batch file that rotates the images. My batch scripts use 2 parameters, the cd-rom drive and the basedir. So it looks like this: basedir=%cdrom%\install system-imagerotate.cmd %cdrom% %basedir% So for the RegOnceEx, I use the following: REG ADD %KEY%\002 /VE /D "Fork Image Rotator" /f REG ADD %KEY%\002 /V /1 /D "START CMD.EXE /C %SCRIPTSDIR%\SYSTEM-IMAGEROTATE.CMD %CDROM% %BASEDIR%" Notice that my start command does not have the /wait option. This allows the process to fork so that RunOnceEx continues while the batch runs in the background. I currently have it set to rotate in 300 second intervals (5-min) on the repeat and 60 seconds for the initial, but this script should be easy to modify. Oh, and one other thing, to allow the script to run, it checks to see if a file exists. That file is %SYSTEMDRIVE%\tmp\FLAG.TXT I used %SYSTEMDRIVE%\tmp because a software package that I'm installing requires it. If that file does not exist, then the script will exit without doing much of anything. I inputed this mechanisim so during the clean up, this file is removed and it causes the process to stop rotating images and terminate before explorer.exe loads. Enjoy. Image_Rotate.zip