jaclaz

You probably want to import a certificate: http://www.migee.com/2010/09/24/solution-for-unattendedsilent-installs-and-would-you-like-to-install-this-device-software/ jaclaz

Yep, that's it. Vista SP1, hard as it may seem to say so , is/was a good OS, most if not all the issues were solved in the 13 (that is thirteen or one month more than one whole year) months between the release of the OS and the (much needed) release of the Service Pack. @JorgeA Well, that is a nice thing, but as you suspect not particularly relevant, as a matter of fact, I have seen too many issues (no matter with which OS or platform) with "automatic updates" to consider the whole thing "a feature", it is at most a "commodity", something that may be *needed* but that I find it a noticeable weak point of *any* system. Recent related talk: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/172455-windows-8-81-connection-tweaks/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/172455-windows-8-81-connection-tweaks/#entry1084073 And don't forget the: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158104-service-pack-2-for-w7 http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158104-service-pack-2-for-w7/?p=1018124 And again, I see no actual "competition" or "contrast" in having BOTH models, a "continuous updates" feature (which a savvy user will however need to keep under manual control) and the periodical release of "major" comprehensive updates (please read as Service Packs), the current model in my simplicity is not bad for the single user and possibly not bad for the large enterprise users (which will have an IT technician and likely a local deployment service) but the idea that in a typical 5 to 30 PC office every single PC will connect to get from MS the same bytes 5 or 30 times sounds to me like - to say the least - not smart. jaclaz

Naah, why should I be offended? The only important thing is that you managed to get it working fine. Still, if I suggest you to use this: not only providing a link to the tool, but also specifying how it was a Symantec utility (as a matter of fact it is a Powerquest one), and you manage to use a different Terabyte utility, command line only, instead: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=288 you shouldn't be surprised by it's output: Though it is strange as Terabyte tooks are known to be excellent ones, so if you try again running it from a dos box as: partinfo > partinfo.txt it should produce a valid table. Still, that is a different table from the one the Symantec Powerquest's tool will produce (this is a GUI tool and you need to save the report), now, be nice, get the tool I suggested (and not another one) and try running it, you will see how it produces more information anyway (please read as "there are reasons for suggesting specifically that one and not another one" ), including some info on the boot sectors of each volume . jaclaz

Yep, but it is the whole idea that is deeply flawed, PUIS should NOT be even thought of on workstations/normal PC's, it is a "feature" that is typical of servers/raid enclosuresor cards/NAS's etc,: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/958/~/how-to-enable-and-disable-pm2-(power-management)-on-wd-sata-drives just like Staggered Spin-up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin-up Whether it could be a good idea for Hybrid SSD's/HDD's and power saving is highly debatable (and actually may make some sense ONLY on battery powered devices AND ONLY when they are not connected to mains), and in any case it should be an "opt-in", possibly hidden from "common user" and/or "protected" by a really scaring popup message. Here is the (feeble) explanation by a Mr.Lee Prewitt: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_tp-windows_install/build-9879-bricking-drives/bd3fdbc9-ea72-4ac7-a824-3e0cad9759c9 Please note how the "fix" : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3021937 only relates to one of the two possible symptoms. It is simply unbelievable that a check for the device type (or for the BIOS support) has not been implemented and that such a potentially dangerous setting is "default" on all devices. jaclaz

Well, still a stupid PUIS command issued by the stupid driver in the stupid Windows 10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-up_in_standby cannot be responsible for: jaclaz

I am of course missing something, but it seems to me like you both listed mainly some "added convenience" in starting programs and in "bettered looks" of the GUI, i.e. something that has been traditionally available even on 2K or XP using alternate shells. @NoelC You have a point on the "better handling" of multitasking, though . Your experience is however a little bit more positive than the "general" one most probably because you ran the Vista on adequate (top of the notch at the time) hardware, whilst the vast majority of "common people" had it on underpowered hardware (that was probably the biggest mistake the good MS guys - together with the big OEM's - made at the time, pushing the OS on everyone, even on low-end machines that simply had not the "juice" to run it adequately). Still, you are among the few people that experienced an increased stability of the OS as everyone else reported issues in real life until SP1 (which I will re-state how it was released too late, in 2008), and this - to certain extent applies - to the increase in graphic performance, at least according to reports I have seen. About the stability AFAIK Windows XP 64 bit has traditionally been one of the less stable OS around (from hearsay, never run one personally), most probably not because of itself (as the 32 bit - please read as "a bettered Windows 2000, only slightly worse" - is/was, just like it's predecessors, very stable) but rather because of the early 64 bit drivers which were rather flaky. It is clear that we have different metrics for "stable" I count the time between needing to reboot in months or years, an OS that needs a reboot a week is like "very, very, very unstable" in my view. (in other words, should I have installed it for test, it wouldn't have lasted till the second or third week). jaclaz

Yep, I understand your issues. See the attachment as reference for sizes/contents/MD5's of the files inside that .cab. jaclaz MD5_DIR.txt

Well, you are missing a logical step in your reasoning. Sure there were a few "new" things in Vista , but you miss to enumerate which ones were "fundamentally relevant" and among them which ones were actually "better" (in the sense that allowed to do more (productive) things on Vista than what you could do on XP (or even on an earlier NT system)). jaclaz

This approach here (including the mentioned KB example, which is here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-ie/download/details.aspx?id=17990) : http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/85413-extracting-the-vista-hotfixes/ works fine in my XP SP2, and should be a good test bed, as the Windows6.0-KB925029-x86-RC1.msu is just 957 Kb. You need just three files from the VISTA WAIK (they are inside SS_x86.cab which is inside waikx86.msi). The .iso is 6001.18000.080118-1840-kb3aikl_en.iso here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/d/9cdfa30e-5901-40e4-b6bf-4a0086ea0a6a/6001.18000.080118-1840-kb3aikl_en.iso from which you can get just the Wikx86.msi (roughly 172 Mb ) using httpdisk: http://reboot.pro/topic/13049-extract-files-out-of-waik-without-downloading-whole-waik-first/ or through: http://reboot.pro/files/file/199-waik-lite-downloader/ Or get "directly" this one: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=76163 which is around 164 Mb. You can extract files fine with 7-zip. I don't think that any of the files are redistributable, I can provide you a DIR output and (say) the MD5's of the extracted files if you want to compare with the results of your new tool. jaclaz

Though they seemingly forgot to remove the relevant pages : http://www.microsoft.com/uk/smallbusiness/campaigns/office2010/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ee390818.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-office-professional-plus-2010 jaclaz

What do you have in: "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2289942/en-us Also (maybe useful): http://www.tweaklibrary.com/Software_Applications/Internet-Explorer/27/Disable-changes-to-Internet-proxy-settings/10224/ jaclaz

It's just like it happens everyday with DVD's or cable/movie on demand (and happened everyday yesterday with VHS's), you spend more time deciding what you are going to watch than what it takes to actually watch it. jaclaz

At first sight the guy on the left seems more a gay lawyer , didn't you notice how he is the one that is holding his sword crossing the other two guys' swords? (that's a clear sign he is playing for the other team and following his own political agenda ) bphlpt, besides the distinctive white beard, is taller .... ROTS, even if something is illegal, you can still get high on life, as long as you are not caught by the No Fun Police: jaclaz

No. There is ONLY the EN version, and it is intended for the ENglish version only, unfortunately. jaclaz

Ahh, the good ol' days... http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/1098/retro-scan-of-the-week-santas-trs-80-coco jaclaz

Why are you using nlite then? I mean you can use (say) 7-zip to do the extraction, which surely would not "touch" anything. (not that necessarily nlite would do it, but you never know). And then you can recreate the new .iso with IMGBURN or mkisofs. Then, if the new .iso created without *any* use of nlite fails as well the issue is clearly with the drivers packs in themselves, and you may be able to get better focused advice on their forum: http://forum.driverpacks.net/ jaclaz

I am not sure to follow you, the requisite AFAICU is the driver and a local NTFS (if you prefere this is these are the requisites to create locally a link or "mountpoint"), the "source" doesn't need the driver, and as long as the file is accessible can be *any * filesystem, is this what you are saying? "same system, other partition" actually means "same disk device, different volume", it is very possible that they also fail to work if "same local system BUT other disk device" But it is very possible that the specific program has it's own ways to access a file flatly bypassing the driver or using a Windows function that the driver does not "hook". jaclaz

... which you carefully avoid to reference but that probably are the ones referenced here: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html The "generic" solution as you found out is most probably the Symbolic Links, most probably (depending on the specific application) there are alternate solutions, but I doubt there can be other "generic" ones. jaclaz

The issue seems like connected to a wrong Codepage (or a similar issue related to wrong mapping of characters). The "base" is a Greek version of XP and by itself works correctly, right? The only modification you make to it is to add/integrate the driverpacks, right? (or are you using *any* other tweak/removal/whatever in nlite?) And are you doing this in the "right" order, i.e. first nlite, then driverpacks, right? http://driverpacks.net/docs/beginners-guide-windows-xp jaclaz

Well, it depends if we are all together (as people) or if there is still the wall between us , usually when people on this side of the wall feel a bit sad they simply have a peek on the poor guys on the other side and *somehow* feel better and smile . Hey, I even had a "custom made" emoticon exactly for these occasions : jaclaz

I have been called names before but this must be an absolute first. Richard III (1:3): "That thou hadst called me all these bitter sweet names." jaclaz

Good , so I can ask Drugwash (still if he has nothing better to do, i.e. with a low-low priority) if he could try making an user program making use of the MSdelta.dll compression working in Win9x/Me WITHOUT any "special" provision for NT based systems but ALSO WITHOUT any intentional and artificially introduced incompatibility with them. jaclaz

I don't get it , the good MS guys that by default disabled in a standard install the execution of PowerShell scripts had in mind to protect your security, of course you cannot run PowerShell scripts if PowerShell scripts are disabled, it is like you want to connect to the internet but refuse to have an IP assigned by your local DHCP server and do not set it manually. jaclaz

Windows 2000 or your peculiar install of Windows 2000 with a zillion of mods, patches, modified kernels, wrappers and what not? I mean, the former has not given issues of any kind in several installs, some still running, in the last 10 (ten) years, of course with it's limits on hardware and programs on them, the second (which I understand may be need patching in order to run on more modern hardware and running originally non-compatible versions of programs) is obviously far less stable. jaclaz

@gunsmokingman http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2513/powershell_enable_script_support/ jaclaz