MrJinje

Well each pass controls a portion of the installation. From an high level XP perspective, the windowsPE pass is very similar to the TextMode portion. Most of the it's settings involve formatting, OS file copy, all the things that happen prior to the first reboot. Other passes control other portions of the install and some passes are only used during special situations. For instance the Audit passes are commonly skipped by vanilla unattended DVD's, but anyone running sysprep will use them. You mention how some settings are duplicated and on paper it appears that way, but that is not the case. A few days ago a user was having trouble specifying domain cred's for his WDS installation (using the oobeSystem domaincred), but the problem was his error occurred during the windowsPE portion. For his installation we needed to provide the credentials twice, once during the windowsPE pass (to connect to the WDS server), and the second time during oobeSystem pass to join the new machine to the domain. So these are not really duplicates, but two distinct settings with different uses. You will find this is the case with most of the duplicated settings. Here is quick rundown of what a normal DVD installation goes through . (i'm missing the second reboot, not sure where exactly that happens) 1) windowsPE pass occurs 2) offlineservicing (if enabled) occurs - followed by reboot. - this is end of the boot.wim session 3) After reboot - Specialize pass 4) Finally the oobeSystem 5) SetupComplete.cmd occurs last (if using $OEM$) 6) First login occurs - desktop appears. on a sysprep installation, two more audit passes can occur between 3 and 4. (there is also a generalize pass that I think occurs before #3) This is a lot to cram into a little post. Ask questions if you have any. @ Max, what do you think about hosting a pair of WDS compliant XML's. Arwidmark posted some samples for Vista WDS at this site, but they might need some minor tweaks for W7/WDS

You 'might' be able to manage removing the registry settings. They are possibly located in these keys. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372105%28VS.85%29.aspx Each Application has a different GUID (super long random string), so you will have to drill down into each sub-key until you find the correct one. Good luck.

If it just started happening recently, could try a system restore and go back to before it began.

Yes, the hitachi micro-driver can do the trick (i use it to acronis my USB drives). But since you don't mention why you need this ability, I will warn that this does not allow you to install and boot Windows 7 from an USB device. If that is your goal, there are methods for that, you might want to check out the Universal HDD image project over at boot-land.

Gotcha, I edited my post to reference using the VMTools that come with the freeware VMware player. Please delete my quote in your post before google crawls through it. Thanks. But still, I do not think that is an issue, as many VM appliances come pre-loaded with VMTools, and they are freely distributed by third-parties with full consent and support from VMware.com Good luck, it would still be interesting if someone found out if that solves the issue or not.

I don't see any "InstallFrom" section. See the sticky for greater details. Sorry for bad spacing, mixing two different snippets like this make the formatting look like junk. <ImageInstall> <OSImage> <InstallFrom> <MetaData wcm:action="add"> <Key>/IMAGE/NAME</Key> <Value>Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL</Value> </MetaData> </InstallFrom> <InstallTo> <DiskID>0</DiskID> <PartitionID>2</PartitionID> </InstallTo> <InstallToAvailablePartition>false</InstallToAvailablePartition> <WillShowUI>onerror</WillShowUI> </OSImage> </ImageInstall>

What about using the newer vmtools from freeware VMware Player that might provide forward compatibility to vmware server. I know the tools are backwards compatible, (version 6 tools works on VMware 7), but never tested using a newer tools version with an older VM product. it's worth a shot.

So you saying that you want to override the 'modal' nature of the shutdown dialog. That would likely require some DLL hacking. Not sure exactly which dll handles shutdown, nor do I know if that DLL is signed. What I mean by signed is that in windows 7 certain mission critical files contain a hash check that verifies if they have been tampered with or not. If they are digitally signed it would be harder to modify, if not impossible. How good are you with IDA ? First place you should check is winlogon.exe

There used to be a setting called AutoEndTasks and WaitToKillAppTimeout XP. Haven't tested on W7 myself (no issues with shutdown) but give it a go and report back. http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/199/

They are just looping through each top level domain until it finds a match. I haven't worked in telecom for over 8 years, so I'm a little foggy on the technicals, but back then there were far fewer TLD's and you could get lucky relatively fast. Nowadays with hundreds of TLD's, and billions of DNS request's per hour, it takes a little longer to accomplish. It still kind of works today, in windows 7 if I type 'microsoft' in firefox, it will take about 10 seconds to find it. versus the half a second it takes if I specify Microsoft.com. This is because my ISP can cache 'Microsoft.com' after the first user searches for it, and remember it for the next user. I am not sure that is the case with non-FQDN's. Aliases explain how you are able to only provide half the name 'mys' for mysite. Try typing 'microwesoft' in firefox address bar and tell me if it doesn't redirect you to Microsoft.com.

If you have a second computer available, you could try to do an offline installation using imagex from the WAIK. This basically does the boot.wim portion (which is causing your error) without having to actually boot from the DVD. Here is the syntax. Change the D:\Sources\Install.wim to match your DVD path, and change E: to match your SSD's drive letter. The '4' indicates imagex to install Windows 7 Ultimate x64. After the image has been laid on the SSD, then you can boot from the SSD and the installation should continue. Not the ideal solution, use it or don't, it's just an idea. imagex.exe /Apply D:\Sources\Install.wim 4 E: @Gosh, I don't think this is a driver issue. The fact that he was able to start the installation proves that the boot.wim could recognize the SATA controller. Normally missing drivers generates the 'no hard drives detected' error and stops the installation cold.

Not sure what you mean by p2p but usually readers and the media equate p2p with bittorrent/file-sharing. Here is a comprehensive list of all commonly known P2P bittorrent clients. A quick glance shows that most of them are programmed in c++, python, and/or java language. Take your pick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients Let me know if you were actually looking for something else. From a technical standpoint, many types of apps utilize a p2p architecture.

Explain a little more about this switch you make in the BIOS. I assume it's something new I haven't heard of yet. How does it work and what advantage does it offer. Honestly it sounds like a disadvantage if you ask me. Older motherboards do not require going into the BIOS and can dual boot between x86/x64 using nothing but the Windows BCD. Second question, is your BIOS partition aware. Normally the BIOS can select the HDD that boots and the HDD MBR takes over from there. How does that work on your Mobo, is it capable of bypassing the MBR and directly loading the secondary partition ?

net user administrator Can you run this command for me and tell me what comes up in the 'local group membership' line. It wouldn't be too hard for a virus to change your group membership. Being Administrator isn't much use if you are not in the 'Administrators' local group. Ideally, this is what you want to see near the end of the command. Local Group Memberships *Administrators You know the saying, where there is smoke ..... Any chance you can take the HDD offline and run your scan from a different computer or winPE. This way any rootkits are not loaded into memory and hiding from your scanners.

partition, schmartition, that is the old way of doing things. Just an FYI, it is now possible to do this without creating a second partition, via the boot from VHD option. Check it out before you decide. See Sticky or a manual with pic's Oh, and welcome to MSFN by the way.

No, all current windows OS come with a version of Windows installer (WI). The newer versions of "WI" are only needed if you try to install an MSI that says it cannot be installed without it. Newer versions may allow developer's easier/better control over their installation, but it's nothing special from a non-technical end-user POV. IMO, no need to waste your time downloading it.

Step 1) Remove all your HDD from the machine - temporarily (IMPORTANT remember which sata port each HDD goes with) Step 2) Install your SSD - This should be the only drive in the machine. (IMPORTANT use different sata port than the ones from your RAID) Step 3) Install Windows 7 - It takes cares of everything SSD related (disables pagefile, readyboost, SSD alignment, etc) Step 4) Install your RAID drivers into Windows 7 Step 5) Power down, re-install both RAID drives (in exact same SATA ports as before) Step 6) You are done, power-up. The install is completely on SSD, self-contained. As for the temp files and other things, that can be done after installation.

You might need to edit your "ImageGroup" setting. Search Unattend.chm (from WAIK) for greater details. I assume it has to match what you used when you created your images in WDS. <InstallImage> <ImageGroup>My IMAGE GROUP</ImageGroup> </InstallImage>

Good catch, based on the sample I think we change this line in your WDSClient.xml <ImageName>Windows Vista Enterprise</ImageName> to <ImageName>Windows 7 Enterprise</ImageName>

While yes, network issues could be at play, first I'd want to see what you have running on start-up, can you use Autoruns and see what is really going on when you boot-up.

I tell you what, send a PM to arwidmark (the author of this book), he is a member here. If anyone knows off the top of their head, he will. Otherwise, you should just try running it and report back any errors and we will help on a case-by-case basis. For all we know, we don't need to change anything.

Did you already try burning your ISO at the slowest possible speed. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproinstall/thread/9ac8cda3-498d-4bc2-b2a6-a1c99b0b1523

That proves it is not a group policy thing, whether or not you have a rootkit is an entirely different matter. Give Sophos a shot.

Already been answered, please read a little closer. In short, you only need 2 XML files, the one you already have (which is your OS/Image specific XML), and the WDSClient.xml sample file I mentioned. Report back after you have tested the sample WDSClient.xml, and have followed the procedure as outlined in Cluberti's link. Here are the steps in case you are unable (or unwilling) to follow Cluberti's link.

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