jleonard78

gai-jin: I'll try your suggestion. I guess I just didn't take it with that approach. Sometimes I tend to forget I can tweak the heck outta stuff with the registry. My brain doesn't always realize alternate approaches to the problem, also I guess because nobody else had mentioned the problem. The only thing that might be tough is finding all the necessary registry keys. Although, I bet if I uninstall NVE on my personal pc, reinstall with Ad-Watch enabled...I could easily get a list of what reg. settings it modifies. If worse comes to worse, I'll just use a taskkill, I guess, to terminate the nve2xxx install exe. I bet it is hanging because eventhough I told it /nolicence, it is still looking for a response to it's dialog. I sure hope reg settings prevent it from trying to use that last screen...oh I could kill Ahead for this though.

I did some searches before posting, I haven't had much luck. I've only had limited success with stuff posted here, if it was also at the MSFN Guide. Everything I've followed in his guide has (with this exception) worked flawlessly. I guess I'll just have to look for another approach...

I used the method at the MSFN Unattended homepage, working from the redistrubited version of the msi. Everytime I run the command netfx.msi /qb, it starts to run fine, then gives me an error prompt, saying it can't find disk 1 or something similar. No matter what I click, it won't install. It's p***ing me off too because I need .net Framework for one of my other programs, or it won't install! I also tried copying files ot the hard drive after the new PC was set up, and then using a DOS prompt to do netfx.msi /qb, still the same problem! It doesn't do this on my own computer. I'm losing patience fast!

I ALMOST got everything working with what Joe User 99 posted... Setup.exe /SILENT /NO_UI /SN=XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX /WRITE_SN /NOLICENCE /NOREBOOT The problem is, the install locks up! I waited minutes one time, it never finishes responding. I end up having to reboot the computer, and it picks up and starts installing the next program. Or, I can CTRL+ALT+DEL and kill nve21212.exe and it will keep installing my other stuff. Either way this is annoying though, and not very much "unattended"! What's weirder, is installing NVE with these switches on my regular computer, works! But everytime I try it on a new pc, it never fails to hang.

Yes I have that flag set properly. I've been using these types of cd's for months, and have gone through several iterations of edits to the WinNT.sif file. I have always had the OEM preinstall set to yes. Unfortunately, I don't think when you run the setup from inside Windows, that it uses the parameters to process the winnt.sif file. Is there maybe a way to edit the autorun menu and have the command do this?

You can join the computer to a domain easily, as well as add users. My experience thus far, however, has seen the $OEM$ folder not processed. I haven't narrowed yet if it's just the upgrade installs or if the bare installs though, so take it with a grain of salt. Anyhow...here is a copy/paste of the section to add in in WinNT.sif for joining a domain. It has worked flawlessly for me at work thus far. [identification] JoinDomain=<DOMAIN NAME> DomainAdmin=Administrator DomainAdminPassword=<Admin Password> As for adding users...the original MSFN Unattended page has some good information on that, and it works fairly well. (everything I've used from those guides works perfect) http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/autologon.htm There's just a few slight differences to make to your cmd file. It all takes some familiarity with your command line stuff for WinNT kernel. First command in the file is the one to add the user. If you want it to process the account from a domain instead of locally, you need the /domain switch. So instead of: net user John asdf1234 /add You would use net user John asdf1234 /add /domain For the password prompt, instead of specifying one in the text file, you can use * in place of the actual password. Similarly, for the second line net localgroup Administrators John /add A /domain at the end will process the command from the domain. If you use roaming profiles, however, you will most likely not want to use the "localgroup" command What good would that do? Instead, removing local from the command (net group xxx), should work. They use the same switches and options. All of this depends on just how your network is set up. Also, you most likely won't want maxpwage to be set to unlimited. I assume you have passwords expire every x days? So change: accounts /maxpwage:unlimited to something like net accounts /maxpwage:45 for a 45 day expiration. I HIGHLY recommend playing with these commands first on a machine already installed, to make sure you get the right set of commands that set things up just right for your network setting.

By "System32" stuff, I mean copying over the System32 folder in $$. In it is OEM information for our company, and cmdow. As for the other thread you posted, I read through that one before posting here. I didn't get any information out of it.

I've had problems with this before, and wondered if anybody had a solution. Initially, the first time I upgraded a previous OS to WinXP with my unattended disc, it didn't copy over any of the stuff in the OEM folder (and thus didn't install all the apps). It's happened again and I figured by now, it's probably just because the timeline for an "upgrade" install is different. However, I still would REALLY like to know if there's a way to get such an install to process all the OEM folder stuff, including the applications but also the System32 stuff, etc. I used to think it would have to, because it was still processing the WinNT.sif (since the whole install never prompted me for anything), eventhough I always had to enter in the product key. Now that I think about it though, I'm pretty certain that it probably doesn't process the WinNT.sif. It just doesn't prompt me for settings because it "upgrades" from the previous OS's settings. So any help someone could lend to get an "upgrade" install to run more smoothly? I hopefully won't have to ever run too many but would love to learn more about the timeline and processes for an "upgrade" install.

I apologize if there's already enough information in the forums somewhere on this, but so far I haven't been able to find it. Everything I've seen describes how to put multiple Windows versions on 1 disc, or multiple Linux versions, but what about a bootable disc that has the install for your favorite version of Windows and apps, and the install for your favorite distro. of Linux? For people like me who use both considerably, it would truly be an boon to have such a disc. If it could be done, a hint on how to get started would help me. I can probably figure it out if I was sure where to start. I guess maybe it would be similar to emulating a "boot menu" program in the bootable sector? If so then it's a matter of whether or not any Linux "boot menus" would work, or would you have to use the Windows boot menu thingie like you might with a hard drive, and tweaking the Linux entry? Thanks.