dlevens

I am not sure if this is a Monday after long holiday brain fart or what, but I am questioning why I have been putting WPI in $OEM$\$1\Install\WPI on my unattended CD. Doing this of course copies WPI to C:\Install\WPI but why is this needed? Why not just run WPI from the CD by putting WPI where I put most of my install programs like %cdrom%\Install\WPI? I have a feeling this is because my install.cmd which is located $OEM$\$1\Install\install.cmd is not capable of calling WPI off the CD? Here is my code for install.cmd that kicks the whole thing off @ECHO OFF rem The following line hides the command window ... cmdow @ /HID ECHO. ECHO Calling WPI ECHO. start /wait %systemdrive%\install\WPI\WPI.HTA start /wait %systemdrive%\install\cleanup.cmd exit Thanks in advance for clearing this confusion up Dennis

Thanks, that is pretty much what I have been doing as well. It would be nice if there was a decent collection already built somewhere though. I have a pretty good one going now. I got so tired of looking at the same ones that come with XP that I had to do something! hehe Thanks, Dennis

cool well at least I am not going crazy. Grab the most reacent copy of winrar, use solid and locked archives and create sfx file and put all your commands in the run after. I have most of mine extracting to temp if I do not need to reuse the files, but for office installes etc I have it extract to C:\Support\Software\Office etc so the source files are left behind. Dennis

I cannot seem to find any good sites to get some good user account pictures for XP. Everywhere you go you find boot screens, logon screens and wallpaper but I just want some decent user account pictures (48 x 48) Any ideas where I can find some to download? Dennis

I must have a mental block because I still dont see your point. I too have many installs with up to 4 cmd lines, some I do seperate cmd1 cmd2 etc and some I just put all in a batch file and then call the batch file. Some I rar up and use winrar to self extract and run the commands. But none of this explains the need for a pre install sfx that needs to be hidden as blinkdt mentioned. I guess I dont follow what he is trying to do. Why would you need anything to install besides the 4 or 5 commands just because someone chose an app from wpi? Maybe you can explain this better because I just am not following this Dennis

Blinkdt, I am having a hard time tying to understand what you are trying to do that needs extra install files per application. What installer files are you needing? With my setup I have like 20 apps in my wpi and each one is a simple unattended install of each program and does not need extra installer files. They are just a check and go install. Curious why yours is different? Dennis

I think that would work for me as well. The idea being if someone selected office 2003 full install, then tried to select office 2003 word only then it would check work only and remove the check from office 2003 full install. If possible it would be even better if a user selected office 2003 full install then office 2003 word only would be greyed out. Dennis

I have one request that would save me and I think others a lot of time. It would be sweet if when the wpi is launched that it greyed out any items that are not available, with the option to have them greyed out or not shown at all. For example, I maintain many different wpi implementations, some on DVD with a ton of apps, some on CD. It would be nice to use the same wpi for all of them and then just delete the software programs that dont fit on my CD but still use the same wpi menu, since it would grey out those apps that are not available or even hide them. DONE Right now when I update my wpi I then have to go to each wpi config and make the same changes because if I just copy paste from my DVD to my CD implementation the apps are completely different since I can only fit a few apps on the cd compared to the dvd. If WPI would do an "if not exist" type thing for cmd1 then grey out and now allow it to be checked that would be sweet, then you could move wpi around so easily since the menu would only show the apps that were there. DONE, see cond[pn] property Just a thought. By the way I found the most useful way to run wpi is stand alone from a 1gb usb flash drive. I can fit about 90% of everything I install on it and I just double click on the drive letter and the autoplay kicks in and launches the menu. Great for testing as well. For a second suggestion it would be nice if I select one program that it disables the ability to check a few other programs for things like office where I have tranforms that install the full office, and some that only install a few parts. DONE Dennis

astalavista, I would love to get a copy of those last two images, I tried to click on them but the image does not display. Seems the links are messed? Dennis

when I tried it the absolute path stayed greyed out and the choice was on program files or I could change it to current folder. I am doing this in the sfx options area. I assume that if it works for you then even if you have program files checked if you use %variable% then that overides this? Dennis

Hmmm, well I tried to use %SystemDrive% in winrar but it does not support it. If I do not want to specify a drive letter then my choices are only current folder or program files. Dennis

hasi, Yeah I too am burning DVD, but have found that on most PCs that I need to rebuild for friends, family etc that they do not have a DVD Reader. CD is a safer bet for me. I will eventually make both, DVD for when I can use it and CDs for the rest. Plus even on DVD, its nice to keep applications small. For shrinking I used this program http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=16709 It is not very good and knowing exactly what files are safe to get rid of, so what I did was make a special MST just for this program. I knew at the most I would want word, excel, powerpoint and outlook so I made an MST that installed all 4 apps with every option checked. This way the shrinker read that mst and grabbed all those files. The actual mst in use are just the default options for each app. This way the source files copied to my C drive can handle any changes. Since I made my winrar exe using C:\ as the extract to path I did the same in the config file. But very good point. I will remake the winrar to use %systemdrive% and do the same for config. Dennis

hasi, I think we were on the same track, this is how I am trying it now: prog[pn]=['Microsoft Office 2003 (Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook)'] desc[pn]=['Installs Microsoft Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook.'] cmd1[pn]=['C:\\Support\\Applications\\Office2003\\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Unattended.MST /qb-'] dflt[pn]=['no'] cat[pn]=['Microsoft Office (Select one choice only)'] pn++ prog[pn]=['Microsoft Office 2003 (Word Excel PowerPoint)'] desc[pn]=['Installs Microsoft Word Excel PowerPoint'] cmd1[pn]=['C:\\Support\\Applications\\Office2003\\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=WordExcelPowerPoint.MST /qb-'] dflt[pn]=['no'] pn++ prog[pn]=['Microsoft Office 2003 (Word Excel)'] desc[pn]=['Installs Microsoft Word Excel'] cmd1[pn]=['C:\\Support\\Applications\\Office2003\\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=WordExcel.MST /qb-'] dflt[pn]=['no'] pn++ prog[pn]=['Microsoft Office 2003 (Word)'] desc[pn]=['Installs Microsoft Word'] cmd1[pn]=['C:\\Support\\Applications\\Office2003\\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=Word.MST /qb-'] dflt[pn]=['no'] pn++ The reason for raring it, is because it is 252mb, but when I winrar it then it is only 100mb. A huge savings in size. This way I can fit more apps on the CD. I also want to extract to the hard drive because if someone chooses to install word and excel and then needs powerpoint later the source is already on the hard drive. So going to add remove programs they can add or remove features for office. I used a shrink utility to take 690mb of office after slip streaming down to 252mb, then down to 100mb when compressing it in winrar. Dennis

What is the best way with WPI to do the following: I want to have 3 choices for Office 2003 Install: 1. Office 2003 (Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook) 2. Office 2003 (Word Excel PowerPoint) 3. Office 2003 (Word Excel) I have already made my transforms, and have winrar a self extracting exe that can handle all 3 transforms. I assume I would run cmd1 my winrar self extracting which is around 102mb and extracts 253mb to C:\Support\Applications\Office2003 Then cmd2 for option 1 would run a cmd file that would run the setup.exe and the correct transform file. How can I setup wpi so that if choice 1 is picked then choice 2 and 3 are greyed out? Dennis

Thanks, Good to know =- will remove a value. I already learned the hard way and killed my whole run key with [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] OOPS Dennis

I know this may seem odd, but I already know how to remove a registry key by making a registry file like this: test.reg Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] "DAEMON Tools-1033"="\"C:\\Program Files\\D-Tools\\daemon.exe\" -lang 1033" But what if I wanted to just remove a value? I tried something like this but cannot figure it out Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] -"DAEMON Tools-1033"="\"C:\\Program Files\\D-Tools\\daemon.exe\" -lang 1033" I know I can do this using reg.exe but since I am already importing a reg file using regedit /s test.reg was hoping to just do it there. Dennis

The /S worked perfectly but today I noticed that all this time quickpar has been installing silently but it does not make a folder for its shorcuts in the start menu. What it does is put the shortcut to the exe and uninstall in the root of the start menu. How do you silently install quickpar but still have it either not make shortcuts at all in the start menu or put its shortcuts in a quickpar folder in the start menu like it does for a manual install? So far I have tried /S and also /S /D="C:\Program Files\QuickPar" but both installs the shortcuts are in the root of the start menu. Dennis

That makes sense now why it was defaulting to drive D. D was in my registry. I replaced the win51 with win51ip so that it would work with my UBCD project. Everything is working now. I am sure somewhere in these many pages someone has maybe suggested an alternative way to get the drive letter, there must be a better way than looking for a file? Maybe vbs code or some small utility? Dennis

Detard, Thanks for the info. I will rebuild using the new config file. My hard drive does not have win51 at the root, but my cdrom does not either. My CD has this file WIN51IP Dennis

The latest version of wpi has a file adduser.vbs in the wscripts folder, what is this for? Also I get a javascript error "uid is undefined" when launching wpi.hta Lastly does anyone know how %cdrom% is determined? Because I keep getting an error that it is trying to find the files on drive D even though that is a hard drive, my cdrom is E. Also if I have two cdroms, it always defaults to the first cdrom, even if the cd is in the second. Dennis

I just followed the steps above from madmungo and they worked perfectly. One thing I found odd though was if I 7-zip all my driver folder seperatly then my drivers were around 50mb, but if I zipped up all the folders into one 7zip file then my drivers are only 35mb? Maybe because there are duplicate files and 7zip is smart enough to only add them once? To take advantage of that 15mb I need to figure out how to zip up all my driver folders so that when they are extracted they are extracted to the root of driverz. Right now all my folders like video, sound, network are extracted into C:\Driverz\Drivers\sound etc instead of C:\Driverz\sound. So to fix this I had to go into the sound folder and select all files and 7zip them into one 7zip called sound.7z but then I waste 15mb doing it this way. The last question I had was reguarding bashrat sneaky driver packs. I assume now that I have this process working that I can just download his packs and put them in the $OEM$\Driverz folder? Dennis

Is there a way to do this step without having to go into each of your driver folders and selecting all files then creating archive? Is there a way I can automate this like having 7zip make each folder the name of the .7z file? I went into my driver folder and selected all 15 folders and made one large 40mb .7z but as I guessed the files extraxt to C:\Driverz\Drivers\[all my folders] Ideally we want the files to extract to C:\Driverz\[all my folders] Maybe a batch file that can make the *.7z files for us? Dennis

email sent with completed .ima Dennis

I cannot get my quickpar to isntall silently. I tried /s and /verysilent as well as /verysilent /sp and nothing is working? Dennis

Milkymagic, Only the first CD is supposed to be bootable. CDs 2 on prevent this from happening since they are not bootable. If you are going to use a DVD or have a really small image that fits on one CD then you can remove the -rb from this line \ghost\ghost.exe -clone,mode=load,src=%image%,dst=1 -rb and then it wont reboot when it is done. You are right though, it would be much smarter to incorporate the press any key to boot to cd option, which probably is fairly easy but I have not looked into it yet. If you find the time to figure this out please share it with us, if I somehow find the time I will do the same. it_ybd, what you are describing is similar to what companies like IBM do. There is a hidden partition where an unattended install resides and pressing F11 allows you to boot to Microsoft PE type mini OS That can rebuild the pc. There is also some software that does something similar to this called rescue and recovery. This would be a nice way to rebuild a pc quickly but I have found the unattended install is so easy and fast that there has not been a need to pursue it yet. Dennis