Takeshi

the reg and txt should be just inside the $OEM$, not in any other folder.

There're many places (registry and startup folders) where startup programs can place their shortcuts. I don't recommend a blanket deletion of HKLM Run key, because some hardware related utils and AV/firewall use that key. Some programs use HKCU and some HKLM while others startup folders. It's best to find out exactly what to delete first from a test installation. The RunOnce key if present deletes itself after the first run anyway.

The poster has XP Pro. If he gets XP HE I don't think he can just install over it (upgrade installation). I know you can't logon if the grace period for WPA has passed, but I haven't seen anyone saying that non-legit Windows can't logon. So it looks like the poster's main problem is the WPA.

What I'm saying is, do not reboot the PC immediately after patching at night. This way, you won't have the Legal Notice to deal with. I was hoping that after patching, you could still get the PCs to hibernate or standby while logged on. When the workers come in the morning, they can manually reboot the PCs. That's one workaround I can think of. EDIT: on further thought, I still think shutting down after patching is the simplest thing to implement. When the workers come in the morning they can reboot the PCs. That doesn't actually power down the monitors - I'm not aware that there's any other way but to physically press the power button - but at least you don't get the screen burns.

Read the whole article, esp. the bit that says RESOLUTION. Open IE or another btowser, paste this URL directly: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=281679

Now I understand the situation a bit more. Would it be possible to delay reboot after patch deployment so that hibernation can kick in overnight? I'd avoid screen savers if possible as they use more CPU and generate more heat. Leaving the legal notice aside, I'm not sure if you can power off the monitor from Windows. You can turn off the video display but the monitor is still powered on.

If I remember correctly, kernel dump requires the pagefile to be set appropriately.

try this

If you look inside an MUI CD, you'll find the corresponding language folder. Look inside and you'll find i386 and inside many MU_ files and others. Once installed, some are found inside the MUI folder under the corresponding language. I don't know in detail the MUI technology, but it looks like that it uses the English core binary and adds the corresponding language DLLs when you install the language MUI. Since the technology is only based on English, it looks too ambitious for you to attempt to make an MUI pack based on Chinese. It's not as simple as converting a standalone program's language.

Are you actually talking about the Start Menu scrolling? If so, can you post the registry file you've made, assuming you want to import it during an unattended installation. And explain how did you import it.

Autologon has nothing to do with activation. Even if you need to activate Windows, you have a grace period to do it so whether you logon manually or autologon after installation is not relevant. I believe (though I haven't the need to do it) that you no longer can use the internet to activate but others can verify this.

I don't quite follow: why would the users need to restart their workstations if they're not there to click OK on the legal notice? The machines aren't doing anything useful if not logged on, so why not just shut them all down, locally or remotely?

I've just tried googling the hardware but it's taking too long. If it supports USB boot device you could use an ext. CDROM. If it supports PXE network boot you could use RIS. If it were mine, I'd simply replace the faulty ROM.

I don't know what the average is but 27s is pretty good! Certainly better than mine! The graph shows prefetching is taking 17s to accomplish. What's your prefetch setting? There's a gap between video and shell, not sure why.

You've seen some people talking about removing IE here and elsewhere but that is unlikely to be a balanced view of the whole situation. I'd say that people who choose to keep IE (including myself) just don't normally say anything. So you only hear about people who remove IE and that's biased sampling. If you use VLM, then the issue of WPA doesn't arise. For other versions, I suggest you do a search on the forum. As to why updates keep appearing, it usually is some fault in the way you apply them but it can happen with specific updates. Again, various members have asked questions here before. The WGA and WGA notification issues are a bit sensitive here...

SP2 contains all pre-SP2 critical updates. The MSFN method lets you download the boot.img file. In fact, the file on the hologram CD is called MICROSOFT CORPORATION.IMG. There's no need to rename it if you extract it. I don't quite know why people rename it.

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On what basis do you claim "most leave out IE"? Have you done a survey? The issues of WPA and update integration have no direct connection to IE but have all been discussed here before.

Not having a reply from ping request and not being able to access shared folders are two different problems. Just saying "a PC running XP on a network" is too vague. It helps to know more. Also, how have you set up the folder sharing permissions.

It looks as though in the process of replacing the CD-RW cable: 1. The new cable is faulty or not connected/configured properly. 2. You might have unplugged the HD's cable too. 3. The BIOS now detects something has changed and prompts you to enter setup. It may also have changed its boot sequence. 4. Now it can't find a CD-ROM nor a network boot device to boot from, nor a HD. It's possible that the old cable is not faulty, but the MoBo. I'd do what the others have said above, but I'd instead connect the HD to primary master, CD-RW to secondary master, DVD to 2° slave.

I don't know what else to say, except that installing the necessary drivers and controllers at the outset is taken for granted in any hardware problem. It's worth reading the MoBo manual too. If it comes with a CD then don't just ignore it. As to why it takes long to load, you haven't said how long is long and without some monitoring (like what Bootvis does) your guess is as good as mine.

The cause could be a corrupt profile in the registry. You could try logging in with another account and see. If the above doesn't help you could try system restore or a ghost backup.

Thanks for the info. I'll have a look.

Or you could experiment with saving the txt file as unicode, which is what happens by default anyway in some localised versions of XP, like CJK.