Thinkster

Thanks JBM & Spiritpyre That's good information for me to keep in mind. I will be working on putting all the HKCU tweaks into a .reg file called from CMDLINES.TXT because I would like those tweaks to be applied to all users.

That's what I figured the "SID" is unique on each install. That being the case, can something like REG QUERY or FIND STR be used in a .bat file to find the unique SID and store that in a variable that can be used later in the same bat file? And what is the T-12 Point?

I've searched the Forums, done registry compares, etc. and nothing seems to work to do what I need to do. I wan't to ADD the Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete buttons to the toolbar in EXPLORER (Yes Explorer NOT Internet Explorer) It seems that this customization is specific to each user and not a global setting (which I would like it to be) and it also appears to be computer specific. I've exported the following: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams] [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams\Desktop] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams\Desktop] HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-73586283-1957994488-1708537768-1003\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\{710EB7A1-45ED-11D0-924A-0020AFC7AC4D} Then tried importing these on another machine and NO GO! I've noticed on a different machine that the number following S-1-5-21 in HKEY_USERS is different, however the "{710EB7A1-45ED-11D0-924A-0020AFC7AC4D}" part is still the same. I'm thinking that I need some sort of script or .bat file to hunt in the registry for an entry in HKEY_USERS that starts with S-1-5-21 and ends in -1003 then procede to the \Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\{710EB7A1-45ED-11D0-924A-0020AFC7AC4D} Path to add the data. Any ideas??

Acronis has a program called True Image 8 that will do this. It will create a 'Safe Zone' (hidden partition) to put your image and give you an option to modify your boot file to add the "Press F11 to Enter recovery mode". I haven't actaully tried the recovery yet but I successfully made an image in the Safe Zone. And that image is not seen from Windows Explorer.

Yes the UnattendSwitch = No did the trick.. I get the "Let's take a few moments..." screens which I want because I want to be able to put the user(s) name in at this point rather then adding them through User Manager in Control Panel. I think I'm going to have to use my original winnt.sif as I think nLite messed up some of my other preferences as well.. I was hoping that after I put a user name like "John" and click next and go through the remaining stuff, that it would autologon to 'John's" account and run my PostInstal.bat which installs applications and customizes a few things. It seems to autologin to the Administrator account and does the customization of only that account so John's account doesn't have what I intended it to have. Does this sound like a winnt.sif issue?

You were right!!! The **** "&" was messing it up! I changed it to ECHO ** Installing Spybot Search n Destroy *** and it works fine now! None of my other ECHO statements have and "&" following them and since this is the first time installing Spybot I had never seen this before.. Thanks!

I want to always have "Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete" buttons show in the Explorer toolbar without having to manually add them for each user account. I tried doing a registry compare before and after I manually added the buttons, and it looks like it made changes in: [HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1644491937-688789844-839522115-1003\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar] "{710EB7A1-45ED-11D0-924A-0020AFC7AC4D}" but when I export that and apply it on another machine, it doesn't do anything... Is there another way to go about this?

hmmm. I thought I had cut & paste my data from winnt.sif from my previous build, but I guess I didn't save it. It appears the UnattendSwitch= is now at "yes" and was at "no" before. Hopefully this is what it is... back to the "burning board"

On my previous custom builds, After Windows has finished installing and is "logging on" the first time, it would play some animated screens and say "Let's tak a few moments setting up your computer" then would allow me to enter user names and choose to Register with Microsoft and check for internet connection, etc... Now I have slipstreamed SP2, Ryan's VM Post SP2 Hotfixes, BTSDrivers and have used the new nLite 1.0beta. I no longer get the "set up your computer" screens like I would prefer to have. How do I get this back??

I don't know what is is... Everything else installs fine in my .bat file. Here's a little more of the text it gives when I run my postinstal.bat : ** Installing Spybot Search & Destroy ** Spybot Search 'D' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file 'Destroy' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. So I'm guessing Spybot itself has the problem and is trying to run or scan or something...

Am I doing something wrong as I get the following message: " 'D' is not recognized as an internal or external command " and " 'Destroy' is not recognized as an internal or external command " my script is: start /wait %systemdrive%\packages\spybot\spybotsd14.exe /VERYSILENT ECHO Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4 Installed! ECHO. what gives??

I'm wondering the same thing as with my previous custom XP build, I never got those WFP error pop ups...

I actually just did this tonight for someone. They had bought (2) 250GB Drives that were SATA I booted up the PC with Hiren's 6 and with Partition Magic 8.02, I was able to format both of them quickly in NTFS as FAT32 it would only let me format 199GB. Formatting with NTFS gave me around 237GB. I too used to use the Windows ME boot disk to do my partitioning & Formating, but Partition Magic is much faster plus you get a friendly GUI.

I have several clients that I've created "factory restore" images for using Drive Image 7. I accidentally left my Product CD in a machine while doing a job out of state, but the customer claims they didn't find my CD. Anyways, I have the program installed on my machine, but I don't see any option for creating a boot CD And I need to do a system restore for someone on Tuesday and I don't wan't to have to reinstall Windows XP and all his applications & hardware drivers all over again when I have the Restore image on his "E" drive. Is there anyway I can manually create a boot cd or some multi-boot CD that has PQRE on it??

Well, Thanks to Bâshrat the Sneaky's Driver Pak and batch files, I was finally able to get this Dell 8400 to load my custom XP Pro build. Before, All I would get was the BSOD with a STOP 0X000007B error. So Good job BTS! Thanks for all your hard work!

Running into the same problem with a Dell 8400. It uses the Intel 82801FR SATA Controller and I have the necessary files on Floppy. The first time around when pressing F6, it does read the floppy and lets me choose between AHCI or RAID. Then when it's ready to copy files to the drive it says it can't copy iastor.sys or any of the files that it had seen before on the floppy. I even tried making a custom build of XP with these files in the appropriate places and entires in winnt.sif and TXTSETUP. But still no go!! I guess the answer is to stick with an established technology (IDE) and forget this SATA / RAID crap which just creates more problems/ incompatibilities!