RogueSpear

By the very nature of how Windows installs a given device, you already are sort of keeping the drivers. For instance when you plug in and install a webcam you will need to feed the vendor's CD into your drive in order to load up the drivers. If you unplug the web cam, the drivers will still be there. The big difference I suppose is that you can select "Uninstall" from the right click menu in device manager. Although I'm not totally certain that would even delete all of the driver files or not.

Like I said, I used the original .msi file. I wonder why the author didn't do this himself (especially since he's about to be a Microsoft developer).

Like Fencer128, I stick to regular RIS installs as RIPrep has given me nothing but grief. What I can tell you is that for regular flat RIS installs, Bashrat the Sneaky's mass storage driver integration does indeed work. You may want to see if you can follow his method to shoehorn the drivers in there. Now I know you say that RIPrep works well for you and I don't wan't to appear as though I'm "selling" anything, but a properly constructed flat image setup on a modern PC probably takes about an hour from beginning to end in my experience. And that's with all of the software installing from group policy too. Maybe sometime when you have an opportunity, you may like to check it out.

Update - 20060303 Updated AutoGordianKnot to V2.27 My installer for SPTD puts the genuine SPTD installer executable inside %SystemRoot% just for the purpose of uninstalling it. I forget what the command line argument is, but it's easy enough to get with a /? switch. So to answer your question, there really is no need for a switchless uninstaller.

Nope, for years now I've always entered the BIOS and simply disabled the IDE controller until after setup is finished. It definately reminds you how far things still need to improve.

I always have this happen to me in VMware. Doesn't matter is it's a CD or RIS install either. I never did bother to investigate the problem, rather I simply added a folder delete line in one of my post setup scripts. Sometimes I just need to take the path of least resistance as time is so short lately.

It does not. And that did catch my attention. An idea that I had was to create seperate printer driver packs by manufacturer - Canon, Epson, HP, etc. If the printer driver packs start to develop and you had all of them in one pack, you'd be looking at a several hundred megabyte 7z file before too long. I would even go so far as to say with HP, there might even be two seperate packs. One for ink and one for laser. I really can't believe how many printers that company has released and that they couldn't consolidate driver support a little better.

Removed

The Desktop Sidebar issue is something that was also brought to my attention over at RyanVM's forums. Personally, I am only able to duplicate the problem on a computer that has an nVidia video adapter I don't quite get that. Just a little background for those interested: the Desktop Sidebar installer is not a repack like most of my installers. It's the original .msi file with plugins and skins injected into it. In due course of troubleshooting the issue I made an installer with the original .msi file and got the same error (on a laptop with an nVidia Go). So it seems to work for some and not others. My suggestion is that if you want to be on the safe side, install it from RunOnceEx.

Inside the .inf file should be one or more CopyFile sections that list out the files the .inf will look for. You're right, you will need the .cat file, though it may not be listed anywhere in the .inf file.

Got the boot image directly from my XP CD and that boots up a DVD+R DL just fine for me.

UltraISO is exactly what I've been using. It's the best out there, but that isn't saying a whole lot. It's got some issues all it's own. It's getting better all the time and they do update it frequently..

I assume you're installing a driver set that autoinstalls a proprietary management utility? Like Broadcom for example.

Bookmarked. What a sweet bit of information. Thanks for the post

Posted this already:

Just to let all of you know, QuickTime Alternative 1.69 sucks just as bad 1.68. It's also based on QuickTime 7.0.4. The older 1.67 still works just fine. The installer I made is fine, it's the actual release that is terrible. @Jedi82, the .cab addon downloads are for use with either RyanVM's Integrator or nLite. The cab file actually contains the exact same switchless silent installer that is available as a download. The cab file just contains instructions so that RVM/nLite know to place the installer in the svcpack directory and make the appropriate entry in svcpack.inf.

I posted a GUIDE here not that long ago. It could have been better, could have been more detailed, but again we have this time issue. It's funny though because I had no less than two dozen people send me PM's requesting such a guide. So I posted the guide and figured that something with that amount of room for error would surely generate tons of questions, suggestions, and so forth. But it completely bombed. I don't know if that's because people figured they could just wait for me or someone else to release something or if the guide truly sucked. Hopefully we can get a few people on board to start making these things. Shark007 has made some nice installers which he keeps right up to date. Maybe godan has a flare for these too.. Now seeing that I did post a guide, if you can figure things out and work through problems, you should be able to make your own installers. If anybody runs into problems making one, just send me a PM. Don't send me a PM asking how to make one from scratch - that's what the guide is for

You may have better luck setting the resolution from RunOnceEx using NirCmd. I've always found that work when the settings in WINNT.SIF won't.

Update - 20060313 Added iTunes V6.0.4.2 Updated Real Alternative to V1.48 Updated QuickTime Alternative to V1.69 Updated VirtualDub to V1.6.14 Build 24415 Updated Winamp to V5.21 ** ANNOUNCEMENT ** I am going to be discontinuing this thread soon. It's been fun and I'm glad that a LOT of you have gotten some use out of these installers, but this is starting to take up entirely too much of my time. It's cutting into my real life just a bit too much. It's also seriously hampered my efforts to get serious about programming. A good deal of these installers I have to maintain for work, clients, etc. But a lot of them I don't. Making the .cab addons and everything involved with keeping the thread up to date involves time that I simply don't have anymore. I haven't decided when I'm going to wipe it all out, but it will probably be sooner rather than later. So get everything you want to get from here now, because I'm not going to be emailing out any special requests. Thanks to everyone who wrote with words of gratitude and thanks to those who gave me some pointers and pointed out flaws in my work. It all helps to make better installers. Great work Maybe you can help to make up where I am leaving off. What exactly are you basing that statement on? I've made installers using both and really fail to see any difference in their execution. Well when you decompress the downloaded file you get a switchless silent installer and a VBscript. You can always delete the .vbs file if you like and just use the installer however you see fit. Perhaps I'm not quite understanding what you mean.

Anything is crashable given the right code. Ostensibly, if you were running antivirus, antispyware, and were using DEP hardware, the files wouldn't have been corrupted. If you're running as root in any OS this can happen. You can only go so far in protecting people from themselves.

What I had been thinking was something along the lines of LinkLogger. I don't know off hand if they ever developed a version for D-Link routers. I've used LinkLogger extensively with Linksys routers and it works wonders. This may be a dumb question, but that D-Link doesn't support syslog does it?

To be totally honest with you, I always use RVM with my RIS images. Wayyy back when I used to use the /integrate method, but really it's an inferior way to get your installs up to snuff. Not only does the install take a lot longer, but then you wind up with a lot of extra files floating around on each workstation. It's just unnecessary. The method behind Ryan's integration is completely and totally solid. And along the way, it's matured a lot. Version 2.0.4 which is due out probably in the next week has gone through a lot of testing by a variety of people. If you want to use it on a RIS image though, you might want to do yourself a favor and use either RISult or AutoRIS. If you want to use the BTS Driver Packs and are not familiar with how to set it up manually, use RISult.

That's sweet I really wasn't looking forward to tackling this one. I always make things way more complex than they need to be. Thanks for the link and proggy. EDIT: And I just KNEW it was going to be one of those weird rundll32.exe command lines. Those things drive me nuts. Do you have a link to a comprehensive list of the rundll32 command lines?

I don't think that you would, however if you want to make money off of it, you should seriously consider finding an appropriate .com domain name. If the name you want is already taken by someone and you go register the .org version of that name, you'll end up having a lot of folks going to the .com accidentally. Some people just don't listen so carefully, so if in passing you say go to my web site makemoney.org, they make just hear .com or just out of habit type in .com. This ended up happening to someone I know and he later went through a lot of grief notifying people that he had changed it.

This may be totally impossible for you, but would it be possible to simply locate the computer in a locked closet or something?