RogueSpear

It sounds as though the SAV install didn't completely go through. What's happening, I think, is that the shell extension for "Scan for virus" in Explorer didn't get it's registry entries imported. So the question would be how did you install SAV? If you deployed it using Group Policy, then make sure the source is available on the network - although I have to say I deploy SAV through Group Policy all the time and never have had an .msi window appear for it. Sounds like something got corrupted or there's something missing from the install source.

Sometimes when using a .cmd file in the config.txt, I've found you need to preceed some of the commands with "start /wait". Sometimes you don't though. Trial and error usually gets you what you need though.

Perhaps a seperate .reg file. I have a feeling there might be a few people that would take exception to a blocklist that also changes their browser configuration. But, yea that might be a pretty good idea

While I'm certainly not a fan of using a hosts file, it does have it's place. First of all, the block list contained here only works with IE and anything that would rely on IE (OE and Outlook most notably). Some people will say it's "useless" since they use Firefox. Well here's a newsflash - in many corporate environments Firefox is not an option. It's virtually unmanageable. Internet Explorer is quite easy to tighten up in an Active Directory environment, making it every bit as secure as Firefox. In fact I would argue that you can make it more secure in that type of setting. Using Group Policy, an admin can let loose with all of his/her Napoleon-like instincts. Back to to the comparison - a hosts file will block communications to a particular domain for everything, not just the web browser. The problem, as was debated previously, is the performance penalty associated with using a large hosts file. IMHO the sheer management of such a file is another issue. I'm much more inclined to use a small proxy, like the free eDexter, which uses wildcards to achieve this result. And with a little bit of scripting and some creativity, it's not too bad to deploy either. So for those people who use Internet Explorer (or Maxthon for that matter) and need a quick and dirty solution, this gives them some pretty decent initial protection. Now if you do decide to go forward and use this block list, then you should take a peek at the settings in Internet Explorer's Restricted Sites security zone. The default settings, while not atrocious, are not optimal either. They can be set to be even more restrictive.

Oh man, I forgot to supply the driver One thing you may notice is that Panasonic supplies many many video drivers or each model of laptop they put out. When I get in the office tommorow morning, I'll upload the appropriate driver and link to it. I ended up downloaded 4 different driver sets from them until I found the one that would install.

You should always generate your RIS image using an XP SP2 CD. AutoRIS' implementation of BTS integration is rather clumsy at best. I can only hope that his new slipstreamer is released before too long. I've been very hesitant to dedicate a lot of my dwindling spare time to making a smooth implementation of something that's going to be totally obsolete at some point soon. I've found the easiest method to be 2. I would imagine methods 1 and 2 would both work just fine, but a Method 1 integration into a RIS image would be a real pain in the neck the way things are now.

This has been debated to a nauseating degree already. It's comparing apples and oranges. Use both if you like.

I would suggest taking a peek over at BookPool. Currently they're offering 46% off all MS Press titles which is the publisher that first came to my mind as far as what you're looking for.

You see that's one heck of a qualification. Considering how many clients, friends, and family are getting laptops with built in WiFi, I really consider it essential that I find a good solution. I recently read an article in PC Magazine that was a general commentary on the state of security with a primary focus on home computers and users. One of the guy's biggest complaints was that software based firewalls don't come with nearly enough applications predefined in it's database. For the more knowledgeable user this isn't too big of a deal, but most of the computers I set up are going to be used by people who don't know a whole lot about this stuff. And realistically speaking, they should have to know a lot about it either. I've been driving a car now for almost 20 years and I don't feel it necessary for me to know how to replace the transmission or perform a tune up. In the end I've grown to be far less concerned with just how secure a firewall actually is and far more concerned with it's ability to run silent and never ask the user any confusing questions. You could have the most rock solid, proven secure firewall ever devised and it wouldn't be worth crap if it needs to be disabled all the time or if the end user continually clicks on "Allow" every time something pops up because they honestly don't know what else to do. This pretty much describes my experiences with Symantec's Desktop Firewall (the corporate product). From what I could tell, it's pretty secure and has some solid technology behind it. It does have some serious bugs and shortcomings, but overall it's rather tight. The problem is that no matter what I do, I cannot preconfigure the thing to reliably allow safe traffic. I've never had it allow unsafe traffic unless the user allowed it themselves, but I always have had problems with it blocking legit traffic. The final deal breaker was Gmail. You simply need to completely disable the firewall for Gmail to function properly. Well this isn't very secure is it? So I finally decided that took far more effort than it was worth and tossed the whole bloody thing out. Symantec has gotten about $18,000 from me over the last five years. Now they've managed to throw away a good $3,000 per year in subscriptions with me.

It came from here: http://www.thetechguide.com/howto/setuppini.html

It's not quite unlimited. It's great deal more than WINNT.SIF, but not unlimited. Something like 64kb is what I'm thinking.

Update - 20060303 Added DivX Web Player V1.0

Did you actually mean the .msi file? The cab addon seems fine, but the .msi file link was pooched. All fixed now though. Thanks for the heads up.

If you go to my installer thread I made both a switchless silent installer and a cab addon for this. Totally silent and installable from svcpack.inf.

I wasn't threatening to ban you, as I obviously don't have the capability to do that. I don't have the desire to do that either. Just a little friendly advice as that type of personal attack is exactly what got you booted the first time around. And who was yelling anything besides you?

This is from post #1 in this thread. So I don't see why on earth I would go out of my way to make an installer for a "language pack". I just made this post less than a week ago. There are other posts in this thread that I have made where I clearly stated that I will not be taking any requests. Not trying to be an jerk, just the simple fact that I'm way overextended as it is. @godan, I couldn't have asked anyone to explain it better. @muiz, so what are you looking to get banned for a second time?

Not sure if this would fall within the Rage 128 / 128 Pro driver set or not. Also included in the hwid file is an unsupported ESS Allegro PCI Audio. hwidsCF_48.txt

Have you tried adding REBOOT=ReallySupress to your command?

It almost sounds driver related as well. Except for the part where you say it works from some places and not others. I've found that with RealTek NICs, you must use the Microsoft included drivers for older (3 yrs) models. Unfortunately, the HWIDs for the newest integrated NICs are not included in those and you must use the newest driver set. If I use the newest drivers with an old model, I get something very similar to what you described. It just hangs at the text mode portion where it says "Starting Windows XP" indefinately. This is certainly the kind of thing I've grown to expect out of RealTek, but I'm pretty disappointed to read everything in this thread regarding Intel. First Intel starts to put Yukon Marvel NICs on some of their mobos and now even some of their own NICs don't work properly. Great. I guess there's no longer a sure bet in our world.

One of my suppliers accidentally sent me a batch of units with SiS mobos I decided to give one a shot in the event that it would be satisfactory, figuring it would save me the hassle of returning all of them. Well I couldn't get it to DHCP for RIS at all even though the motherboard box had a flashy thing on it that proclaimed "PXE 2.0 Compliant!" Now it makes me wonder if that was a similar issue. I'll never know since I sent them all back for Intel based systems. I have to be honest, I never knew these things could be so tempermental.

Wow they reverted to a look almost reminicent of Windows Messenger V5. I like it. But still I'll be happier once A-Patch updates to support this version. Why do all of these IM people insist on cramming so much crap into the interface? These people could all learn a thing or two from Bitwise.

So I'm curious, would a board that won't properly RIS boot be considered defective enough for an exchange? You mentioned the timings being bad. Technically speaking the NIC works, just not for our purposes of performing a RIS install. Also, would the timings be configurable somehow? Back in the day when the 3Com 3C905 series was the gold standard, on some models you could program some of the options in the ROM to stick.

If the SPTD in Alcohol is the same as with DT, the switchless installer I made for the SPTD half of things also plops the original SPTD installer executable inside of %SYSTEMROOT% so that you can later uninstall it if need be. Installs from svcpack.inf just fine as well.

@BSRdr, you bring up a good point about trying more than one machine, but recalling that the NICs in question are not PCI, but rather PCIe, I have to wonder if PnP enumeration is performed the same. Fencer had brought this up earlier and I would tend to agree that something smells fishy with the drivers. Like perhaps they don't have perfect PCIe support built in.

The Group Policy templates are a godsend too. Finally Google has done something I've really been wanting.