RogueSpear

I've managed to repack Nero 6 and 7 with AdminStudio just fine. It's always been a bear of program to repackage, but it's mostly just a lot of labor. Especially version 7. It tooks hours and hours and fiddling and trial and error to nail down how Ahead was doing things. When I get a little caught up on things I'll strip out my reg info and post the lite and full packages over on my switchless silent installer thread.

I always install .NET 1.1 and J# 1.1 from svcpack.inf, then .NET 2.0 and J# 2.0 from RunOnceEx. I'll do a comparison of the .NET 2.0 installer I have posted here and what I'm using because I may updated it since (getting to be too many installers to keep track of).

I'm not saying it's always because of RealTek drivers. RealTek is simply the best example of poor hardware and poor drivers. While I think nVidia makes pretty **** powerful hardware, they're starting to give RealTek a run for their money on the lousy driver front. In circumstances where someone has the requisite knowledge to use the driver packs and there is a problem, it usually is because of a conflict between two or more pieces of hardware that refuse to play with each other or it's a device driver. Take all of the "old" systems that I support, two years old or more, and the driver packs works like a charm. Never an issue. The "new" systems I have issues with always have one thing in common - RealTek is involved somewhere. New laptops from Dell that use Sigmatel always install perfect. I also support three different generations of Panasonic ToughBook laptops for use in police cars. From the five year old units to the brand spanking new ones, no problems. If you want to guaranteed problems try out an nForce board with RAID, nForce NIC, etc. Want more examples? I could go on for days. There are times when BTS finds an issue that needs addressing with the driver packs. Any project of it's magnitude would. But usually, you can pin the problem down to about a half dozen different vendors. It's just like in police work. If you have a population of 150,000 people, it's going to be the same 400 that you're dealing with again and again. Five years ago I rarely ran into these kinds of issues. Mostly Diamond and S3. And look where they are now. My first experience with truly horrendous hardware and drivers was with Via But now it seems more and more people are willing to jump on that bandwagon. Remember the days when ATI was another way of saying BSOD? Well somebody over there learned a thing or two from that and now their drivers seem to be among the best (although the need .NET is not encouraging). EDIT: When I disable the RealTek sound in the BIOS the problems always go away. Perhaps it's the Intel and Gigabyte motherboards that I have had the misfortune of dealing with as opposed to what you have experience with, but I've been burned enough by those mobos and the laptops that have that crap in them too that I won't be taking anymore gambles on RealTek.

Flash 8 is in RyanVM's Update Pack and the hacked WGA is in my Update Pack Addon so I won't be making any installers for those. Shockwave I'll take a look at. I just need to get the msi file version of it.

Well I can tell you from first hand experience that no matter how you install RealTek drivers there will be problems depending on what other hardware is present. For that matter, the mere presence of RealTek drivers was partly responsible for blue screens if there was no suitable driver present for an Analog Devices sound adapter. What's that say about RealTek (and Analog Devices for that matter)? There is a combination of things at play here. First and foremost is sloppy driver design. To see what I'm talking about take a look at Mark Russinovich's blog over at SysInternals regarding the Sony Rootkit issue. He can explain device driver issues far better than I. Which leads to second major issue and that's Windows XP's implementation drivers themselves. Some of the problems allegedly will be fixed in Vista as Microsoft was able to see the problems as well and decided to do something about it. Obviously this doesn't help us out now or with Windows XP, but it is possible for people to author device drivers properly. Some just chose not to.

Take a peek around here and you'll see plenty of examples of blue screens with otherwise functioning hardware. My guess is that it's usually in the driver implementation.

Unfortunately they also tend to blue screen frequently even when you install them after setup if there is an nVidia video adapter present. RealTek's sound adapters (or drivers) have always been extremely tempermental for me, not just recently.

Ok, I was curious as this never shows up on Microsoft Update, even under the "Optional" section. Thanks for letting me know and thanks for the d/l link

The problem is by no means unique to RealCrap. In fact I can hardly think of a hardware vendor that is immune. The problem with half assed hardware design, and even worse driver development, has become so common now that I think the worst has yet to come. See if it were only RealTek, then other companies could point fingers and say "not us." But they can't do that. We wouldn't want to throw stones in a glass house would we? A complete lack of reliability and inexplicable blue screens are the reason why I haven't purchased or recommended a unit with an AMD processor in years. For years I relied on the Intel BX chipset, which had no integrated sound, video, or NIC. And then on the admittedly limited 815 chipset. Limited yes, but also very reliable. Well now Intel had taken a shine to RealTek and increasingly in Marvell for NICs. To make matters even worse nVidia has become a total Mickey Mouse operation. Their motherboard chipsets have always sucked in my opinion. What good does performance and long list of features do for you if you can't get the **** thing to work right. I mean for there to be direct conflicts between an nVidia video card and an nVidia motherboard chipset/RAID chipset is completely inexcusable. And they're only getting worse. They have a complete tin ear on this issue. So long as "reputable" web sites like AnandTech and Tom's Hardware keep on kissing the a** of every hardware maker out there, I doubt the situation will improve. The only bashing I've seen of late is AnandTech bashing ATI. Of all people too. ATI seems to be about the most stable video out there right now. But stability and quality don't count for anything with these stat whores. Only 3DMark scores and Unreal framerates. When is the last time you've read one single cross word about RealTek or nVidia on either of those websites? Never. If they ever did that would be the end of the freebies and prototype samples.

Update - 20051213 Added 7-Zip V4.32 Added Ethereal V0.10.13 Added Winamp V5.12 Fixed DVD Identifier V4.2.0 so that the shortcut is created in the proper subfolder Removed WinPcap in lieu of Ethereal. Updated AutoGordianKnot to V2.26 Updated FileZilla to V2.2.17a @mickmack, excuse my ignorance but what is this DirectX package for? Will it update DX on XP SP2 or is this for earlier operating systems?

I think that good practice is to disable any services that aren't necessary. In other words, if you can find a way to do what you want to do without those two services, do it that way. The other point is that UPnP introduces openings and security issues specifically when you have that warm and cozy feeling of being behind a Router/Firewall/NAT. Use it at your own risk.

The connectivity issues had to do with an Oracle database that has at most, about 12 simultaneous clients connecting to it. All of the clients were getting errors from the Oracle client itself, followed by an error in the custom application, that connectivity was interrupted. Being that I am not an Oracle guy, I called one in. Well he couldn't find the issue on his own. He called in a Linux guru since the database was running on Red Hat. Between the two of them, they definitively found that with UPnP and SSDP enabled, there were timing issues fouling up the connection to the database server. When I say "definitively" I mean that they actually conducted some in depth tests in order to document the issue. So it's probably not an issue will affect the majority of users out there, but I felt it was worth noting since who knows what else gets screwed up by this. As far as the security concerns go, they are many. In fact there are CERT bulletins out and the US DoD and NSA recommend disabling these services. If you do some Googling you'll find all kinds of interesting things. Here are some samples: One Two Now I realize that these are both dated from 2001, but it still holds true today, even with SP2. One could argue that I'm being a little too security concious, but when all of the major firewall vendors are still blocking the protocol in their default configurations, it's usually something to take note of.

It took me about a week to definitively figure this out... I have a computer at work that would go through a RIS install and two subsequent RunOnceEx reboots. But then after I would every last detail done, the computer would not reboot. At first I had to try booting like 5 times and it would finally boot up. Not good at all, but workable. Well then it got to where it wouldn't reboot no matter what. I then booted the unit to an ERD Commander CD to try and find the problem, but no luck there. Finally, because of my inherant distrust and disdain for RealTek, I disabled the RealTek HD in the BIOS and the computer has been fine ever since. I stuck an old SoundBlaster Live Platinum in there and it's happy. What I'm not so happy about is that the mobo (Gigabyte GI915GFM) only has two PCI slots to begin with. But wait! It gets better! This Gigabyte also has a RealTek NIC onboard, which I have found to be completely unusable. So I had to use the one remaining PCI slot with a 3Com NIC. Good thing there's 8 USB ports on this thing. Another computer, based on an Intel mobo, also has a RealTek HD integrated. The difference with that one is that it only has three audio jacks in the back where as the Gigabyte has six but they both report as RealTek HD. Anyhow, that computer boots up just fine everytime. The problem is that it blue screens after about 10 minutes of use. I've tried three different versions of driver, mix and matched video adapters, etc. The only solution is, once again, disabling the RealTek HD in the BIOS.

Just to let you know, I wouldn't recommend running these two services unless you seriously have a good reason to. Not only are there myraid of security concerns, but there's also connectivity issues with connecting to Oracle databases. Which in my mind means there could also be other connectivity issues I don't even know about.

I've never had a problem with a Dell that was within warranty. When something happens after the warranty, I just go out and buy the replacement part and put it in myself. In fact with HP-Compaq, whether it's in warranty or not, I just go get the replacement part and do it myself. It sounds as though their service is about the same as Dell's. Which brings me to another gripe. HP-Compaq. Talk about the General Motors of the computer industry. They must get the design folks from the Wile E. Coyote school of engineering. Absolute garbage. Out of two dozen Evo 1020v laptops, all of them (yes 100%) had parts that needed replacement inside of one year. Some of them multiple times. Out of roughly 45 Dell Inspiron laptops, are you ready for this? Zero (0), none.. have had any problems in the last year.

I don't care if Dell offers NO support because with the couple dozen Dell units I've ever dealt with, I've never once had a problem with one of their computers. And if they don't use RealCrap products, then all the better. Perhaps this is why Dell units have always been perfect to me.

Seeing that it's probably going to be quite some time before I get Blu Ray burner, I'll be sticking with V6 as well. Ahead even updated 6 after they released 7. Let's hope they keep that up. This whole situation is so ironic too. I've always preferred applications that use .msi files for doing repacks, but in this case

It would be very hard to do since they've infected nearly every mobo and laptop manufacturer in existence, but I swear I'm ready to go back to using the abacus before touching another computer product that has anything RealTek in it at all. In fact I think I may take out the domain realteksucksass.com and start an online signup list for everyone who has had the urge to fly to Taiwan and wrap their hands around the throat of every single RealTek employee they can find. I have never had so much venom and vitriol for a hardware vendor in my life. All the swearing and hair pulling I've ever done because of ATI, VIA, ALi, nVidia, Diamond (and that saying something), and SiS combined is a walk in the park compared to the grief that this subhuman company has brought to me. Let's just say a modern corporate workstation costs $1,000 US. I would be willing to shell out $3,000 per workstation if it had an Intel BX chipset motherboard, Pentium 3 - 733Mhz CPU, a SoundBlaster Live!, a 3Com 3C905C NIC, and a Matrox G400 Dual Head video adapter. God I miss the days of dependable and reliable computers. Windows 95 on that old system is more reliable than XP SP2 on a modern day computer. It used to be that you were safe as long as you purchased a system with well known brand name parts. Not so anymore. The name Intel used to mean something to me. Now it doesn't mean squat with their using RealTek sound adapters and Marvell NICs. [/bitching]

Only the very beginning of the text mode portion of setup involves tftp. It's the part where you see all of the mass storage drivers loading up. Shortly thereafter, you see a message "Starting Windows" or something similar and the three lights on your keyboard will blink. This is when some kind of hand off is done and the setup takes over. I'm sure that you probably can accomplish a RIS install using Linux and, I'm guessing here, some sort of Samba implementation. But considering that you are likely to use RIS in an environment where the target computers would be domain members, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to suppose you're in an environment where Microsoft has at least a prominent role in your network. So the question would be - why? If you're not utilizing Active Directory for workstation management and/or application deployment you may be better off using some kind of unattended CD/DVD install method. It's probably obvious from my posts here that I'm a fan of RIS, there's no doubt about that, but I have some smaller clients (around 20 workstations) where I don't use RIS. There's a couple of reasons for that. I suppose if you have time to kill or just want to see that it can indeed be done, go for it. But before I get myself vested into anything I always ask myself "why?"

Well actually what I was going to give a shot, prolly not today though, is using NTFS permissions. Also I seem to remember some permission options here and there in the DSA snapin.

Ok, well now that I have a context I can start to look into this. Also, as I had thought, you gave me some ideas that I could use as well I'll let you know what I come up with..

Good work

I'm curious as to why you would want three different images. What I have always done is deploy the same image, it's a one size fits all, and then deploy software on a per OU basis. I also make extensive use of machine scripts (per OU) and user scripts (both per OU and based on security group membership) to further customize things. Just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding things as well, are you attempting to use three flat images as opposed to three Riprep images? I'm asking all of this not to criticize your methods, but rather it's something I haven't done and am wondering if it's something I should consider.

If you are familiar with the routine of taking an .msi file and extracting it out to an Administrative Installation Point, then compressing all of that, with say WinRAR, into a self extracting executable file.. well that's the basic idea. WinRAR had great facilities for making installers this way and supports passwords.

Take a peek at the sample .SIF file that I included in my RIS guide. Should steer you in the right direction.