RogueSpear

Update - 20051126 Updated Crap Cleaner to V1.26.218 Added DVD Identifier V4.2.0 Added MSN Messenger V7.5.0311.rar Added Paint.NET V2.5 Updated TrueCrypt to V4.1 Please note that the Paint.NET installer has not been rigorously tested. I ran it through some it's paces, applied some filters, etc. and I didn't run into anything, but I'd appreciate it someone would give me feedback if there are any problems. I always worry about repacks of programs that require .NET.

11/26/2005 nLite V1.0 RC3 tested and works. Rewrote the entire RyanVM Update Pack section to bring it up to current. Step 8 in the BTS DP section has been removed as it is no longer necessary. Minor tweaks and updates for readablility Eliminated the Five Archives from the second post in the thread. They have been replaced by my addon pack

Excellent job

I just performed a RIS install yesterday on a new work desktop computer (for me yay!). I was horrified to discover that the Intel mobo I specified has RealTek HD on it, BUT the latest Driver Pack Base and Sound installed it just fine, the control panel applet and all. I am getting an ocassional BSOD that says "IRQ not less or equal than" and I think that's due to the RealTek audio chip, but that seems like a driver problem on the vendor's end. I think I'm going to disable it in favor of a SoundBlaster Live that I have kicking around. But in the end, it did in fact install properly for me. @muiz, the framedyn.dll error usually indicates a missing or mistyped entry in your txtsetup.sif file.

I've done both CD based and RIS based installs on a wide range of Latitudes and Inspiron laptops and have never seen this behavior during a setup. In fact Dell laptops are among the few units that I've run into that never give me issues. HP-Compaq laptops on the other hand.. well there isn't enough room here to go into all of that.

@BTS, you can disregard my post and attachments regarding the Yukon Marvell that is embedded in Intel mobos. This newest version 8.46.4.3 seems to have included these NICs as I successfully performed a RIS install today with them. The RIS boot and the PnP enumeration both worked flawless.

@glent, Wow that is awesome! I'm wondering since so many others are also using nForce4 boards out there, is yours a really recent model or have you upgraded the BIOS?

@BTS, the new base file is on the server, but the download link still points at 5115.

Whenever I've had this happen to me it was network related. Meaning hardware. Does this happen to all of your clients or just some? I found some issues with speed autosensing between Cisco Catalyst switches and RealTek NICs (GOD I hate RealTek). I forget now what exact permutation worked for me, but it was something along the lines of forcing the RealTek NIC to 100Full and setting the port on the Cisco switch to AutoSense (I prefer setting all ports to force 100Full). Anyway, take a look at what sort of NICs are involved, switches, etc and what the settings are.

I'm going to try some experimenting with those config files.. maybe see if I can shove it in my switchless installer. <sigh> Going through all this grief for something that's beta to begin with. I sure hope they don't make things even worse in the final release.

I've setup a domain and hosting space that gilesw has full FTP access to. Please refer to post #1 in this thread for Unofficial Driver Pack downloads and updates. Official Bashrat the Sneaky DriverPack Directories: C - Chipset CPU - CPU G - Graphics L - LAN M - Mass Storage S - Sound W - WLAN Proposed Unofficial DriverPack Directories A - Additions B - Broadband D - Dial-Up P - Printers U - USB VMware - VMware Workstation X - Misc Y - Monitor Z - HID

Ran into a Maxtor PCI card (came with a hard drive) that is actually a Promise Ultra133 controller. On the PCB it says ATA133 P/N 10999690. On the chip it says PDC20269 and V2.20 B10. Here is the file: EDIT: Also attaching the XP only driver I got from Maxtor which found it sucessfully via PnP. It looks like this one driver may take care of all the various Promise PCI cards rebranded as Maxtor. hwids.txt winxp.7z

I don't know if the new drivers contain support for this or not, but I can't seem to get this Marvell Yukon Gigabit adapter to work with anything other than the drivers from Intel themselves.. is an embedded NIC on an Intel D915GAG mobo. I don't understand all of this hwid stuff completely, but this seems weird to me. In the inf file I find this listing: PCI\VEN_11AB&DEV_4361&SUBSYS_30638086 After installing the drivers from Intel's website, this listing is in the hwids.txt file: PCI\VEN_11AB&DEV_4361&SUBSYS_306E8086 Notice the "E" in the last part there? As I said I don't quite have a handle on this yet. hwids.txt

If you mean the whole /regserver thing, yes I've been doing that

I downloaded it from SoftPedia.

I have the alphabet soup after my name as well, but I have given up on certs for a while. I found that most of what I know and what is valuable to people I work for is my experience. I spent a good 3 years taking a test every month or so and I found that the studying involved really cut into my time for actually learning something. I do still look upon someone with certs as more qualified than someone without and maybe that's a mistake. It's like I view it as a right of passage that really has no meaning, but hey they guy put in his time. About the only certs that get my attention anymore are CCIE and SANS GIAC. The entire situation really is a double edged sword. Employer want the certs so you feel you need them, but you also realize that you're wasting your time memorizing a bunch of crap for later regurgatation. I've seen plenty of MCSEs around who wouldn't know the first thing about designing or implementing a Microsoft centric network. And as far as what you're required to know in the MCSE exams? Most of it is rubbish. I mean anyone who would set up an enterprise with VPN, RAS, Certificate Services, etc.. using Microsoft's solutions would get thrown out on their ear. For the purposes of employment I would suggest starting out with the CompTIA and Microsoft exams because they never really "expire" like the Cisco certs do. But the CCNA really should be required for anyone working in networking anyway, and it's only one exam (unless that's changed). The more advanced certs and their respective exams almost demand that you get training from your employer or you really know what you're doing in the first place so that the exam is merely a formality to prove your worth. EDIT: Forgot to mention.. I bet there are a ton of guys here who don't have one single cert to their name and they know 20x more than what I know. It's funny how that work out.

I cleaned up the shortcuts by directly editing the .msi file and it works fine. The problem I am having is that the first time you run the app itself it wants to go through the wizard still. I can't seem to preset the options the way I would like (novice user and disable the script agent). I've done the RegShot routine to get the registry changes, etc. Why do they need to make this thing needlessly difficult?

Have you tried the standard .msi file switches yet?

It detects how much you have. The 1024 reference is just part of an equation to convert the amount of RAM into a number I could use.

You would want to take the code I supplied above and save it to a file with a .vbs extention. Something like PageFile.vbs. Then just make that one of your RunOnceEx entries.

Here is a VBscript I wrote that will set the pagefile to double the size of your system's RAM: Option Explicit 'Subroutine; Page File configuration Sub ConfigPageFile Dim strComputer, objWMIService, objSWbemServices, colPageFile, colSWbemObject Dim colSWbemObjectSet, objSWbemObject, objPageFile, SystemRAM strComputer = "." Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set objSWbemServices = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer) Set colPageFile = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("SELECT * FROM Win32_PageFileSetting") Set colSWbemObjectSet = objSWbemServices.InstancesOf("Win32_LogicalMemoryConfiguration") For Each objSWbemObject In colSWbemObjectSet SystemRAM = objSWbemObject.TotalPhysicalMemory / 1024 Next For Each objPageFile In colPageFile objPageFile.InitialSize = 2 * SystemRAM objPageFile.MaximumSize = 2 * SystemRAM objPageFile.Put_ Next End Sub ConfigPageFile Please note that since the script utilizes WMI it cannot be run from cmdlines.txt. Instead this can run from RunOnceEx or GuiRunOnce.

If your server was installed with a Windows 2000 Gold CD, then SP4 was applied, and then later you install RIS, where the RIS install routine asks for the Windows 2000 Server CD, you will get the older RIS files. Refreshing SP4 will update the RIS files on the server.

Use the DHCP snap-in and authorize the RIS server (even if it is not actually running DHCP) as a DHCP server just like you would any other DHCP server. If you go to Active Directory Users and Computer and go to the properties of the computer object which is your RIS server, there are some options in there regarding what computers to accept RIS requests from. I personally have not implemented RIS in a multi-site environment, so I can't be of that much help to you in that regard. But I do remember seeing options in there about what computers to allow to RIS. I'm sure you'll find something that suits your needs.

There are some things to consider here. First off, RIS does NOT need to be run from a server which is also your DHCP server. In one of my environments I actually run RIS off of a NAS device that uses Windows 2000 Server for Appliances and the DHCP server is one of the domain controllers. As far as installing RIS, you just need to go to Add/Remove Programs and then to Windows Components. You'll find it in there. If you are installing RIS on a 2000 server, you will need to reapply SP4 to the server after installing RIS (that is unless your distro media already had SP4 integrated). You mentioned multiple sites. Consider very carefully the available bandwidth between sites if you plan on pumping images between them. Some people here may get sick of me mentioning this, but I really can't recommend enough Mark Minasi's Mastering Windows Server 2000 (or 2003 depending on your needs). His explanations are very clear and concise yet thorough. If you stick to flat file images and avoid RIPrep, you should be able to master the entire process in no time. It's really not as different from media based installs as some would have you think.

Not to sound like a smart alec or anything, but why would you want to run WPI in an environment where you're using RIS to deploy workstations? You would be far better served to deploy as many applications as possible using Group Policy (or SMS if you happen to have that). As far as mapping drives goes, this is pretty basic batch, VBscript, or AutoIt and a search should yield many hits detailing how to do it.