RogueSpear

If you go to Microsoft's web site and search for "Scriptomatic", download it, and toy with that a little, it will generate the code you need. The new version two will even run the script for you so you can see the output.

I've always done a direct edit on the msi and have never had reboot issues. I know this contrary to best practice which dictates "dont edit the msi file", but hey it's worked for me.

snake, you're right, it is kind of in the wrong thread.

I can confirm the error reported by njdouglas. Exact same version levels as him too.

@BTS that new bizzaro method that Dell is using looks quite similar to the context of configuring a NIC in the WINNT.SIF file. So I decided to do a little looking around and sure enough it's documented in Microsoft's help files contained within deploy.cab. It's not documented well mind you, but it is there. The path in the CHM is Microsoft Windows Corporate Deployment Tools User's Guide\Preinstalling Hardware Devices\Preinstalling Mass-Storage Drivers I'm not sure how much this will help or not as you are far more familiar with this subject matter.

Well I'm running a W2K AD domain. No stinkin WINS, thus NetBIOS is disabled via DHCP (and a machine startup script to catch those 1394, VPN, VMware adapters). I also disable the Computer Browser service via GPO. Strict DNS. No issues. @Astalavista NetBIOS is the "old" way for browsing other computers on a Microsoft network. In NT4 domains (and W2K domains that maintain NT4 servers), the WINS service was run to maintain a browse list. There were "browser masters" and all manner of lunacy. It was a major bandwidth hog, the database was very easily corrupted and running NetBIOS under TCP/IP is abhorantly insecure. I've never looked back since W2K was released. The "new" (at least to Microsoft networks) method is DNS. Microsoft finally solved some of their Y1K problems and joined the rest of the planet with DNS. The downside or upside to DNS, depending on your point of view, is that you do not see a list of computers in "Network Neighborhood". Instead you locate computers through Active Directory. There's a lot more to it and I'm sure I either forgot or omitted many important points, but this is basically it in a nutshell. If anyone is truly interested in learning about WINS, NetBIOS, DNS, Active Directory in a relatively short period of time, I recommend Mark Minasi's Mastering Windows 2000 (or 2003). His Mastering Windows 2000 was a masterpiece. Very readable and easy to understand yet also thorough.

Everyone who is having the problem: Do you have NetBIOS enabled? And I don't mean any particular service, I mean in the IP properties of your network connection. I haven't had the problem at all and I always have NetBIOS disabled. How about the other folks who have not had a problem? What is your configuration?

I'll take a peek now.. Edit: Well I just spent a lot of time and I just can't believe I couldn't find it. I even went through the list of my posts (since I don't have that many). I must not have even posted in the thread I found it in. Now I feel like a complete moron after looking at the file size of this thing compressed. Sheesh. I apologize to sixpack for having not just attached this to begin with. I definately feel like a bit of a dummy right now. RegHive.7z

I would like to introduce a suggestion to all: If what you do the first time around does not work, try it again without the use of nLite or Ryan's Update Pack. Then see if it works. I'm sure the authors of all three projects would like to know if their individual piece of work is causing the problem or not. Otherwise all 3 people end up chasing down the same bugs which can be a waste of time. And I would suggest the same procedure with the other two products as well. It's just good practice in the world of troubleshooting.

This is all very interesting as I have not had any problems with this. I makes me worry however.

@sixpack I found it in a thread over at Nuhi's forum. Try a search for "RegHive" and limit the scope to the nLite forum only. I don't think there is enough room left in this thread for me to U/L it. Plus it's already on the MSFN server anyway.

You could always have your unattended install do a silent LiveUpdate towards the end.

@soulin OK @sixpack I forgot to clarify in my post that the 7z file contains both a reg and an inf file. I've been importing the reg file during the cmdlines.txt portion of setup, but recently I found Nuhi's excellent RegHive program over in his forum and did the conversion. I haven't tested as of yet, but what I was considering was putting the inf entries into nlite.inf. I really like this method even if I am installing Spybot/Spywareblaster as a part of the unattended routing because in my opinion you can be protected soon enough. Also should something somehow go wrong with the application installs, you still have a degree of protection there.

@a06lp man I wish I could find where I read this now. What I read, according to Symantec, is that the "stable and tested" virus definition builds are those which come in via LiveUpdate. The daily updates are meant for advanced users and those with specific 0-day needs. Symantec's web site just seems to get worse instead of better as the years go on. Pretty soon I won't be able to find anything there.

@BTS Slightly off topic but I don't think you'll mind too much. I've been clicking on the ads on your sight like nuts but today I decided to click on the 10 Euro donation button. I hate to say this but they really don't make it too easy. I'm not going to give them my personal checking account info to direct debit and I'm not going to mail them photocopies of credit cards, etc.. Do you have a paypal account that I can send a donation to? Or any other way I can somehow contribute? I've not only benefited from your countless hours of hard work, but I've also learned a TON about how Windows deals with device drivers. That is almost worth more to me than the packs themselves.. almost

Here is the registry file of all the innoculation entries found in both Spybot S&D and Spywareblaster, combined. It really does an excellent job was unblemished record for my clients. The IE-Spyads file seems to be making an effort at also blocking ads. Not what I want it to do. I have other methods for ad blocking. So here it is if anyone would like to take a peek or use it. @soulin I use AdminStudio if you want me to try and compile the project for English. Spy_Blocking.7z

I will agree that it is extremely comprehensive. No doubt about that. But the amount of time I had to spend editing out entries just got to be too much. And I was getting calls regularly that this web page or that web page wouldn't work because of some entry in there. It's all a balancing act.

If you're looking for something command line based, give this a try. But if you're versed in VB you can just tap WMI to get all of that info. compname.7z

@BTS That NirCmd is quite the handy little utility eh? I've been using that thing like made to make various .ini files "dynamic" so to speak through logon scripts.

Just FYI.. the pnf files will not be created until the first time you try to RIS a client after restarting the BINL service. In fact when I integrate Intel NIC drivers, the first time I try to RIS usually fails with the usual error message about no drivers for the device. I'm not sure if there's a timeout issue or not since that's when the pnf files are created, but the second time I try it always works.

Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can only select all video drivers, not an individual vendor's drivers. I'm not sure on this because I stopped removing drivers with nLite a while ago. Maybe Nuhi added this in an upgrade?

@BTS I have to tell you that after a few initial glitches and correcting a couple of mistakes that were my own fault, your original method really worked quite well for me with every system that I came across. I am wondering if perhaps the new method would be appropriate for only those drivers that seemed to not work properly under the original method.

DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore will only do one thing: You will not be prompted regarding unsigned drivers during your unattended install. There is still a "pecking order" with the device drivers however. So if there is an old WHQL driver and a new non-WHQL driver, the signed driver wins. WHQL checking is NOT disabled, only the warning regarding it is. One problem I have come across is with some older HP desktops. They have an nVidia "Vantra" (sp?). While the drivers for newer nVidia cards are indeed signed, the Vantra drivers are not. Therefore the default SP2 drivers win. I'd love to eliminate those default drivers myself.

This is sort of on topic. I had always ASSumed that 7-Zip would always give you the best compression. In doing some experimentation however, I found that there are plenty of times when Zip using Deflate64 actually results in a smaller file. We're not talking about anything extraordinary here, but when using a DVD is not an option for whatever reason, every little bit helps. Regarding WinRar: I really like their sfx building options the most out of all the compressors out there. It's too bad they haven't upgraded their compression scheme in a while. Even just bumping up the dictionary size.

I recently installed an Epson all in one for a client. They wanted to share the printer portion of the device for four other people to use. Whoever designed the drivers on this thing should be taken out to be summarily executed. First off, the drivers seem to demand the installation of some sort of printer monitor. That's bad enough. But then I seriously started to wonder if this thing was broken. There are times when it takes, no kidding here, five minutes for a print job to start printing. And the CPU is at around 5 - 7%. Just not a good experience with this thing at all. Unfortunately I have been extremely unhappy with the quality of inkjets coming from HP lately as well. So I guess I'll have to experiment with Canon.