RogueSpear

Make sure the following is in your WINNT.SIF: [GuiUnattended] DetachedProgram="%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Drivers.cmd" This is the Drivers.cmd file: @ECHO OFF set tagfile=\WIN51 for %%i in (c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z) do if exist "%%i:%tagfile%" set CDDRIVE=%%i: %SystemDrive% cd \ Start /WAIT %CDDRIVE%\OEM\7za.exe x -y -aoa %CDDRIVE%\OEM\Drivers.7z -o"%SYSTEMDRIVE%\D" Start /WAIT %CDDRIVE%\OEM\7za.exe x -y -aoa %CDDRIVE%\OEM\ProgFiles.7z -o"%PROGRAMFILES%" Start /WAIT %CDDRIVE%\OEM\7za.exe x -y -aoa %CDDRIVE%\OEM\Sys32.7z -o"%SYSTEMROOT%\System32" Copy %CDDRIVE%\OEM\7za.exe "%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\7za.exe" Now with placing the Drivers.7z file in $OEM$\$1 to get around the problem I mentioned earlier, you change %CDDRIVE%\OEM to %SYSTEMDRIVE%.

Something that I do is sort of a hybrid method for lack of a better term. I take the entire DP folder (which includes a lot of video, modem, etc drivers of my own) and 7-Zip them into one big archive file. I then use the DetachedProgram part of the WINNT.SIF to call a batch file to decompress them to the hard drive. Something interesting that I noticed recently though. I was doing an install for a friend who got a new Dell with a 3.4 Hyperthreaded CPU. I wouldn't think that the hyperthreading would actually kick in that early, but anyway, it's so fast of a computer that the decompressing does not finish before the detecting devices portion of the setup begins. My solution at this point is to copy the 7z file over during the textmode portion of the setup and decompress it from the hard drive instead of the DVD drive. This seems to not only let it decompress faster, but it ties up the hard drive enough to slow down the GUI portion of the setup so that the job finishes in time.

I don't know the size of your network or what all is involved, but I would seriously suggest you look into running RIS. It is so much easier than using media for an unattended install where a domain is concerned. A good deal of the information you have probably aquired regarding unattended installs from CD will translate over to RIS. For instance I have used nLite on a couple of RIS sources now as well as BTS's DriverPacks. It may take a short investment of time to get up to speed with RIS, but I assure you it is worth it.

Well I get around the problem by removing the "R" directory from my winnt.sif and then do the install on my own. Luckily the SoundMAX line of cards seem to be the only offending hardware I've run into thus far.

I've gone through it one character at a time. Made a couple of corrections, but this particular issue still lingers.

I can indeed verify that I have to force the installation of the SoundMAX drivers. I've been so insanely busy lately that I haven't had the chance to try inserting the proper ID into the inf to see how that works. I spent so much time fiddling with all of this unattended stuff over the last few months that I have some major catch up to do with actual installs now. Luckily most of the knowledge I've gained and scripts I've written also apply to RIS installs. Well enough babbling..

My guess is that this cannot be set from WINNT.SIF. Lately I've been experimenting with NirCmd for changing screen settings in my scripts, but as of yet I can't find a way to do it on dual screen systems. I've been trying on systems with a Matrox G400 dual head and an nVidia based card with dual output. So far no luck though.

The Realtek HD drivers don't seem to screw anything up. A little story on where I am so far with this. I removed reference to the problematic Realtek drivers and the PnP enumeration detected the SoundMAX as C-Media. Removed ref to that. Detected as VIA Vinyl. Removed ref to that. Didn't detect at all. Ooookay. I manually point the "Unknown Device" to the SoundMAX drivers and it warns me that the drivers are not meant to work the hardware. I force the install anyway and they work just fine. My guess is that if I look up the PCI identifier and add it to the inf for the SoundMAX, they would install. But perhaps also that identifier is wrongly included in the other driver's infs? I don't know, but it's all pretty aggravating.

The problem is if you have a SoundMAX audio chipset AND you have the RealTek drivers on your install CD (more specifically, if the RealTek drivers are referenced in your WINNT.SIF OemPnPDriversPath).

Try doing a search for the term "RIS" in this forum. I went through a complete step by step of this process in another thread.

Nope, it needs to be there. Further, there must be at least one CR before and one CR after the EOF tag.

This has been discussed before. It seems not everyone has the EOF marker in their file. I do however, and it can be a pain the butt sometimes.

@un4given1 Very good point you have there..

@minalgar Thanks for the HKLM tip. This was one of those moments when I slapped myself on the forehead because I hadn't thought of that myself! I probably never would have either because I was so "tunnel visioned" about the problem for so long. Once again.. thanks...

I've been using RIS for a few years myself. In fact RIS is what got me involved in the whole unattended thing. I use a single sif file and then have all of the applications deployed through group policy. I prestage the workstations into the appropriate OU so they get the specific set of apps they need. And for some of the trickier stuff I let machine startup scripts (per OU) take care of. What I am currently struggling with now is getting TabletPCs to use the same RIS image (but a different sif file). It seems that the key for TabletPCs needs to correspond with a particular PID in the setupp.ini file (in i386).

I was only able to find reference to this utility a couple of times here at MSFN, and it was only a brief mention. For those that have not discovered it yet, NirCmd is probably the most loaded up command line utility I've ever used. Freeware too BTW. There have been questions asked here about opening / closing CD-ROM trays, adjusting volume, changing resolution, and a few others that this incredible little tool can take care of. I would suggest anyone who is involved with an unattended project check it out.

As some of you may know, I'm much more comfortable writing with VBscript than batch. I have posted some of my better subroutines but I have a lot more as well. Would there be any interest in including VBscripts?

@BTS In all honesty this is starting to become a real lot of trouble. I first renamed the C-Media directory to Z and appropriately modified the WINNT.SIF OemPnPDrivers path to reflect that. Well I eventually just had to remove the C-Media drivers all together. Then this stupid SoundMAX was detecting as Vinyl97 (VIA?). Until these vendors can get it together, this may not be viable driver pack if you are stuck with a SoundMAX equipped mobo. I have started to experiment more with enumerating PnP IDs in VBscript (via WMI) and then running the actual setup proggy with a corresponding .iss file. Since WMI is used, the script must run AFTER the GUI portion of the setup has completed. My goal is to be able to leave all of the unoffending sound drivers in place and then run the enumeration script to install the tricky drivers. This idea originally came to me with the problem of installing certain video adapter drivers. The main problem would seem to be predicted high maintenance of such a project, not too mention I haven't actually got it working yet. Let me know what you think of the idea, and if you might be interested in possibly incorporating it into the sound driver pack.

One method I use a lot to get at files is to "pretend" I'm repackaging them into an msi file. Using InstallShield Repackager (I'm sure others would work as well) and a VMware computer I install the application and the repacker captures all of the files for me.

@prathapml I really don't know too much about Home edition, but from what you have written above I'm guessing that there is no support for ADSI at all. Even though you are binding to the local SAM, ADSI is actually the mechanism behind the account changes. This would also explain why cusmgr isn't working.

Another issue in this Realtek / SoundMAX mess.. I removed folder R and now my SoundMAX is being detected as a C-Media. My guess is that you could rename the C-Media directory to something like Z so that is comes after the SoundMAX, but I haven't had the time to test it yet. I've never liked Realtek products, especially their NICs, and now I'm really growing to detest Analog Devices products too. They all make this stuff far more complicated than it needs to be.

Two things. Add REBOOT=ReallySuppress to your msi arguments to stop the reboot. The other thing I noticed is that your system must be running at 800x600 minimum for the Cisco client to install (found this in the event log).

This really belongs in the general discussion forums, but to answer your question, there are a few new features to V9. Some of the newer features are on the management side of things, such as drag and drop clients between parent servers. Others are small but nice additions like the minimal discovery of spyware/adware (keep using Spybot and Ad-Aware). If you are using the Destop Firewall Client with SAV9, there is a threat tracer that attempts to discover the source of a virus infection and then the firewall blocks all traffic to that client. And of coarse the XP SP2 compatibility, although from what I understand there will be patches for V8 sometime with that functionality. Oh and I almost forgot since I don't use this, a thing called VPN Sentry. Essentially this lets a parent server challenge a client that is trying to VPN in to the local network. The client must respond to the challenge you define (version level, virus defs up to date, etc.).

@BPP I'll give that a shot, thanks. Also are you using a custom kernel because of this issue? or something else relating to it?

Try REBOOT=ReallySuppress for the reboot issue. As far as the profiles go, I'm not sure what to suggest. I have two that copy over just fine. Did any of them copy over to the Profiles directory?