JoeMSFN

From what you ask, I think the proper questions in this order are:Does the COA sticker tie to language AND type (ex. English XP Pro) If not, then are you using the right CD type for your COA sticker? XP Home CD if your COA sticker is for XP Home - XP Pro CD if your COA sticker is for XP Pro If all three are check, I would checkout the OEMSCAN project found on these forums!

Of course people are interested!Lack of response does not indicate lack of interest. Sometimes I find threads that are over a year old (some times more) and wish the results were posted because that thread happened to be of interest to me.. well years after it was posted. Heck even if it took you several months and you would've stumbled upon the thread you left, and posted the tool you used. I'd be very happy to know the tool you used (or perhaps the folder that the malware created). Not only that if the search engine re-spiders the thread (don't know if they do that), then the answers to the questions will be found. Thank you for the tool name. I'll have to check it out and add it to my arsenal.

Are you trying to get Outlook to be pre-configured to connect to a particular exchange server with the local Windows account as the user on the exchange server? I have accomplished such a thing with Exchange on Windows 2003 and XP workstations running Office 2003. I don't remember the exact name, but MS makes a utility to configure the Office source so Outlook (and I think other options such as everything on hard drive instead of install at first run, etc.) the way you want it. It creates MST file(s) and other configuration items. I hope they did it for Office 2007.

Perhaps some would like the stand alone installable for their less technical people in their life. I forget which one but I THINK inno setup is also capable of creating add/remove program entries. Whichever system does it, I believe it is downloadable from source forge.

Thank you for posting the INSTRUCTIONS to how to do this stuff. All too often in this forum (and elsewhere on the net) people post their pre-packaged switchless stuff and don't indicate HOW they did it.Although the convenience of pre-packaged installers are nice, I prefer to do it myself for mainly four reasons: Trust - There's no mystery to what's getting installed when I do it Flexibility - All too often some strip out stuff assuming others don't want the extras. I can include the extras I wish to keep. Timeliness - If a newer version comes out, I can redo my installer without waiting (I could be waiting forever if the "project" gets abandoned). Extrapolation - I can apply this knowledge to other things I would like to install

Another thought comes to mind. Royalty OEM BIOS preactivation. If you've been using the same brand of computers with the same disc (or if you made your own with a different project on this site), it detected your BIOS and preactivated. Since your computer is older, it's quite possible that the "thing" that XP is looking for in the BIOS isn't there and thus is requiring activation.

I can say I have no idea if they speed up the computer. However I have used Crap Cleaner (registry cleaner part) to fix some strange problems. The one that comes to mind specifically was a USB printer wasn't working right with the computer (Win XP, not sure if it was Pro or Home). The printer "just worked" afterward. I don't remember if I had to uninstall / reinstall the driver afterward, but the "usual suspects" never seem to fix the problem. To summarize speed up no (maybe). Fix weird problems - definitely yes.

I don't know of any from Microsoft, but I've seen add-ons give IE tabbed browsing. I believe the Yahoo Toolbar gives the requested functionality in IE6.

The only thing to worry about with Win98 (or other older operating systems) is having a network card and PPPoE. PPPoE is when an ID (typically you're email address) and password are required to use the DSL service. You'll want the network card (that has 98 drivers). You may (or may not) have usb drivers for your OS with this DSL modem. DSL is a network technology and I'm not a fan of any networking over USB. ----- If your ISP doesn't use PPPoE, but you use a static IP? You're set. ----- If your ISP require PPPoE login, here's how you can use DSL with your older OS. Have a router? You're set. (It handles the PPPoE) Don't have a router, but you're DSL modem does PPPoE? You're set. No router and your DSL modem doesn't do PPPoE?, you'll need PPPoE software I belive one is called WinPoet. There might be others. ----- Of course you need to put the settings into your router or network card or PPPoE software as appropriate.

I'm not sure if it's such a big loss to not be able to directly integrate it into XP. Supposedly some sites don't play nice with it. I've had the same headache with some clients that use Realtor websites when IE7 got installed with Windows Updates. The site didn't work right. Fortunately SP3 hadn't plowed through my work so I only had to revert back to IE6 and not remove SP3 then IE7. Quick appointment, happy customer. At this point (with IE8 being so new), I'd rather just do it the way I do with IE7. That is install it via RunonceEX method. That way, if it is a rare problem, it can be uninstalled. And if it works great, then they already have it. I suppose I can look into the compatibility list, but even then, some internal sites don't play nice with IE7. So again, it's nice to be able to go back to IE6 and not have an angry client with hours of unbillable time to redo their system to the way they like it. Or not have a repeat customer. I'm sure for those that like to integrate (meaning replace all old dlls/exes with the new versions) to get the "leanest" unattended installer, that's ok too. Just keep in mind people install windows with various goals.

Update: wooops. I just re-read your post and realized the below probably won't help How are you getting the computer to start the installation to even ask for the disc? Perhaps you can run WINNT32 (i think that's what it's called). Take a look at the XPCREATE project. It hasn't had much activity, but it'll have two COMMAND LINE utilities you'll need. It has a DVDBURN executable that'll burn a bootable ISO to a DVD. It also includes a MAKEISO command that takes a cd boot sector file and the Windows install files and makes an ISO that the dvd burning command line can use. NOTES: Both are command line programs. I'm not sure of the exact names. The ISOs made by the iso maker don't seem to be recognized or boot properly unless they are burned by the DVD burning util included with the project. The cd boot sector file is just an extract from a normal OEM XP install CD. Since your drive won't read CDs, you might have to search the net for that boot sector. You might want to splurge on DVD RWs until you get the install working properly. If this is your only computer you have access to, I hope you have a spare hard drive to test your installer with. If not, at least get a virtual machine program (there are decent freebies from the net). They boot the fake computer from an ISO file. Also you might want to include the network drivers on the ISO image so you can download the rest of your drivers (unless of course you want to be brave and try DriverPacks.net)

I've heard that Ranish Partition manager (a very excellent utility) version 244 was kinda iffy and 240 should be the one to use. Although I've used 244 myself without any data loss, I've seen posts (sorry don't have the links) that referenced 244 as having the possibility of data loss or some other such dire problem.

If you can get the "link" (soft, hard, symbollic) or "redirect" or whatever the buzzword is for it, it can be a fabulous space (and time) saver. I've done this with a server that everything was installed on the C:. I copied the larger user folders, as well as the IIS website datafiles to a different drive. I don't remember if I copied the permissions at file copy time, or just restored the permissions to the destination files/folders after the copy. I then deleted all the data in the source. Finally I created a link from the destination to where the source folder used to be. I now have successfully avoided editing the registry for all the possible places where C:\whateverpath\whateverfile and changing it to some other letter. It also had the upshot of being able to move deep folders to near the root thus avoiding too long paths, or just moving things to a single letter subfolder for easy remembering that things were on the c drive originally. I also didn't have to worry about an identical directory path on say X drive. I believe I did some if not all of that in safe mode to avoid file locking problems. It worked like a champ. C drive was available to fill up with other system junk. If you can get the new folder destination linking to happen at install time, that would be a fantastic data saver as well as a time saver of registry editing or doing all that after install (the permissions part was a bit of a challenge if I recall).

I saw mention of the ASPNET account. A long (LONG) time ago this was an issue when some dotnet update didn't do something properly. I tried the userpasswords2 thing which fixed it, but created problems if I changed passwords. I discovered that the update created the ASPNET account, but failed to put an entry in the registry (see the code section below for the registry key, and the bottom entry for the registry dword entry) I manually put that in and it fixed my problem! I now make that part of my registry file for my unattended installs (It may or may not be necessary, but a few bytes on my install source is sure worth the removal of the worry of this problem). A few points. Yes I did read the posts about how userpasswords2 did not help the problem. I also read the part about ASP account being deleted still didn't fix the problem. I'm just putting this here to give some thought and discussion, or maybe help someone else if it doesn't help the one with the immediate problem. And now for the registry stuff... the bottom line is all I added, I'm just posting the whole registry export so you can compare to mine. As a side note, putting "whatevertheaccountnameis"=dword:00000000 will cause that account to not be visible on the welcome screen. Further, if you hide all but one account, that "visible" account "should" just auto logon, and then you would need to logout and hit CTRL-ALT-DEL from the welcome screen (switches to old style login screen), then manually type in the user name and password for the hidden account. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList] "HelpAssistant"=dword:00000000 "TsInternetUser"=dword:00000000 "SQLAgentCmdExec"=dword:00000000 "NetShowServices"=dword:00000000 "IWAM_"=dword:00010000 "IUSR_"=dword:00010000 "VUSR_"=dword:00010000 "ASPNET"=dword:00000000

When you "check the fans" also be sure to check/clean out the heatsinks that the fans blow over. Even a thin layer of dust can block enough airflow, causing the CPU to overheat. AMD CPUs (at least of the Athlon/Duron era) can't run very long without airflow, but Intel CPUs can't take much more abuse either. A can of compressed air or a compressor will help with that. If you use a compressor to blow it out, be sure to stop the fans from spinning (more important on video cards), as that can cause fans to become defective.

The following discusses OEM editions of WinXP pro only. (no retail, VLK etc) I'm trying to slim down my various install sources of windows. I remember when SP2c came out (the COA stickers looked a little different), but when I compared the CD (label) of Pro SP2c and Pro SP2 the X10---- numbers were identical! (but they are different.) I know that SP2 (or below) won't accept the newer keys. What I have not found (explicitly stated) is SP2c taking OLDER keys. My question(s) Does WinXP Pro with SP2c (MS original, no Sliptreamed SvcPack) accept OLDER OEM pro keys? Does it activate properly? Does WinXP Pro with SP3 (yes it's out--MS original, no Sliptreamed SvcPack) accept OLDER OEM pro keys? Does it activate properly? If none of the above work, is there a utility that I enter the Key and it tells me if it's a newer or older key? I hope someone's tried it. If it does I can remove a whole Windows install source off of my HD and also not have to have a separate distribution for newer keys. I also don't have to worry about figuring out if the COA sticker is the newer "expanded key list" key or not. I've searched and read SP2c takes newer keys and not older keys. I've also read that SP2c expands the set of keys used (not sure if that includes older ones). Finally I've read that SP3 can take both. But I would like to know of anyone actually TRYING this? I do have some XP pro computers with the older keys on the COA, but too much stuff is on them to wipe clean and try. If no ones done this, I guess I might have to bite the bullet and clone original, install fresh try my old key on the newer source, and clone back. But I also don't have a spare hard drive with space either... Let me know people.

The Symantec cleanup tool for this mess was run on a computer and still didn't fix it! I ran my little (not sure to call it a script or program) and it found 70ish more registry entries!!! Also the computer ran fine after that. So even Symantec can't clean it all up. (then again maybe it wasn't run in safe mode).

Thank you for a quick way of reproducing that problem. I've only had it occur "randomly". Perhaps the "randomness" was just me doing what you suggested. I read it had to do with "Z-index" or the layering what's on top order out of whack.Important additional info to reproduce follows I would like to add, that I had to go to the "Programs" or "All Programs" submenu of the Start Menu and right click->properties a program shortcut there to get it to happen. I was able to reproduce this on XP MCE 2005 (without very many updates including SP3 not installed). It would seem that it was fixed in SP3. I have not tried SP3 myself. I'm guessing so too, since I could not get it to work on XP Pro with SP3 installed. Perhaps that is one of the best reasons to update (unattended install hotfix list reduction not included )

Can't say why your's doesn't work, but mine works with the /s.I run my regtweaks from cmdlines.txt [COMMANDS] "REGEDIT /S .\DefUserRegTweaks.reg"I also like to apply it to all users (including newly created ones) so instead of [HKEY_CURRENT_USERI like to use [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULTThen it gets applied even to the 1st created user.

U3 is a way of having the system tray menuing system autorun. Since older Win versions (and maybe even XP and Vista) can't autorun from anything other than a CD/DVD, they "fake" a CD drive to autorun the menu.Simply formatting will not get rid of the CD drive. There may be other ways to do this, but the only way I know to "get rid of" the fake CD drive is to run the U3 removal tool (not sure of the real name). If it's a Sandisk, I think you can reverse the removal if you want the CD drive back. If it's another brand product, removing the fake drive is permanent. (unless there's been clever hacks to do it). I have succesfully "un-U3ed" my Sandisk. It's wonderful! because the annoyance is gone. What annoyance...? Read on. I find the fake CD drive an annoyance on slow computers, since it has to install two devices for one physical piece of hardware. Although there are clever folk who have generously contributed various hacks to put a custom ISO on the U3 stick so you can have an auto running software of choice. Also the custom ISO has a very restricting size limit.

Note: this works only if the computer you're setting up doesn't include RAID. Plug the hard drive from the computer onto which you're installing windows into an already setup PC. Blank it and format it. Note it's drive letter, etc. Run the winnt32 setup with various parameters to redirect the install to that drive. Attach the drive to the computer you're installing, then boot. Textmode flies!!!! This works great as long as you aren't using RAID, also some laptops don't like booting off the drive that way and seem to need to have windows installed on them while they are in the laptop. The extra steps may or may not help. I've started using a Win/BartPE setup to do the winnt32 step through a network. I got sick of having to prune my DVD sized install source for some laptops with only a CD drive. Doing winnt32 through a network part does make installing from CD's text mode seem fast.

I was watching The Dish and as usual when watching a movie on TV, started browsing the web about it. From the wikipedia article I followed a link or two and landed here. Just check out the sentence about Madrid, just before comment number 7. It took me a moment (especially since I had to read through the background noise).

Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable Windows Installer 4.5 Software Development Kit System Requirements * Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows XP The Windows Installer 4.5 redistributable can be installed on Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2008 in X86, X64 and IA64 flavors. Issues that are addressed in Windows Installer 4.5 The issues present in earlier versions of Windows Installer that are addressed in Windows Installer 4.5 are as follows: • The SeBackupPrivilege user right was missing in the Windows Installer service. This lack hindered any custom actions that needed this user right. • Some case-sensitive service-name comparisons in the InstallValidate action resulted in an unnecessary "files in use" message in Windows Vista. • When you uninstalled an update that added a new component, the component was also uninstalled. This occurred even if the component was shared by other products. The Microsoft® Windows® Installer (MSI) is the application installation and configuration service for Windows. Version 4.5 of the Windows Installer has several new features, including: Multiple Package Transaction: In a multiple package transaction, you can create a single transaction from multiple packages. In a multiple package transaction, a chainer is used to dynamically include packages in the transaction. If any of the packages do not install as expected, you can roll back the installation. Embedded UI Handler: You can embed a custom user interface (UI) handler in the Windows Installer package. This makes a custom UI easier to integrate. You can also invoke an embedded UI handler from the Add or Remove item in Control Panel. Or, you can invoke an embedded UI handler during a Windows Installer repair process. Embedded Chainer: You can use the embedded chainer to add packages to a multiple package transaction. You can use an embedded chainer to enable installation events across multiple packages. For example, you can enable the install-on-demand events, the repair events, and the uninstall events across multiple packages. Update Supersedence Resiliency: This feature enables you to correct for changes in the FeatureComponent table during supersedence. Shared Component Patching Resiliency During Uninstall: This feature makes sure that the most recent version of a component is available to all the products. Custom Action Execution On Update Uninstall: This feature enables an update to add or change a custom action so that the custom action is called when an update is uninstalled. After installation of this package, the version of Windows Installer on the system will be upgraded to 4.5.

See my post here for full info and links. I put the delta file (renamed to "windows-kb890830-v1.42-delta.exe") into "SVC-MRT" and voila, no more MRT on WU (or MU)!!! Didn't try it with all that MD5 stuff in the filename, but at least the "full" KB890830 has been installed.

I discovered something interesting with June 2008's MRT KB890830 download! This may seem like an XPCREATE topic, but it really isn't. Just read on. Using Greenmachine's XPCREATE, I've integrated KB890830 v1.42 (June 2008) into the sources. However I noticed that it still wants to install it via WU. I downloaded from the manual link and did a file compare from the SVC-MRT folder and they were identical. Then I decided to download it from the Microsoft Update Catalog and it downloaded these two files X86-all-windows-kb890830-v1.42_1ffe01169b31c96bbab8a8ffeb4deef05c7dccb9.exe X86-all-windows-kb890830-v1.42-delta_d4a46b5b046d88df61407d9e3263801d209aed7a.exe Comparing the manual download and the 1st file from the catalog, they were identical! Then I looked at my WindowsUpdate.log and found that it only downloaded the delta file. This tells me that the original KB890830 integrated successfully, but it still wants the delta file so it still shows up on WU. I've looked over the various MRT and KB890830 pages on microsoft and did a search for the delta and could find nothing! For all you unattended no update needed installers (self included B) ) I find this both irritating (that the manual download isn't really up to date) and no mention of the additional delta being needed. Any comments or thoughts. Has MS ever done this before? Shouldn't the manual download include it? Or at least re-issue the update with a .1 after the version? Do I just need to use the Catalog from here on out instead of the go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId URLs in the "details" of each update? (which is how I determine most of what is needed to download and use the Download button to obtain the update) UPDATE: The original and DELTA files are slipstreamed/integrated into my install source and WU no longer offers it. Apparently you need both.