Zxian

Yeah... that's a nice feature. Especially when it's just a spelling mistake or a tag bracket that you forgot.

You could, but then there'd be no need to put your installers in the $OEM$ folders. If you want to do that, create a new folder in the root of your CD called Installers and put all your installers in that folder. Use this at the beginning of your runonceex.cmd file to call the installers: cmdow @ /HID @Echo Off FOR %%i IN (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:\win51ip.SP2 SET CDROM=%%i: SET PP=%cdrom%\Installers\ Also... your cmdlines.txt should have the following: [COMMANDS] "REGEDIT /S regtweaks.reg" "runonceex.cmd" That's probably why your RunOnceEx wasn't running... you don't have a runonceex file - you have a runonceex.cmd file. Windows XP hides extensions by default. During the installation phase, you still need them.

Yes... it does look nice... No bugs yet...

Update to V1.1!!! Added instructions on how to create and restore from spanned image. From what I've read, data DVDs have a maximum file size of 4GB, so that's what I included in the guide. If this is incorrect, let me know and I'll update the guide.

Hmm... I haven't run into that problem myself, but I can do a bit more testing to see if there's a work around. Splitting the image archive to files that are a maximum of 2GB would probably solve your problem. I don't remember if CDs/DVDs have a maximum file size...*searches*

I've got another small batch file job that I'm hoping people can help me out with. I'm trying to create a batch file that will take all the non-links from the desktop and move them to a folder, including directories. This is what I've got so far... @echo off&setlocal enableextensions set src=C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop set dest=C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Desktop pushd %src% for /f "tokens=*" %%a in ('dir/b/a') do ( IF /I %%~xa NEQ .lnk ( robocopy %%a %dest% /S /MOVE>nul ) ) popd&endlocal&goto :eof When I run this... nothing happens... Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

@coucou - Had you already created an adminstrative install point to make your Office 2003 SP1? or did you buy Office with SP1 already included?

Awesome... the best IE-based alternative browser updated again!

TweakUI has many other really handy features... it's only a few KB download. But if you still don't want to, there's a registry entry that you can modify to hide the recycling bin. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know that you can find it in the Unattended Windows section in the Registry Tweaks thread. EDIT - Oh... and a quick simple search for "Hide Recycle Bin" does the trick too...

Ok... now it makes a little more sense... although quad-boot... that's kind wierd. I'd just stick with the three (Win98, XP, Linux) and use GRUB as your boot manager (installed to MBR). I don't know all that many OSes today that need to be within the 1024 cylinder block. AFAIK, hidden partitions are hidden to all programs that don't have special access to the drive itself (Partiton Magic, other partition managers). I don't know if the XP disk management has access to hidden partitions... I don't think it does (since it doesn't even have the option to hide them), but I could be wrong. You might want to see if GRUB has the ability to hide partitions based on the boot selection, or if it's simply a boot-loader. I haven't done much research into this, but if GRUB can take care of it for you, then it'll save you some time and headaches (and it'll cut down on the number of programs you need). Oh.... and HDA0 is easier to understand...

How to create a CD/DVD based image of your hard drive with Acronis True Image Rev 1.1 I was digging around on the Acronis website and couldn't find what I wanted. Acronis has the ability to write the image to a CD/DVD if you have UDF packet writing support (Nero InCD or the like). But that CD/DVD isn't bootable. I wanted a bootable CD/DVD with the image of my hard drive on it. That way, if I had to replace the hard drive in my computer, I could simply pop in the CD/DVD and be back to everything exactly the way I wanted it. Foreword If you are going to be creating your backup image on CD-R's, follow the blue text. If you're going to use DVD-R's, follow the green text. What you'll need Acronis True Image UltraISO (Or other image editing software) CD/DVD Burning software (if your image editing software doesn't support burning) Free space on your hard drive equal in size to your hard drive image Some blank media (CD-RW, DVD-RW recommended) Some time (30mins-1hr) How-to Open Acronis True Image Create image of the partition you want to back up (most likely your system partition) and save it to a location on your hard drive. Select Maximum Compression to ensure that the image fits on the disc. Let's call it C:\Backup.tib. Acronis will complain that it's not safe... blah blah blah. At the Image Archiving Splitting screen, select Fixed Size. In the box enter 650MB/4GB Grab a cup of coffee or a beer or something... come back 10-20 mins later Click on Create Bootable Rescue Media. Insert blank CD-R/RW (do not remove after CD is created) Exit Acronis True Image Open UltraISO Go to Tools->Make CD/DVD Image. Let's save this as C:\Acronis.iso Browse to C:\Acronis.iso and open it Right click on the Recovery Manager folder and select Hide/Unhide Rename the CD Label to ACRONIS Drag the BackupX.tib file to the upper panel to add it to the image (where X is the highest number) Save this as Acronis_backup0.iso Create a new image. Repeat the above 3 steps, each time using a different Image archive file and saving to a new .iso file. Name each .iso file with the corresponding number of the .tib file it contains Burn all of the ISO files with your favorite CD burning program (or UltraISO). Be sure to label them in the order that they have the image archives. I call the CD/DVD with the bootloader Disc0, and then each disc with the number of the archive file that's on it. To restore the image Insert Disc 0 into your optical drive and set your BIOS to boot from this drive Boot into Acronis True Image (full version) Click on Restore Image When asked to select the Image Archive, browse to the CD/DVD drive and select BackupX.tib (X=some number) Continue through the menus, until you get to press the Proceed Button. Take out Disc0 and insert Disc1. Click Proceed. When Acronis needs the next volume, it will give you an error about opening the file. Simply enter the CD/DVD with the corresponding image that it's asking for and click "Retry". When it asks for the last Volume, insert Disc0. You're done! Final Notes I would recommend uninstalling games before creating the image. Most games today are very large and would cause the image to be too large for even a dual-layer DVD. It would probably be best if you install all your core programs, configure them to your needs, and then follow the guide. You do not need to worry about disabling your pagefile or the hibernation file (if you use them), as Acronis will automatically detect them and not include the data within them in the image. I keep all my documents and files on other partitions, so my system drive contains only Windows and my programs. With all the programs that I use (Acrobat, Photoshop, Office, MathCad... not "small" by any means), my system partition on my laptop is just over 5GB (without pagefile or hibernation file - those are excluded by Acronis in the image). The image (max compression) took about 20 minutes to create and came out at 2.7GB. This will easily fit on a single-layer DVD, and for those of us with more programs or files, there are always dual-layer DVDs. Some comparison I created a VM with a vanilla XP install to test all this out. All of my images were run from my 24x CD-RW/DVD drive, so there's no unfair advantage of being run from the hard drive. I used Acronis True Image 8.0.912 and UltraISO 7.6.2 to follow the guide. The image created by Acronis came out to 458MB. With the Acronis bootloader, it's 480MB. The XP CD that I used to install XP was 576MB, created with nLite, all hotfixes integrated and cab files set to high compression. To restore the image took 5 minutes. To install took about 20 minutes. Hope this is helpful to everyone! I'm sure that you could emulate this with Norton Ghost if you've got that instead. If you have any comments or suggestions, let me know. Changelog V1.1 - 2005-10-05 (16:26) - Added ability to span multiple CDs/DVDs, Instructions to Restore spanned Image V1.0 - 2005-10-05 (11:14) - First revision

Are you wanting to set up a dual-boot system? Or just get rid of Win98 and install XP? As I said in the other thread, you're better off starting from scratch. You said that everything was backed up, so that shouldn't be a problem. Delete all the partitions and then create only one FAT32 partition for your Win98 install. Install Win98. Then, put in the WinXP install CD and use it to create a partition for WindowsXP. Install XP. Once XP is installed, use the Computer Management tools to create the rest of your partitions from the remaining free space. You can use a Knoppix Live CD or BartPE disc to remove all the partitions. In Knoppix, use qtparted. Dunno about BartPE... haven't touched that in a while. Also, it's not good to set partition drive letters to A: and B:. Those are still reserved for floppy drives (A: - 3.5", B: - 5.25") for whatever reason. Use C: and beyond for all your partitions.

You can edit the setup.ini files for each CD to automatically enter the names, serial numbers, etc etc etc.

Download TweakUI from Microsoft. It has an option to hide the Recycle Bin in there. Nice Desktops everyone!!!

It may not have as little on it as harunaksoy's, but it's nowhere near as "busy" as Dagonet's desktops are. I'm also at a disadvantage compared to harunaksoy... I've got less screen space to deal with...

HE'S BACK!!!! w00t!!! *waits patiently... or impatiently...*

I have tried using the modder. However, what I end up with in the end is an unusable display. I think it has to do with the fact that the drivers are not picking up my LCD since it's widescreen.

You didn't specify that you were talking about Norton Ghost... specifics here... People can't read your mind.

@Historic - Would you mind clarifying some of the orignal instructions? Also, do you get the option to save the cache at the end of the install? If I can find a method that does that I would be very very very happy.

It's much better to install XP from boot rather than from within another operating system. The installer would create a logical partition because you can have a maximum of 4 primary partitions on a drive. Typically, any partition other than the first will be created as a logical parition. In my opinion, you're better off wiping the drive clean and starting from scratch. If you need to access the files to back them up, you can use Knoppix (a live Linux CD) or you can transfer the hard drive to another computer and access it that way. Once you've got the backup of all your files, put the XP CD into your CD drive and set the BIOS to boot from CD. When you get the option of where to install XP, delete all partitions and then create a new one to install XP on. It will probably save you a lot of headaches in the long run.

Yup... I see that all the time in my courses as well... I also see people who don't properly understand how C++ programming works... I can't count the number of times I've seen "smart" students code: if(something==something_else) return true; else return false;GRAHHH! You can replace all of that with... return (something==something_else);So much cleaner, so much simpler. Oh... and the students who write the first also brag about how many lines of code they've written... The second example is easier to understand (once you know what you're doing), and will execute faster than the first. As for the reasoning to write viruses, it's got to do with a feeling of pride, as well as the ability to steal information from other people to make money. Many people have mentioned the possibilities that we would be able to accomplish if all these people spent their time making productive software.

NT4 can't natively read FAT32? That's nuts... FAT32 had been around for a while... I wonder why Microsoft didn't include it in NT4... And you should always be upgrading to the latest service pack with whatever OS you use...

I'm going to follow suit from the other thread before me... Would it be possible to move the following thread slipstream Office 2003 SP1 & rebuild CD, no admin install, cache works, 1 AIO CD to the Application Installs section? It deals more with the installation of Office rather than the support. With the other threads regarding Office slipstreaming being in Application Installs, I think it would fit in better there. I know the original thread isn't mine, but marek722 hasn't been active since July 26th and there has been interest in this by many others. Thanks in advance!

Indeed... HP has gone downhill in terms of their support... For example, the latest release of the official video drivers for my laptop cause instability after resuming from standby/hibernation. As for the browser, I agree with Nankai. I'm not sure how much of a good thing this will be...

nLite will allow you to reduce the size of the source CD that installs Windows. It does this by removing the files for componets that you do now wish to install. You will need to reinstall Windows to remove the components. After you've reduced the size of the source, you can use one of the many methods outlined on the Unattended CD/DVD guide homepage to install your programs afterwards. nLite will not do this for you.