Windopain

SP2 was slipstreamed onto this installation before I ever touched it, but yes it does have SP2. I don't want to turn it off because I have been working on writing my own DLLs (learning to that is) and I would rather have that extra layer of protection while I'm mucking around. Do we have any more details about the issue? Such as, when I am putting the Windows disk back in, is there a problem using these DLLs? Is Windows not recognizing signatures on the new DLLs and detecting them as bad because of that? Is there a third party program I can install that will watch over the DLLs and other system files that WFP watches? Lastly, is there a way I can cache these DLLs on my hard drive so I don't need to re-insert the CD all the time? Thanks, Dave

I did see that option but I have been told that Windows File Protection is usually NOT disabled. I have never seen it activate this often though; it seems to me like something with the nLite install is causing it to work incorrectly... Maybe I'm misinformed/wrong, I'm no expert here.

I have never seen WFP prompt me to insert original install CDs before but now that I have use nLite to make a installation CD from a Dell Reinstallatoin DVD it is coming up after every driver install (mouse, video, sound, monitor, etc). Does anyone else know why this might be the case? I have been told WFP is usually on but again, I've never seen this happen with ALL of my device drivers before... Any info would be great, Thanks!

I added the line from the Dell DVD file to the nLite file and things seem to work great. I also deleted the $OEM$ directory and saved almost 2 gigs off of the DVD that nLite burned... Not sure why it did not delete all that itself but the program rocks!

I was able to get nLite to make my Dell XP MCE DVD much more like what I wanted but post-install I have a classic taskbar and start button... I'd like to get the green button and blue taskbar back, how can I do this? I have ensured the themes service is set to automatic but I'm not sure how to change the themes and having the service started hasn't helped anything... Thanks Windo

I tried nLite for the first time, it looks like an amazing application but I have a few questions. 1. I am trying nLite to remove the "30 more minutes until installation is complete" that flashes in large red font after I first log in (Dell Media Center 2005 Reinstallation DVD). From what I can tell it installs Dell "bonus" junk and media center files (which I do not want anyway). Filenames like Emerald.exe, Notouch.exe, and several others as well as a "Bounus" directory are in the $OEM$ folder. I was hoping nLite would make an install DVD without these but even when I set it up for a custom Unattended install and selected an option which I thought was "do not copy $OEM$ folder" (I'll have to take a closer look the second time through), the $OEM$ folder was still copied in its entirety onto my new DVD... If it is just copying it and will not install anything from it, that's good enough I suppose! 2. When I first tried installing I recevied an error from my txtsetup.sif file: WinNTDirectories Key 307 Invalid Value: 0. I looked at the WinNTDirectories section and nothing jumped out at me, can someone more experienced take a closer look please? Let me know if a posting of the TXTSETUP.SIF file will help. I did include a copy of the WinNTDirectories portion of the TXTSETUP.SIF file. One thing I have noticed is that the Dell Reinstallation CD txtsetup.sif has, as its first line under WinNTDirectories: 307 = dell\symmpi The remainder of the Dell Reinstallation CD WinNTDirectories matches the nLite WinNTDirectories right up until the line 240 = ehome That is where the Dell Reinstallation CD WinNTDirectories section ends although nLite includes 31 system32\mui\xxxx entries. Thanks. LAST_SESSION.INI WinNTDirectories.txt

Well, I would run the autoit .exe from the registry key, but I want to have a few other commands run first (which are running in the .cmd I am trying to run from RunOnceEx). I'll take a look at the file you attached after I see how my latest attempt works. Thanks! Windopain

Great, thank you all for the timely responses. One other basic problem I've run into that I haven't yet found a straight-forward answer to is how to simply make a registry entry (keys and values)? I've still been using a .reg file, but it looks like the .inf in RunOnce is linked directly to the registry; yet the many posts I've looked at that have discussed various registry entries made through it look a bit complicated. What's to it?

What I've been trying tonight is to make a .bat file that runs an installer .exe and then runs a AutoIt script (.exe) using start /wait. I seem to always be getting an error stating that my .bat can not be found though. Am I doing something wrong or is it not possible to run a .bat through the RunOnceEx .inf? If it is not possible to run a .bat, can I convert the .bat to a .exe and work things out this way? As for the .cmd files, I have been considering working with both; I skipped over them for installing apps initially but am considering working with those and .infs to get the job done. Thanks again all, Windopain

Hi, I just started using unattended installing a few days ago. I've been able to integrate SP2, Office 2003, and several other applications into my unattended install. One thing that is slowing me down is the RunOnceEx, however. The batch commands I understand (and I think I am going to finish up a few apps with them for today and hopefully change later) but the RunOnceEx I am having trouble with. I've searched over and over (unfortunately there are a lot of posts related to RunOnceEx) but can not find a site/post that details exactly how to change a batch msiexec/.msi command to a RunOnceEx command. Examples are usually several lines long and I'd like to understand what I'm doing! Even the RunOnceEx file I have has thing in it I do not understand (such several commas in a row; what fields are those?). I've also seen many different formats for these commands. Is there a page (I don't care how complex/long/in-depth) that explains all of this in detail? Even a book would be fine. Every time I start searching on the web, I end up back at this site, and there are just little tidbits here and there, from what I can find. The site is great, but this one topic seems to be evasive. Thank you all, any help would be great. Windopain