Atari800XL

Have you tested the -nosearch yet? That would be nice to test... Looks like we'll have yet another new preview soon (maybe in a few days, 10036 or 38 or something?), after that I guess there will not be any major changes, as the release date of 29 July is not that far off. I must admit I thought Windows 10 would have a lot of other new (unwanted) stuff, but from the looks of the previews, it's not really that bad (also: not that necessary, but that's another story). Most of the unwanted stuff can be turned off, and combined with the nice WinNTSetup tweaks, the resulting system can be nice and fast, compact, and "non-obtrusive" (=not as "Metro-in-your-face" as the first Windows 8 release was). Of course, giving up things like the original control panel is not all that great, but the feeling I get from all this is "It could be a lot worse". Maybe they can use that as a slogan for Windows 10 :-)

With "-nosearch", do you mean the Windows 10 "Search" service, which I mentioned briefly in my last message (but later removed)? That would be another great addition, because it's completely useless to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm working with a lot of files every day (office-like use), but these files are stored according to very clear rules, so I know where to look for them :-) Other search-related stuff is done with nirsoft's SearchMyFiles (to find files created in the last x days, etc., great for backups etc.) The Windows "Search" service indeed takes a bit of cpu and memory, but it looked like it settled down a bit later, so I didn't want to bother you anymore. But removing it would be very welcome! Of course, maybe you weren't talking about this at all.... I will do some more tests to see what else is eating cpu/memory at (Windows 10-) postinstall, but the last test with 3.8RC2 was already very fast, that was a nice surprise!

Tiny observation: I did an XP install, to test 3.8RC2. All's well, but i see a folder "c:\Z-MSST" after setup, that I never noticed before. Is this a folder you forgot to remove, or is it there by design?

Well JFX, this is a wonderful surprise! When you said RC2 should fix "the mentioned problems", I didn't even think you would include "turn off Defender", but from the zip description I saw you *did*, so I immediately tested it (just got home). Working perfectly on preview build 10125!!! It looks like this build already installs a bit faster than previous ones, and with Defender off, PostInstall is lightning fast again, as well! 10125 is actually running quite well now (unattended setup, fast postinstall, most "annoyances" turned off), even on old hardware. Memory use is quite low! Excellent job!!!!

I tried the scripted way described in the previous post, but it looks like that needs a reboot after all, so not very convevient at all. Another method described in the thread I mentioned is to remove Defender components from install.wim, but that's not the perfect solution either, of course... So a simple on/off would still be best, but I'm sure JFX will find a good solution...

JFX, I'm sure you know most of this stuff, but here's a tip I got on disabling Defender in a script (Windows 10, latest builds). Not sure if this is in anyway helpful for WinNTSetup, but at least now you know I'm trying :-)

Aah, there's the reason I haven't noticed it, I do fully unattended setups (including noUAC) normally...

Thanks JFX! I had no problems with a reboot loop, but I guess we used different settings? All previews installed fine with WinNTSetup, all fully silent, no animations, etc. (I -LOVE- WinNTSetup!) I used wim files which were converted from esd (in some cases), NetFX3 added with DISM. -edit- Oh wait, maybe you were talking about a *new* disableuac tweak in the upcoming version?

I only mentioned it as a "heads up" for things to come (maybe). To me, Windows 10 looks far from finished (I don't even understand the whole point of it, only if it was named 8.11, or maybe 8.2), but there's talk of a summer release, so I'm sure this Defender stuff will not change a lot until then. So I just mentioned it to let JFX know there might be a new setting, nothing more, nothing less. And of course, I always "promote" WinNTSetup on other boards, and like you said, it's a bonus that it supports the latest preview versions. The whole point of testing these previews to me is testing/ adapting my PostInstall as quickly as I can, to remove all the Metro and other crap and make it work like I want to (which is 99% business oriented). If it wasn't for WinNTSetup, this would be a horrible job to do.

Thanks! So maybe a bit off-topic, but what would you recommend as the best (automatic) way to turn it off just before starting my "postinstall"? Or maybe that's not even possible anymore?

JFX, today I tested Windows 10 build 10122. I always use WinNTSetup (of course), using this as one of the command line options: "-DisableUAC" This sets this setting in the "Tweaks" window: "Disable UAC and Defender". Until this new build, when setup had finished, both UAC and Defender were off, so my Postinstall would run with full speed. Now with build 10122, I believe something has changed. Maybe "Defender" has a new place in the registry? Because even with "-DisableUAC", I thin Defender is still on (and PostInstall runs slower). Please note I don't have network on at that point, so it's not cheking anything online, just offline Defender. When I press Alt-I to bring up the (ugly and cumbersome) new "immersive" settings screen, I can choose "Security", then turn off Defender manually, but of course I would like to do this by script (or even better, using WinNTSetup as I have done for years now). I did a quick check with Regshot, and it looks like the new setting is somewhere in HKCU\S\M\W\Curr\Security and Maintenance\Checks\{E8... but I'm not sure where it is exactly... I would be interested to hear what you think about this.

Thanks for the new 3.7.9! Looks like it's only a couple of hours "young" as I type this. Nice surprise for the weekend!

JFX, hope you don't mind me asking a somewhat off-topic question: Do you know if there's a way to tell which DISM versions are compatible? For example: sometimes when I test a new Windows 10 preview build, I want to add NetFX3 and some drivers to the install.wim before first install (also: convert to Enterprise using SetEdition). But sometimes (other/new build) I get an error saying I need a newer DISM version. Other times it does work (like now: 10036 can service the 10041 install.wim just fine). I don't want to take up a lot of your time, but I guessed you might know this. So once again: How can I know if I can service a *new* install.wim with an "old" DISM. Or is it just trial and error? Thanks! (On the MDL forum, some friendly people explained how to extract the new DISM files from a new ISO, or even from an ESD, using wimlib and image 1 of the wim [instead of 4 for the install files]. Haven't tested that, though...)

Thanks! So it was a "problem" after all...(thought it was my stupidity again). So I hope I can keep on mentioning little issues like that in the future! Thanks again for this great program...

About bcdboot: Is there something I can do to prevent the error I described? About the new console window: Yes, it should be great, as long as we can still create a "hidden" window. So you're saying the fact that it is not hidden when "ForceV2"=1, is a bug and you expect that to be fixed by Microsoft? Let's hope so... I noticed even Nirsoft's nircmd doesn't create a hidden command window (execmd) when ForceV2=1. OK, let's wait and see... Thanks for replying.

Thanks for your reply. Just for info: I'm testing on MBR/BIOS, not GPT/UEFI. Just wanted to report this issue, it's not a real problem for now. Maybe next week there will be an official release of a new build, we'll see how that goes. One more thing: I think we discussed this before, but the latest builds have a new setting for the console, which causes some installers that create an "invisible" console windows, to become visible. This can be switched off by the reg entry below. Maybe this tweak can be incorporated into WinNTSetup? Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console] "ForceV2"=dword:00000000

Hi JFX, I was just testing W10 build 10036, got this error after apply, prior to reboot: "Error Failed to create Bootfiles - BFSVC Error: 0x3F9". Hmm, any ideas? (The setup still worked, looks like there were bootfiles created after all, because my Grub MBR boot sector was replaced by W10 bootsector.) On "another" forum I heard some talk about new features in upcoming versions, I'm looking forward to that, but please keep WinNTSetup as easy to use as it is now! EDIT: Dit a couple more installs with new wims (adding NetFX3, drivers, changing edition to enterprise, etc.). Everything works fine, even auto-activates, autounattend still working fine, etc. So except for the error mentioned earlier, all's well. But what cuases that BFSVC 0x3f9 error?

Just saw the new March KB3034344, it has a new win32k.sys inside. I wonder if this is the fixed version? Personally, I'm waiting until OnePiece uploads the new localized updated to his server(s), then I'll make a new POS Addon and test the new win32k.sys, but just wanted to share the news on the new update, maybe one of you can test it as a standalone update?

Thanks cdob!! A very nice and clean script, dd might come in handy for other tasks as well, nice new addition to my toolkit. So do you think I could use WinNTSetup to replace win32k.sys after "apply" of the XP files to HD, just prior to start of XP setup? I'm not an expert in other setup (inf) files, so I don't know if there are other checkums to edit? Thanks again!

Mister Floppy, I was thinking along the same lines. If I had the knowledge, I would try and make "officially" patched versions, but (like you?) I think I will have to resort to "brute force" (=manually edit the sys file). I always use a Win8PESE USB and JFX's WinNTSetup for installs (including XP), so I could use the "RunAfter" feature of WinNTSetup to replace Win32k.sys after the apply stage (just before setup starts). But then again, wouldn't that cause checksum failures? Hmmm.... Not sure. Maybe we should just be a bit more patient, at least we know now that there is a solution. Maybe OnePiece will do his magic as well, or any of the geniuses out there. Harkaz, thanks again for all your work.

Thanks harkaz! So now we can patch our localized versions of win32k.sys? Please confirm which version we need and where to get it. Can we use your patch,zip structure, and only replace win32k.sys?

Aahh, now I'm jealous, outbreaker!! I really hope harkaz can explain the patch, to allow other languages to use it too!

Thanks, I had a laptop setup already to test. But it's ENU only I guess? Any way I can apply the patch to a different language?

Sounds great, harkaz. So that's a patch from the latest official POS ("bad fonts") version, back to a fully updated version without problems? It would be great if we could start that patch after the update was already installed (from any of the packs out there). Thanks for the effort!

Thanks for the information, jaclaz. So, what's you guess on how many of the other updates around (be it xp, w7, w8) would fall into that same category? 90+%? Just a question, I've always wondered about stuff like that, would love your opinion on it...