Cartoonite

A lot of what you are trying to do with your partitioning is confusing me , but I will do what I can to answer your questions. If you are using a complex partitioning system, I believe it is better to have the partitions created prior to beginning setup. I'm not sure I understand the rest of this question. As far as I know, you can only automate installation to the first partition on the first harddrive. If you want to install elsewhere, it is best to manually choose the destination at the start of the setup process and then have the rest be unattended. Does that answer your question? The advantage of having the programs installed unattended is exactly that: They are installed unattended. I suppose you could argue that it would be easier to install them manually to ensure that you get the exact settings you want, but the same can be said for installing Windows itself. The uA process is comepletely customizable; you can automate as much or as little as you like. I believe most of us opt for complete automation simply because it makes our lives easier, but ultimately the final decision rests with each indivisual project maker. I'm not sure it is possible to set this up automatically. I'm also not sure it's a good idea. I recommend having your hardware configured as you intend to run it before begining setup. (i.e.: Swap the drives first, then install Windows.) Yes and no. The main thing to keep in mind is that, while you might break your uA CD by tampering with it using nLite or XPLite Pro or even just manually hacking files, you will always have your original CD that you can use to start fresh. If you don't already have it, I advise getting a virtual PC program such as VPC or VMWare that you can use for testing your uA CD every step of the way. That way, if you do break something, you will hopefully have a very narrow scope of changes to examine to determine exactly what you did to generate the error.I hope you find this information helpful. Welcome to our site. Enjoy your stay.

I would suggest cutting the uA down to the bare minimum to see if the folders are still created. Try cutting down the process to just: Text Mode Setup Reboot GUI Mode Setup Apply HKCU regtweaks via cmdlines.txt Reboot autoadmin logon and then checking to see if the folders exist. If they do, the issue probably lies within either your WINNT.SIF file or your HKCU regtweaks. If they don't (which I think is more likely) they are probably being created either when a particular app is installed or via your HKLM regtweaks. One other quick question. Is there a reason why you have opted to install the hotfixes seperately rather than integrating them directly into your CD?

Thanks for the praise, and welcome to MSFN. The easiest way to do it would be to modify the existing uA Windows CD and add the programs you require to the end of the process that installs all the proprietary apps. As you said yourself, the apps are installed through some sort of script, so just editing that script to add your custom apps to the end of it (but before the reboot) should give the result you are looking for.

How have you configured your uA process to run? For example, mine runs as follows: Text Mode Setup Reboot GUI Mode Setup Apply regtweaks Create custom user Set custom user as auto logon account Reboot Custom user auto logon Run start.cmd to install apps Reboot If you could break down your uA process into something like this, it might help isolate the area where the problem is being created.

You shouldn't have a space after the equals sign. Try /saveinf="C:\Silent.inf"instead of /saveinf= "C:\Silent.inf"

Hi Tetix, welcome to MSFN. For your particular situation I would recommend not automating the partition selection of your setup. Manually selecting your desired installation partition and file system will ensure that mistakes such as forgetting to reformat the destination partition before starting the installation do not cause any significant problems. This is the method I plan on using for my own uA CD. It means, of course, that the installation will not be 100% unattended from start to finish but, in my opinion, the trade-off is worth it. @saitoh183 Did formatting your virtual hdd before running setup clear up your issue?

Here you go, Brian. This script is close to how I think your final "should" look. One thing I thought of adding was a line that would check to see if the source files are actually in the directories the user specifies. I left it out for now though, since I couldn't think of a way to do it that would apply to the hotfix folder as well. Check your PM for the password. PM me back or post here if you have any questions about this script.

I got the list for all the components I wanted using the /Saveinf switch to record my installation.

Spielberg Sci-Fi or Fantasy?

Thanks for (yet another) tip prathapml. Guess it's time for me to start looking into VMWare.

When are you adding the desired shortcut to the "C:\Documents and Settings\Default......\Quick Launch" folder? Is it before or after the user with whom you are testing is created? If after, try putting it there and creating a new user to see if it appears for them. If it does, you should be able to have it appear for all created users by putting it in the "$Docs\Default User\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch" folder on your uA CD. Hope this helps.

This is certainly one of the most interesting problems I've ever heard of. Didn't see anything in your regtweaks that looked like it should be causing the problem. Can't say I know how to fix it, either, although using the regtweaks provided in the attached file may be a useable workaround. Good luck. StartItems.txt

I'm not sure, sorry. I've never used that particular setting. Just know that my VPC uA installs weren't 100% uA until after I added the Repartition string. One other thing, AutoPartition won't install Windows to a partition that already has a Windows version installed on it. So if you're using your CD for re-installs, you will have to reformat the partition yourself beforehand. Just something to keep in mind. Good luck, and please post back the results of the partitioning test.

I use VPC, not VMWare, but I think most of the principles applied are similar. Is the drive you are using for you virtual machine already partitioned? I know default harddrive images in VPC are not, so AutoPartition alone won't be enough to automate the install. Try partitioning the virtual drive with Partition Magic (or something similar) and then running the uA again.

Like me. Maybe some day, but for now I'll hide behind my excuse: "I'm still new to this, I'll stick with what I know."

The executable available for "public" download seems to be a 7-ZIP SFX. Is Asta's "special silent" installer the same thing just packaged in a silent SFX? And, if that's the case, any objections to someone (say, me) taking it upon themselves to make those modifications for their own benefit, Ryan?

I think you may be right Nologic. These are still viable alternatives, though.

Downloaded the demo version for both Outlook and Outlook Express. Look like Nullsoft NSIS Installers. Silent switch should be /S. NSIS switches are case sensitive so make sure you use a capital.

You're a popular guy, Ryan. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Try these settings. They are the ones I use when testing on my VPCs. [Data] AutoPartition=1 [Unattended] Repartition=Yes You can leave out the Filesystem setting because the Repartition setting defaults to NTFS. The only down side to this is that all data on the drive will be lost. If you don't want your drive to be repartitioned into a single large NTFS partition, you can try setting Repartition=No and leaving your current settings intact. I've never had a need to try this method, so I can't say for sure whether or not it will work.

One reason and one reason only.... Because I'm still quite new at this, and didn't know how to code it.

Ok, I've managed to get it working. As mentioned in a previous Daemon Tools thread, the problem with the current version of awxDTools is that, once installation is complete, it pops up a pair of dialog boxes that need to be clicked before the installer exits. These dialog boxes appear regardless of whether or not the /S switch has been specified in the comman line parameters. Because both dialogs are a part of the installer itself, calling the install executable with the usual start /wait would effectively stall our uA process. However, it is important to note that, by the time the first dialogue box appears, awxDTools has already been successfully installed. This means that we can safely kill the installer process once that dialogue box appears. I used a pair of batch files and was able to get awxDTools almost silently. I say almost because if you want to sit and watch the screen like a hawk once you start the process, you may see the first dialogue box appear for a split second. Here are the files I used: AwxInstall.cmd cmdow @ /HID @echo off start awxDTools.exe /S start /wait KillAwx.cmd KillAwx.cmd cmdow @ /HID @echo off :top if exist "%userprofile%\Start Menu\Programs\arniWORX\awxDTools\Re-Register Extension.lnk" ( taskkill /f /im awxDTools.exe exit ) goto top awxDTools.exe is what I renamed the original installer (downloadable here) to. Place all 3 files in the same directory and then call InstallAwx.cmd the same way you would any other installer. Since you will be installing via a script, no switches are required. For myself, I plan to put the files in the same directory where I store the DTools installer, and then add the following line to my start.cmd file: start /wait %systemdrive%\Install\Applications\DaemonTools\InstallAwx.cmd I hope some people will find this useful. If not, at least I had fun doing it.

Thanks Digerati. I've been working on this since I first saw your links posted in the other thread. Seems you've been one step ahead of me the whole way. Quick question: I used an SFX to extract the dll files to the required location and then run the regsvr32 command. After registering the service, It returned a dialog box informing me that it was successful. Is there any way to disable this? On a side note, I'm working on something that will work with the original installer. I'll post it here if I get positive results.

Yes, perfect! I never knew exactly what that plugin did. I think I've seen something posted here already about getting that plugin to install unattended. I'll post a link if I can find it again.

No worries about being new. It doesn't make your opinions and thoughts any less valid. If you look closely, you might notice that you and I both joined on the same day. The only real difference is that it appears I have a much bigger mough. As to your solution, you're right, that could be a potential issue. However, I can attest that, in my case, there is nothing in either the cmd files or the regtweaks (mine, not Astalavista's; I've yet to take the time to fully examine that massive file) that should have any effect on the theme. Although not completely ancient (I think the oldest part is 3 or 4 years old), this box is a little older than I would like. I'm running an Athlon XP 1800+ on an ASUS A7V333 mobo with 1GB of DDR RAM. I suspect the 60-second dely would be fine if I were using the uA on this box itself, but I am using VPC to test. VPC, as many of us know, is ridculously slow, almost regardless of what kind of resources you throw at it. I did use nLite to remove some of the more troublesome Windows components like WMP that cannot simply be opted out of. Everything else (SP2 and hotfix integration, WINNT.SIF, etc...) was done manually. I am testing on a clean, unpartitioned, unformatted virtual drive in VPC. The install is launched directly from the CD. ISSUE RESOLVED! I have applied BeenThereB4's recommended fix, and it seems to have conclusively resolved the issue. I bumped the delay up to 5 minutes, figuring not even VPC, the ultimate tortoise, would take longer than that to initialize. Hopefully I will be able to cut it way back once I burn the CD for real-world use, but for now, a 5-minute VPC delay won't kill me. Thanks to all who helped out on this one. If I find any more information I think may be useful, I will be sure to add it here. In the meantime I will move on to see what other interesting things I can break.