Ctwizzy

Yes all are the same type and of the same software, but imaging would be a waste of time considering we need these systems all the time. The process only takes 10mins per machine, but when you do it 200 times thats 2000mins = 33hrs. Which to me is a lot of wasted time. Plus each system would need minute configuration for itself. We do have a hardrive backup machine, which just replicated a HD but even this proves to spend just as much time as manually doing it. Deep freeze is a pain, but its not my choice, I just work here. If anyone knows of a way of interacting with deep freeze via a programming language that would be handy, otherwise im stuck doing this manually lol. Best soln I thought of tho not feasible at all, would be to just have terminals that all come from the same machine, and have their own instance of windows. That way its a patching of one machine for all. Sadly not every company considers these things when they buy their systems. Thanks so far

I would reinstall w/o a uA but that would take me a lot of time and effort. I would have to resetup all my apps, config files, settings. Which would take forever. I run Tomcat and MySQL for webdev testing on my home machine. I was hoping that with a uA cd I could have it install those apps for me again, and then basically import my settings for these apps, and DB tables from MySQL so that I could save myself the bother of having to redo this. The same goes for all of my apps: Photoshop - plugins and brushes Firefox - extensions, favorites and settings etc etc The uA cd is becoming more like a quick and easy way for me to resetup my pc with as little reconfiguration as possible. If i was to simply reformat for now, id still spend hours redoing my drivers, apps, tweaks etc. Ok so your saying to use straight up batch files to do my silent installs, worry about the easy stuff later? Im looking for an easy way to do this and still learn. Batch -> runonceex -> GUI app seems like a lot of time wasted on 2 things I wont be using again in the future. I guess this isnt possible. Anyways a few Batch things that im working through, please correct me if im getting some of this wrong. CLS Clears any previous data on the command prompt REM This is a Remark, now is this the same as a comment? @ Placed infront of commands that are not to be echoed to the console @echo off Commands aren't shown to the user, only what is in actual ECHO quotes TITLE Windows XP SP2 - Unattended Installation Sets title of the shell ECHO. echoes a blank line ECHO message Echoes to the user DEL Deletes a file or all files in a dir "%systemroot%\ Gona say this one determines the root of the system i.e C:\ DEL "%systemroot%\Web\Wallpaper\*.jpg" Deletes all jpg files in the web\wallpaper dir start starts a program /wait I read about wait and there is no wait in DOS or windows you have to create a wait batch file yourself with a time for waiting, is this right? or does it mean dont continue past this line until this line is done executing? start /wait %systemdrive%\install\MSN\MsnMsgs.msi /qn stars the file MsnMsgs.msi in the dir specified. Now this is where things get hazy, ill research more later but for now if someone wants to help. /qn Silent Install for MSI installers? /s Silent Install for Wise installations? /S same as above or does case matter? /v Couldnt find anything on this yet, not sure what it does REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\install\RegTweaks.reg Dont know a lot of these switches such as /s. Guessing this one imports a RegTweaks.reg file into the registry ECHO Deleting ASP.NET User Account created by .NET Framework 1.1... net user aspnet /delete Is this 2 seperate line or one? and what does this do? ECHO Registering Flashget 1.4... REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\install\Applications\flashget\register.reg So this is how it registers the product? /silent[CODE] Silent Install? Whats difference from other ways it was done above? [CODE]/noreboot Dont reboot? ECHO Updating Symantec Antivirus Virus Definitions (May 14th 2003)... COPY "%systemdrive%\install\Applications\sav\vd155c08.xdb.xdb" "%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition\7.5\" Copies from the cd to the file, this is how I woudl import config files and settings im assuming? ECHO Restarting the PC in 1 minute... shutdown.exe -r -f -t 60 -c "Windows XP will now restart in 1 minute, this will give enough time for the shortcuts to update and for the shell to fully load before its ready to restart!" Fairly Self explanatory, but need some help with understanding the switches -r... ECHO Deleting Temp Installation Files... RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\Drivers RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\install Whats RD do and the switches that follow? EXIT Exits the file If you have read this far thanks lol, I realize this is long. Anyways if there is anything else I need to understand before I start coding for installs, let me know. Thanks

Hi, Im currently co-oping during my school term, and am working in the technician/administrator division. There are a lot of pc's that requre the same thing to be done to them. Basically the pcs are locked down using Deep Freeze so that users cant change information. But when the systems need their anti virus software upgraded or windows update being done, the system have to be unlocked manually and each and every system done individually. As you can probably imagine this takes forever. What I want to do is create an app that will allow me to - log onto the pc as admin - unthaw deepfreeze - reboot - download all windows updates - antivirus upgrades etc - do the neccesary reboots - and then refreeze the system. This way I wont have to sit at every computer and run do this all manually. Problems I forsee - not knowing how many restarts will be needed - estimating one, as after all virus updates and windows update that needs 1 restart - working with deepfreeze w/o user intervention - sometimes multiple attempts of Windows Update is needed - Will still have to go from system to system to run the app Usually I have no problem coding, but thats because im a j2ee web developer and not used to application building. Though I cant see it being much more difficult. Just a little to learn. So some advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Prathapml - I was reading in the forums and found this app called Easy RunOnceEx.cmd Creator, developed by a forum member. You probably are well aware of this app. Anyways I was reading a post and found a cmd file that has like 70% of the apps I wanted to silently install. Do you recommend this file to make easy RunOnceEx.cmd files? Thanks

Thanks for the quick responses. Well as I had said earlier a friend gave me a XP SP2 pro cd, I dont know how it was made, but it beats me having to make my own using my dell copy. (**** dell why couldnt they just send out normal versions). Anyways, what im wonderin is if there is any way of checking my sp2 cd to make sure its an actual slipstreamed cd and its ok to continue to use? Would the VM programs work? Ok next I have made my answerfile, but thats when I had my partition plan in mind. Im going to have to change this soon, as someone said putting DATA on anything but C: is a problem for future installs. - looking for advice on a good partitioning system to keep things organized, please give your reasons why you use it etc, im looking for a good proven way of keeping stuff organized that other more experienced people use. Links on good partitioning etc would be appreciated. Ill be home tonight reading on batch files. I guess its a plus I can code in Java/VB etc, ive done a lil batch coding for admin apps but eventually opted out in favor of Windows Scripting Host, as it let me use VB/JS/Python instead of batch. The way I see it is BATCH allows for basically the rest of the stuff to be done i.e silent installs, registry tweaks, customization etc. Was really hoping to use a nice GUI to make this a lot faster, as I want this CD made asap, system is starting to bother me. But if you sugest I learn the batch no worries. Ok thats it for now. thanks again

Your gona make me do it all the hard way huh lol. Ok so kick me in the direction I need to go in to make an up-to-date XP cd so I have a base cd to start with. Basically all im trying to do is make an XP cd with SP2 and all the updates right? Once I have this done and tested I can move onto things such as the answerfile and silent installs. Thanks.

Thanks for the fast reply. I still think it would be way easier if people could actually share their uA cd's but ah well. Gay copyright laws in the U.S. thank god I live in Canada where were actually alowd to have copies if you own the original. Ok I wont touch nLite just yet. Xplode sounds like it will help a lot. I am a programmer but seeing as I do it for a full time job (j2ee web dev) id rather not do much coding if i dont have to. I dont understand this? XPCreate will make me a updated XP SP2 cd that I can customize and tweak then no? You sugest I do what myself? Use XPcreate to make upto date cd, then XPLODE for customization, silent installs and tweaks right? And yeah Ill just make ISO, was never gona burn a uA until it was ready anyways. Thanks

Ok so what Im gatering I need to do is Steps: Use XPCreate to create an up-to-date distribution of windows XP Use nLite on the Dist cd to thin out some of the crap Use XPLODE to organize which progs I wana install, and registry hacks I wana add At the end use cleanup.cmd to clean up my uA cd Dance around cos im all done and now have a cd i can use to format my pc once in a while and keep it fast! Questions: is XPCreate the best way to create an up-to-date dist My XP Pro CD is a DELL Dist, should i try and find a non dell dist? I also have from a friend a XP Pro SP2 cd, no idea how it was done. Can I use this along with XP create to make it more complete/verify it has all thats needed? The unattended codec pack, is this better than me just including which ones ill need? is XPLODE the best way of doing silentinstalls? is it preferred over batch files? what about areSilentInstall? Just so im on the right track.. thanks in advance.

Both are IDE drives, on the same cable. 7200 RPM, 80 is 2mb cache, 160 is 8mb. I know a little about IDE drives, and enough to know that having them on the same IDE cable is bad, as the transfer rates gets bogged down when both drives are accessed simultaneously. Supposed to have both drives as the master for their own IDE, this is the fastest setup. Anyways ill check that link out. Thanks. I would be interested in seeing some other users PC configurations. How they have it setup and how they keep it fast/organized? Also, i dont know if this is appopriate on this forum or not, but I see a lot about having an up-to-date XP Distibution CD with assorted hotfixes and updates. I have a legit copy of windows XP Pro, with legit S/N. What I want to know if I could get someone prebuilt up-to-date XP cd, either by FTP or Bittorrent. This shouldnt constitute as warez as I own the cd and a SN just needing a base up to date cd from which to start. If this is inappropriate to ask on these forums I appologize.

I have 2 hard drives. Drive 1 is a 80GB, 2 is a 160GB. The 160 has an 8mb cache so its where I want to put windows so its faster. The partitions do not exist incase of the drive crashes, im aware that if it crashes the partitions go too, which is why the secondary drive would contain backup apps, and files incase of a problem. I would like both drives to be masters with the CD-RW and DVD-RW the secondaries to each drive, but i would need longer IDE cables to acomplish this, and atm i do not have the cash to buy some really long cables to do this. So are you suggesting that I have windows on one hardrive, and all data and installations on a secondary drive? Looks like I'm going to have to spend some time thinking over how i want to make my uA cd and how I want my computer setup. What I would like to acomplish is a well organized PC, where in the circumstance than a format is neccessary, restoring back to where I was wont be a problem. (maybe keep the backup uA on the secondary drive so I can modify it for installations etc.) Anyways if anyone more experience than me, can suggest a good way of doing this I would appreciate it. I will learn the neccesary steps to create a uA with installs, reg, codecs, and drivers if neccessary. Im sure it can help me down the line anyways. Thanks. This community is friendly and very helpful, truly hard to find one like this. Especially the help I have recieved as a newcomer.

S0mE0nesMiNd1 - My pc has in the past run deadly fast with only 512Ram, so I know its possible.

Format PC takes lets say 1hr, now reinstallaing all games/apps takes another 4-5, moving all files back to their locations from backup partition or disc 2hrs. You see thats 8hrs of my time. Now i know your gona say my uA does it while im sleeping, but see, what if in the future i dont want an app on my pc thats on my uA, or say there is a new version, then I gota remake my uA cd, seems to be like a pain. I see uA as more as an admin tool for building pcs for an entire office. Maybe If i could build some super uA to do this all for me so everytime i format its like i never did, and just update the apps every month. But how long would making a uA cd like that take me, and how much reading and testing would I have to do to do this, see either way im gona have to spend huge amounts of time. Lets see some peoples opinions.

Prathapml - Yeah I im more up for the once in a while installation. uA interested me because I want to specifiy windows default directories. I always seem to run into the problem where after x months my PC has gone from being fast and responsive, to a deaf old lady so i have to reformat and star from scratch. I do this prob 3-4 times a year, Its a P4 2.4Ghz 512MB of RDRAM pc800 (Samsung Ram). So I mean there is no reason why it should take near on 1 minute once closing an app for me to regain control of my pc, especially when exiting a game. I used to be able to alt-tab from war craft 3 to check MSN msgs in no time, these days its taking a minute to get to the desktop, and even then its unresponsive. So of course I have come to the conclusion that I need to format my pc and organize it, hence the partitioning system. Now I know everyone is going to say well in order to stop your machine from getting slow defrag it, run adaware, dont install spyware apps etc. Well I run Diskeeper all the time, along with adaware, norton, system cleanup, reg medic, and a bunch of other stuff to keep my pc running as smooth as possible. My PC isnt off much, but I doubt thats the problem as even after i reboot or turn off for an hour the pc still gets slow again quickly. Now formatting takes a huge amount of time, gota make sure everything is backed up, then format, then rebuild the pc from scratch. So its something I really dont want to do often, so im basically looking for the best way to keep my PC organized and running fast w/o heartache. And partitiong things onto dif drives I thought would be the easiets of solutions, no one has yet to tell me otherwise so Im gona run with this. Anyways I just thought id let you guys know what im basically trying to acomplish here. You guys seem to reformat like every 2 days, I must be missing something as I dont see the point? Ah well. Happy New Years!!

lol, dont worry im playing games too, just beat Prince of Persia 2, and now onto Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories on my EMU, or maybe ill finish HL2 lol. So many games so little time. If only I had the time to play World of Warcraft Ah well thanks cartoonite, im prob gona get this underway this weekend Happy New Year. Ill keep ya posted.

Ok so the partition for windows, that should be specified in the answer file right? How would I do this? Also do I leave the partition unformatted? Formatted? Im thinking NTFS Primary? What im going to do is this. Create uA cd, then create the partitions needed, make sure formatted. Store everything I want backuped on the current Windows HD. Remove the current windows HD. Install windows on the new HD, once done and all is working, re plug back in my old HD move all files back over and reconfig windows. format old HD, and voila im done. So am I right in assuming that once I have C: Windows D: Program Files E: Documents, that if i format C: all my Program files will still be there and working when I format C: in the future? So i wont ever have to reinstall again? Also can I specificy where the temp dir will be in the answerfile? or is this post installation?

Ok Initially I wanted to create an Unattended CD that would install a bunch of Registry Tweaks, Applications, Drivers and Codecs etc. I am no longer seeing the point in this because I mean Im using this CD once, and in the future Id have to recreate the cd with newer apps, when I could just as easily install them manually have the control I need. I have created a D, and E on the destination HD, D is for Program Files (installations), and E is for Documents and Settings (is this where My Documents is kept?) As of right now they are empty with enough space allocated to them for now. There is no OS on this drive. Now I have my XP CD with the following answerfile. What I am hoping for as the outcome is for it to create C: on the drive, set program files on D, E is Docuents and settings. SO in the future when I install apps they default into D:. This allows me to have Windows/Installations/Data seperated. This simple unattended CD allows me to format C: in the future w/o worrying about losing windows apps. Basically the goal of my unattended CD is to have the 3 partitions on the one drive, where the info is seperate, and if I ever need to just format C I can w/o losing installs or Data. Am I right in thinking this will do the trick? Answer File: ;SetupMgrTag [Data] AutoPartition=1 MsDosInitiated="0" UnattendedInstall="Yes" AutomaticUpdates=yes [unattended] UnattendMode=FullUnattended OemSkipEula=Yes OemPreinstall=Yes TargetPath=\WINDOWS UnattendSwitch="yes" Repartition=No WaitForReboot="No" AutoActivate = Yes ProgramFilesDir="D:\My Program Files" CommonProgramFilesDir="D:\My Program Files\My Common Files" KeyboardLayout="Canadian English (Multilingual)" [GuiUnattended] AdminPassword=* EncryptedAdminPassword=NO AutoLogon=Yes AutoLogonCount=1 OEMSkipRegional=1 TimeZone=35 OemSkipWelcome=1 ProfilesDir="E:\Documents and Settings\" [userData] ProductKey=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX FullName="Chris" OrgName="" ComputerName=Chris [Display] BitsPerPel=32 Xresolution=1280 YResolution=1024 Vrefresh=85 [TapiLocation] CountryCode=107 [RegionalSettings] LanguageGroup=1 [branding] BrandIEUsingUnattended=Yes Home_Page=www.google.ca [Proxy] Proxy_Enable=0 Use_Same_Proxy=1 [identification] JoinWorkgroup=HOME [Networking] InstallDefaultComponents=Yes [Components] msmsgs=off msnexplr=off zonegames=off [WindowsFirewall] Profiles = WindowsFirewall.TurnOffFirewall [WindowsFirewall.TurnOffFirewall] Mode = 0 Now time for Questions! - Is there anything else I need to specify to do what I want? - Will windows installing on the new HD create C at the front of the disc automatically? - Do my D and E partitions have to be empty? - Will it auto designate letters to my CD/DVD drives? - Can I keep my Windows Installation on the other drive for now and just change the drive letter, to make sure this works as planned? This means id have 2 windows XP installtions on 2 dif HD's one master one slave. I will clean the old one once im sure the installation went as planned. - If I change the drive letter of the current windows installation on the smaller drive to say Z:, and then make that drive the slave, install windows on the new drive, if it all fails, can I just swap the master slave back and it will boot from Z:? or no? - If anyone has any futher sugestions, advice, or improvements on helping me do this ASAP I woudl appreciate it.

yeah thats what i used! Works great!

nevermind found an app that let me grab it.

Hi, im trying to find my cdkey for my windows XP pro installation. Problem is i cant find my cdkey, Its on my pc so does anyone know of a way I can get it w/o having to tear apart my house to find it?

this has fallen from main page, just giving it a bump

Sorry for the bad title name, I wont do it again in the future. If a mod could change it so something suitable that would be fine. Catoonite thanks for your answers. If you have the time id appreciate some more advise. Is there something wrong with my complex partitioning idea? Do you know of something better? So I have to switch drives so the drive i want windows to be on is the Master, and the drive windows is currently on is the slave? Will Windows boot from my slave for now then if I do this? Also how do I make sure that the front of the destination drive is free for a windows installation? Should i create a C: drive on that drive or let the unattended installation create it for me? I think to make life easier for me I could do the following: Leave drive1 with windows on it for now make my unattended CD change all current drive letter names to letters I wont be using Switch drives Master -> Slave (Drive 2 becomes the Master now) Create partitions that I want on the Master for Program Files and Docs Use Unattended CD on new Master, this creates a second installation of windows which has the configuartion I want. Boot up windows check out everything is fine, then format the original windows installation freeing up the room on the second HD. Then I should be done. Does this sound easier/possible? Also you said that I should look into getting a VPC so I can check my uA cd, is there not a guide somewhere on components I can safely remove? http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/space_saving_tips.htm I checked out this link and realize that this is just a tip of the iceberg, im looking for something to slim it down even more, I mean there has to be more junk that Windows Installs that bogs my system down? Im trying to make my system better for testing Web Applications as a Dummy Server. (Tomcat for J2EE apps) and also for video editing/graphics and games. Thanks for your help and Happy Holidays!

Hi, My pc has been real slow of late, and is overdue a fresh install. So I have been researching and found out that its best to have seperate partitions on your HDs so that future reinstallations are faster and I wont have to backup everything again. So I have manually created partitions on both of my HD's. As current I have an HD1: 80gig with a 2mb cache and a HD2: 160gig with a 8mb cache. The 80gig HD is the master atm, and the 160 the slave. The 80 gig also hosts windows atm. I have the following Drives. A: Floppy C: Windows XP Pro + program files 70gigs on HD1 D: DVD-RW E: CD-RW F: Storage drive (hosting all files I want to back up on here) HD2 G: Virtual DVD drive P: For all my web development, has a Subversion repository on here etc HD2 S: Future Swap disc on HD1 T: Future Temporary disc on HD1 U: Future driveimage backup disc HD2 I have a legit XP cd key that came with my DELL dist of windows XP pro. As this vers is jam packed full of dell crap I dont want, I am using my friends XP cd. Which is a Windows XP Pro SP2 cd. What I ultimatly want to do, is have windows XP pro install on the faster HD as C:. HD1: 160gig C: Windows XP Pro 2 SP2 - 5gigs D,E,F will be cd drives? G: all my Documents and stuff on - 90gigs H: installations and common files on E: (or visa versa between E and D), 50gigs I: temp files -1gig J: Swap Disc -2 gig (for Photoshop) If anyone can recommend a better setup or more partitions to further organize my system that would be great. HD2: 80 gig k: Basically a storage drive, keep backups etc - 40gigs N: network drive to be shared between my home network - 40gigs So I have read the guide, Im going to have it install a few programs for me that are neccesary and small enough, bigger apps like Photoshop and stuff I wont bother with. Drivers for my vid cards, and for audio/video. And some registry tweaks to make the system run faster. This is for personal use, so I dont see the reason putting the effort into making it install Apache, MySql etc when I can do this by my self. So Im basically looking for a few answers. 1. Is it ok that I have the partitions allready created, and how do i tell windows when it install thats the new default install dir is on a dif drive as well as the data files? Im assuming this would be in the answer file, and is relativly easy to have it map it. 2. Whats the advantage of having the unatteneded install programs for me? Wouldnt it be safer for me to install them myself once the system is up and running? 3. How do I make it install windows on the slave drive for now (once its done i will switch it to be master), this I am unsure of. 4. Is it safe for someone like me (a novice) using nLite to make the windows installation lighter? There is a lot of junk it installs and id rather not have it. I have a program called XPLite Pro, tho unsure about this. Thanks, and this is an amazing forum/community. I hope to learn a lot here.