aelfwyne

Well I'm not sure what the secret is, but I've tried about 50 times (okay a few less), and it always crashes on the final stages when integrating hotfixes. It doesn't seem to matter WHAT hotfixes I include - it will crash during that step. I am running as administrator, I have taken ownership of all the working files, etc, but it crashes every bleedin time. I have also tried the last final non-beta as well as the current beta. Have tried with sp2, sp3 and two different source disks - one already sp2'd (with sp3) and another RTM with no service pack, to sp2 and sp3, all go crashy. EDIT: Loaded the files up over the network on my win2k backup box (via tightvnc), and there's no crashy - same source files. So it is clearly a vista problem Sorry I have no idea what the problem is - I was running it as administrator, so that wasn't it. But it DOES work with the SAME source files and service packs/addons when run from a Win2k box.

I guess I'm clueless - all I have is the installer executable from Microsoft - could someone post a more detailed set of instructions for slipstreaming this? I extracted the installer with winrar, found a ProWW.cab... am I supposed to extract that too? All the other cabs? What do I do with them afterward? I've made installer CDs before with nlite, etc, but I am not familiar with the process here... there seem to be quite a few steps left out as "you should just know them".... I don't.

I like the way poweroff.exe works -but I can't get it to work on my unattended CD... it's in the path okay, that's not the problem... The problem is it doesn't want to reboot when I want it to. I placed it at the same location that the shutdown was, near the top of cleanup.cmd, and it came up but blocked execution of the rest of the cleanup script. However, when I place it at the bottom of cleanup.cmd - it seems to not want to run, and windows just logs in normally without ever executing poweroff... So.... where am I supposed to put it so it reboots after all my runonceex entries?

In case anyone cares, I've figured out the problem. No matter how much registry setting you do, if you have your unattended install applying a theme file, you need to make sure the correct cursor set is selected in that theme or it will default back to the system cursor. I'm still not sure if the reg keys need to be imported if the theme specifies the cursor - but I'm not taking any chances myself, and I'm still importing them. Plus, importing the keys to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Cursors gets the bootup to use the custom cursor regardless of user theme.

Okay - I was going to replace the default files... but there's this jazz of default cursors actually being resource files... So I dug deeper. It seems that when you create a cursor, it stores the schemes in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Cursors.. however, just copying this reg key isn't enough to make sure users on a new system get that scheme (even though you'd think that setting the cursor to that would be)... These values must be duplicated in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Cursors... which is not saved to when you manually create a scheme.

Before I get too involved in converting my RunOnceEx.cmd to WPI, I have a question... I have several things I want to install silently and non-optionally - no need to clutter the WPI interface with them. Is it okay to still run all the normal installs in RunOnceEx.cmd and then just use WPI to install optional items? Thanks

I checked, and indeed dual monitors are the key to this problem. If WPI.hta is launched from a window on the secondary monitor, it will never show up. However, when it is launched from primary, it works fine.

I want to use the Premium cursors which I've downloaded from the net on my unattended install... however, I've got a bit of a snag. What I did on my system was to create a cursor theme with the cursors I wanted, applied it, and saved it. I found that it saved to the registry, so I exported the keys for the cursor theme and the current selection. Then, I import those registry keys during install of the unattended CD. I also placed a copy of the cursor files in $OEM$\$$\Cursors so they would be copied to the new system. It appeared to work, at first. When XP booted into the GUI for RunOnceEx, the custom cursors were showing fine, proving that they had indeed been installed. However, after the first reboot and coming up on the desktop once everything has been installed, I find that the cursor is set back to default!! Why would it change it back - it was already working? Has anybody an idea how I can get this to work?

So... has anybody ever figured out a way to keep this thing from rebooting? The best I've gotten so far with the MSI file, is it actually asked me, despite being told to be silent and suppress reboots. Better than breaking the install process, but still no cigar. I've tried the switchless EXE and it reboots automagicly. I'm tearing my hair out over this! I have programs that really do need to have 1.5 java - and no amount of coaxing or sledgehammering will convince it to not reboot. Has ANYONE figured a solution that actually works on more than just one or two systems?

Rebooting here too Really screws up the install!

I do indeed run dual monitors - and clicked on the file in my secondary display. I will check later and see if it works when launched from the primary display. Thanks for a useful answer

Now how would that help considering I *JUST* downloaded it from there less than 30 minutes ago?

As my topic says - I can't access WPI.hta. I double click it, and it "runs", as in, I see the config wizard in my running processes, but nothing displays on-screen. It's completely invisible, and switch to front won't bring it up. I end up having to simply kill the process. What gives?