simply_simon

@Felix. Thank you for your feedback. Compiling within Visual Studio 6 is just a case of clicking 'File/Make ****.exe'. I know I've said it's a 'Final' version, but doubtless I'll still need to make some revisions at some point. I've listened to comments and I'm definately listening to your requests. I've started writing up some new coding to use tags from within the INI file. What I intend to do, is to factor in three main tag types... LBL will be the text label for the current action, PRG is the installer to run, and DOS will be a new feature that will allow pure DOS commands to be run (Such as terminating programs etc). As I said before, I personally prefer to do all that sort of thing within a BAT or a CMD file, but if you want multiple lines, well hey, I'll give 'em to ya!!! The tags will basically just be like HTML style things. Any Ideas for further configurations using these tags perhaps people??? Visual basic is a lovely thing to play around with, and a lot of the basic commands, such as For/Next loops and If/Then statements, are things I used to mess with when I was at school (20 odd years ago). The rest is very simple to pick up. Most of the visual properties can be changed within the program code, such as Text1.text = "hello" which would put the word Hello into Text1's textbox. There are many many tutorials online and plenty of downloadable code snippets to help you. Unfortunately VB6 is a dying breed, thanks to the .NET era, but the runtime files needed are already installed with XP, whereas .NET framework needs to be installed.

nLite is a good proggy to check out. It does a lot of tasks that have been mentioned in this thread (Such as registry tweaks and removing stuff you don't need) but in one program. It will also create your winnt.sif file with everything you need, as well as that all important ISO file at the end (Bootable). Hmmm.... Wonder if this is a good chance to plug my RunOnceEx replacement Application installer. Oh well, if you're interested it's at http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=65858&st=0

Finally CRACKED IT!!! I was still struggling with this Error 52 thing. It seems that it is just a limitation of the VB6 'DIR' command. I solved it with a FileExists function ('Borrowed' code, used with permission). I've been busy testing, and can now assure everyone that it works with any drive letter from C to Z. I even tried mapping a network share to X:, which the program found too... So basically I am happy enough to put this out as a final version now. Oh yeah. I made a new progress bar, so now I managed to get rid of the COMCTL32.OCX and the MANIFEST file in one fell swoop. Now you just get 2 files to use instead of 4. All in all, today's been a good day. The 'Final' version is here. I've now updated the first post. The source is here if anyone wants to work it any further...... As always, all files can also be downloaded direct from my website.

Yes you can, but I suggest you use the newest version. I'm posting it here. It's basically just a cleaned up version of hooovahh's interpretation, the source code is with it, in case anyone else has a copy of VB6 on their machine and wants to play with it. You can actually run the program from wherever you like. The only stipulation is that the Preinst.ini file is on the ROOT of the drive that your installs are to run from. I run my installs from the \Install\ directory on my CD ROM Drive. So, assuming my CD is D:\, I would have the following: I put the preinst.ini file, the exe file and the exe.manifest file to the root of the CD. The OCX file needs to go in $OEM$\$$\system32\. I use a single line in RunOnceEx (No GUI) to call D:\preinst.exe. The ini file would be edited as follows line 1: Installing program1 line 2: Install\program1.exe /s /n This will do 2 things. Firstly, it will tell the program to display "Installing Program1" Above the Progress Bar. It will then run D:\Install\program1.exe (Note that you can use your installers switches too). Finally, it will update the progress bar.... and so on until it reaches the last one and finishes. It automatically closes when it's finished, although you can force it shut if you're rebooting your system afterwards.

'prjPIE' was just the project name used in visual basic. I just hadn't bothered to change it (Lazy coding). If you are getting a 53 error, it means the program hasn't found the 'instloader.ini' file. In the version linked to in the first post, that file must be put in the system32 folder, along with the rest of the stuff in the archive. In Hoovahs rewrite, the file has to be put in the ROOT directory of whichever drive you want it put. I'm in the process of doing a significant rewrite and will post a new version soon.

This code is looking quite good. I played with it a bit to see how it stood up to a little abuse. As you said in an earlier post, you do run into a bad file error on a non-existent CD-Rom drive. If I get a bit of time, I'll put an error handler into the code so that we can use every drive letter. I'm trying to speed the code up a little (See code below). Code shown below also resolves the drive letters using a loop as you said before. For intLetter = 67 to 90 If Dir(chr(intLetter) & ":\Preinst.ini") <> "" Then 'File Exists GetFirstCdRomDriveLetter = chr(intLetter) & ":\" End If Next intLetter Don't forget to declare intLetter (Dim intLetter As Integer) Other than that, it works pretty well. I'm going to have another good cleanup of the code and sort out the error handlers as I said before. I'm also going to rename the INI file to something shorter, like config.ini or something like that (Hope that will resolve the ISO names issue). After that, I've got a WPI version of the same prog to work on. Your input is greatly appreciated, which is why I left the source open in the first place.

WOW!!! Looks like you guys have been busy! Looks like we got a little open source venture going here. Just added a little bit of extra coding to get rid of the white space problem altogether. In intLoopA, after the first line, add the command: DoEventsThis will allow the text label to redraw whilst the external programs are being executed. As I said before, VB6 is somewhat limited in what it can do, especially when it comes to shell commands, which is why I hard-coded the locations (Basic id***-proofing really). That said, I'm glad someone has come up with an alternative. I will take a good look at it when I get back from work in the morning (Graveyard shift tonight )

Hey no problem. I'm in the process of writing it up in c++, but the VB one seems to be working well. Glad to see it's appreciated. Just giving back for all the help this forum's given me the past couple of years.

Just finished a new version. Should clear up a few things. Not planning a skinable version or a user interaction version just yet (I want to see how this one goes first). Download link changed in first post. Or Click Here. The source code is now available on my website also if anyone wants to have a go with it (VB6). Give me loads of feedback!!!!

The one included will do fine. The version of VB I'm using is several years old so the Common controls are just as old too! You will notice a manifest file with the EXE. This is to enable XP's own visual controls, instead of the boring square ones!!! Just to answer your question though, the version number I'm using is 6.0.81.5 and it's included in the RAR.

Okay! Sorry for not answering straight away. I've been busy testing and pushing this to it's limits to try and iron out the bugs. First of all, I was using Installrite for certain installers, which also tends to speed up the installs a bit. What happens though, is when you use a lot of these in succession, you get a white space instead of the installing text. Also, the XP visual style is missing for a few secs (Has anyone tried this? Looks far better with the XP Style). I believe I'll be able to get rid of this with a short pause in the sequence. I'm going to work on a skinnable interface, because I'll probably get into trouble sooner or later for the XP logo that is on the current version. The plan is to eventually give the end user a choice of designs to pick from (In the config file). @Muiz, you'd be able to call multiple commands using a batch file (Which will start minimized in any case, so you'll not see it during install). I prefer to use batch files anyway, even in runonceex, because it looks a lot cleaner. @kelsenellenelvian, not sure what you're asking there. I guess you could call it from WPI, but I'm not quite sure why you'd want to do that, as WPI does the same job (Excellently). I would definately like to have a look into this though. You'd have to tell me exactly what you were looking to do, but I would love to be able to contribute in some way. @MOONLIGHT SONATA. Thanks for the encouragement. I put the start button in because the interface wasn't showing up until after the first installer had finished. Hopefully a short pause will sort this. The cancel bit is proving tricky because of the way the API function to open the programs works. I'm trying to find out how to reliably kill this process when cancelling (TODO). It may be that I'll have to block the cancel function altogether until I can sort it (Don't know if it's really necessary anyway). Thanks for the comments guys. I came up with this because wanted a smaller interface and something that looked a bit tidier than RunOnceEx. Now I know that there is some interest, I'll get to work on improving it! I'm going to post the source code up at some point also (It's in visual Basic) in case anyone wants to have a Play with it.

Looks like I've missed a couple of things. Needs COMCTL32.OCX to run, so it's gonna have to be imported using $OEM$ folder and then registered. Also might need Virtual Machine installed too. I've been using MS Virtual PC to test with, but my machine is rather slow, so results are a little slow coming. UPDATE: OK, now the darn thing works! I've updated the download now so it's got everything in it. Just copy everything into %cdrom%\$OEM$\$$\system32\ and make sure that you have 'OEM preinstall' selected in your WINNT.SIF file. Change the instloader.ini file to suit and use the RunOnce registry key to run it (If you know anything about RunOnceEx, the syntax is just the same, except there's no GUI after the reboot. It just runs the proggy you ask it to). This is what my RunOnce.cmd file looks like: cmdow @ /HID @Echo Off SET KEY=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce REG ADD %KEY%\001 /V 1 /D "%SystemDrive%\windows\system32\preinst.exe" /f EXIT

Okay. This is the latest version, so I'm posting it on the first page of this thread. It's a very simple installer that uses a small text script to install your software. Screenshot is below: Download it from here. Feedback is always welcome so let me know how it works for you. Also many thanks go to Hoovahh for his contribution to this project.

LOL@last post!! I wouldn't for one minute suggest using this method on anything but a single user machine with no need for user restrictions. That is why I said if Admin is the ONLY account! But it works fine for me as I'm the only user and my machine is behind a hardware firewall. Valid point though! ~SIMON~

Open notepad and paste the following: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\32418F9EE1126B64A90E8365B85CFCF6] Save this as Alcohol.reg (Or whatever you want to call it!!) and put it in your install folder. Now you can run it from RunOnceEx or wherever by using: REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\Install\Alcohol\Alcohol.reg Of course this location may vary with your installation but you need to run this command BEFORE you run the installation. ~SIMON~

Just a thought... Have you copied NTUSER.DAT to your Default User profile? Only asking because this will most likely override most of the reg tweaks associated with explorer or the desktop. As I said, just a thought! ~SIMON~

I think your command should read: start /wait "REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\Install\autologon2.reg" REGEDIT is a program residing in the system folder and not in the Install folder you are creating. Hope this helps. ~SIMON~

Not yet had the pleasure of activation yet, only work with volume license. I found this link for activation on MSFN site: http://unattended.msfn.org/intermediate/activate.htm Have you used Setup Manager to create WINNT.SIF? If you haven't you maybe should read this page too! http://unattended.msfn.org/beginner/winnt_sif.htm On The XP corp version I'm writing for, as soon as I boot Windows for the first time, It's not only signed in but there's no security center either (Apart from warnings about Antivirus not being present, which will not show if you install antivirus during install). There are plenty of tips on the MSFN site that seem to cover most of the aspects of Setup. It's just a case of looking around and finding what your looking for. And if you don't find it by looking around, just do what I did and start from the beginning again! You'll be surprised what you missed when you look over it a second time! ~SIMON~

I've used Installrite to create silent installs for around 75% of my installs and found this solution not only saved time on hunting down switches etc., but also seemed to install quicker than the original installers. Compression is generally good, but I found that some installers were upto 25% bigger than previous. This was not a problem as my install was from a DVD. One more thing, the best way to accomplish installs is on a clean system and by not rebooting after installs. This way you get as close a match as possible to the sort of circumstances you would get during an unattended setup. However, not all progs will install well with installrite. Some MS software (Java in particular) had some strange results, so as a rule I do not use any Microsoft Software with installrite. Of course I'm not a big expert and not everyone will agree with me. I have simply decided to share what I have learned as a newbie and hope this will help any other newbies that are struggling with silent installs. Feel free to comment.... ~SIMON~

Just to add, if Administrator is the only account on the computer, you can have it auto logged on by adding the following reg tweak: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] "DefaultUserName"="Administrator" "DefaultPassword"="********" "AutoAdminLogon"="1" Obviously change Password accordingly. ~SIMON~

Apologies for any mistakes in previous post. Now been corrected. ~SIMON~

No. FullName is just the name of the computer. Maybe I should outline all from the start... 1. Edit WINNT.SIF and change or add the command below to the section [unattended]: OemPreinstall=Yes If it's already there don't change it. 2. If you don't already have a $OEM$ Folder you need to add one. Make a new folder in the root directory of your windows installation and call it $OEM$ 3. In this folder you need a text file called cmdlines.txt 4. In cmdlines.txt type or paste this: [COMMANDS] "REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%/Install/autologon.reg" 5. Create a folder inside $OEM$ and call it $1 and one inside that folder called Install. Inside this folder you need to place autologon.reg as I outlined above. cmdlines.txt executes commands during the last 12 minutes of setup and so reg settings are copied before windows starts. Try it and see if it works. ~SIMON~

Think you could also add it to the cmdlines.txt file under [COMMANDS]but I am not sure how to add a REGEDIT command. I think it would be: "REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%/Install/autologon.reg" Someone correct me please!! ~SIMON~

Oh well! I just thought it would be a nice cosmetic touch! Installation looks brilliant otherwise so thanx for your help anyway! ~SIMON~

Easy this one! In your autologon.reg file put: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] "DefaultUserName"="Administrator" "DefaultPassword"="password" "AutoAdminLogon"="1" Change password to whatever your admin password is! Hope this helps! ~SIMON~ PS Just to add, you put the autologon.reg file in your %OEM%\Install folder. I call mine from RunOnceEx.cmd just add the following command somewhere: REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\Install\autologon.reg IMPORTANT: Make sure that the autologon.reg file is deleted after installation or your admin password is visible!!!