No6

Some of you guys kill me. You're hillarious. When new users ask questions that have been covered elsewhere, some of you are quick to jump on their backs for being lazy and not searching. Then, on the other hand, instead of encouraging them to learn the basics, you clutter their minds with advanced concepts that leaves them with no option but to start asking more questions, only to be shot down at the next opportunity. Isn't it obvious that the previous users are new to this sort of thing? Xplode? RunOnce? WPI? Does it seem to you that the people above asking for help are ready to tackle WPI when they don't even understand unattended installation fully? You're doing them a disservice rather than helping them.

I'm in the same boat. I have been playing with this stuff for about 2 weeks now. People get mad if you ask redundant questions. We are all eager to make things work at first try, but that's like trying to drive a car without learning how to first. I know that you don't want to hear this, but you cannot hope to make things work right, the first time. You need to experiment A LOT to understand the workings of Windows setup first. I've started learning about unattendent installations about a year ago. I didn't make my first CD for about three months after that, and after a year, I still find and learn new things. Don't rush things. One week is not enough to learn. I have spend way much more time learning to do this than I hope to save using the finished disk, but for me it's the journey that matters. The guides are not there to teach everyone to complete a project, because everyone has a different level of understanding. Instead, they outline the procedure and the people are expected to experiment on their own to discover some of the basic stuff. The guide gives you the big steps but you're expected to learn the little steps yourself. That's where the forum boards are a big help. Whatever your question might be, it has been asked before. A little investigating will answer your question AND teach you other things that will become useful eventually. Don't get discouraged. It'll take some effort, but when you make your first CD it will all seem worth it. Good luck, and feel free to ask for help when you cannot find the answers yourself.

OK, thanks. Should I copy and paste that in notepad and save .bat in same folder with setup.exe C:\XPCD\$OEM$\$1$\Install\Nero Or can I put that somewhere (where?) in .INI file? You can either make a batch file with that command or incorporate it into an existing batch file. Just adjust the Nero\setup.exe path accordingly. Post back if you need to.

This may help. Start /wait Nero\setup.exe /SFX /SILENT /NOCANCEL /NOREBOOT /WRITE_SN /SN=xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxx-xxxx-xxxx

Maybe I'm not understanding the question but he's saying that he wants to modify it without user input. If so, I'd recreate it with a batch file. attrib -r -s -h %systemdrive%\boot.ini rename %systemdrive%\boot.ini boot.old echo [boot loader] > %systemdrive%\boot.ini echo timeout=30 >> %systemdrive%\boot.ini echo default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS >> %systemdrive%\boot.ini echo [operating systems] >> %systemdrive%\boot.ini echo multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=AllwaysOff /fastdetect >> %systemdrive%\boot.ini attrib +r +s +h %systemdrive%\boot.ini ... With the appropriate substitutions, of course. If I missed the question altogether, disregard.

Very short one-liner: @if not exist c:\folder1\filename.ext copy c:\folder2\filename.ext c:\folder1 Substitute the obvious.

Tough crowd!

Aaah! Thank you very much for clearing this up. Saves me a lot of grief for trying to find something that isn't there.

I have an issue that hopefuly someone can help me with. I set the HKCU RunOnce during the GUI setup, hoping that it'll be copied to the Default User (HKU,.Default...\RunOnce) at the first boot, so that a script is copied to any new user profile and run a particular script. Well, the RunOnce contents are copied to the Default user properly, but no matter how much I beg, it will not copy to the profile of the new user (after the Administrator), and of course, it doesn't run. I thought that maybe RunOnce is ignored by the Default User, so I did the same thing using HKU,.Default...\Run with a command at the beginning of the script to erase the HKCU...\Run entry. Only, there is no such entry, because it's not copied either. I can verify that the Default User contains the command to run the script, it's just that it's not being passed to a new user profile when they first logon. I hope that I explained this adequately and someone may have an idea as to why things aren't working as they should.

Yes, I agree that the groundwork has been done with ad-supported shareware and services. I think that Microsoft and other companies will push to have basic versions of their software supported by ads and distributed for free, and the "pro" versions for the higher demand users and the corporate. Maybe in the days to come we'll see people making a shift toward open source, but again, the average person doesn't even know that there are alternatives.

You fail to realize that the majority of computer users aren't geeks and have no clue as to what nLite is, let alone hack and remove ads. The average home user gets frustrated every day using his/her computer that has been infected with a virus and/or adware, simply because they don't know what to do. At one time, it was unthinkable that the Internet would become commercialized and geeks were scoffing at the idea. I was one of them. Who predicted the ad-supported search or email schemes that Google came up with? Not many. The reality of the matter is that there is big $$$ in advertising, and I see the eventual ad-supported software, not just Windows, something that will come to pass. Given time.

You guys sound like bad tech support. What's wrong with cutting someone some slack, new or old? No one wants to beg for an answer, anymore than you resent the question. If you don't feel like helping, don't. But keep the attitude offline, it makes new users resentful and defensive.

Yes, that's the first thing that I checked. That's why it's driving me up the wall. No rationale behind it. I rebooted both units, no change.

This is weird, haven't seen it before. I shared a couple of drives on my main PC to be accessed by the laptop. I also maped those in the laptop. However, when I open the drives/folders from the laptop, I only get a partial directory listing. I open folders that look empty but in actuality, they're not. The contents are there and I can see them on the PC, but the laptop is blind to them. There is no pattern that I can distinguish. Any idea what may be causing this? I'm not necessarily looking for an answer, a shove in some direction would be appreciated too. Title Edited - Please follow new posting rules from now on. --Zxian

I have the exact same problem. Searched high and low but can't find anything to solve it so this is one of the programs I install manually.

Thanks for the reply. I wasn't really sure what to get so I went with the Inspiron 9300 to cover all bases. Might be overkill in some ways but it should take care of me for the next three years or so.

No, 50 MHz would be science fiction when the mainstream home computer was running at 2.something MHz.

I'm shopping around for a laptop and I need some suggestions from those who are already using one as to which might be a better fit for me. Some portability wiill be nice, I'd do some light gaming on it, run the office, mostly, and watch the occassional movie. Any suggestions? Not sure that I want to go as low as a Celeron but nor do I need a desktop replacement. Thanks for any input. 6

Jackpot! Thank you very much

When WPI writes the RunOnceEx entries it starts numbering at 500 for installs that have no particular order. Is it possible to start that numbering at 5000? I cannot locate exactly how and where that number is allocated. Any help would be greately appreciated.

That is exactly what I was trying to do, and for the same reason. Only I was looking at the wrong file. Thank you for posting your work, It'll be easy to modify things now!

I'm not certain, but from looking at it, it looks as if "File 1" refers to SP2. Fixes numberd 1-54 are contained in 'File 1" while the rest of them are self-contained and listed by their actual filename.

I would like to change the default order of installation (Starting at 00500) to something higher, say, 900 or even 1000. I'm not a whiz at jscript, (picked it up when I started playing with WPI) so I can't locate where exactly I need to look. Can someone point me to the right direction?

I second that... In fact, you shouldn't even be thinking WPI at this point, but concentrate on learning to do an unattendent installation. You can't skim throught the unattendent guide hoping to pick up a tip here and there but instead, follow it to the letter all the way through. You'll be pleased at the end result.

I still think that DiskPart is your way out but it'll take some work. If you follow http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18087 it may shed some light into how to go about doing it. Hope it helps.