[vLite 1.1 beta - vBloat]

Yes could can install vista from a 4gb thumb drive. You have to make sure your iso doesn't go over that limit when repackaged.

diskpart (note this must be done with Vista's diskpart,its version 6.01..., not XP's, version 5.0...) but once you do thumbdrive prep with a Vista diskpart the instructions do work. I think HP also has a tool to make your thumb drive bootable if your working of a XP machine but I have not used it.

select disk 1

clean

create partition primary

select partition 1

active

format fs=fat32

assign

exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

[Wildcards in window names?]

I know for directories you would just use asterisk.

Example

CD C:\prog*
COPY D:\AAW\*.* C:\prog*\aaw

Something like that you are looking for?

[Are you against Piracy?]

I will not belive in anyone, who is a home user, that he/she does not have a single byte of pirate software/music/videos on their computer.

Here in Portugal a Windows XP bought at FNAC costs 330€, and its home edition, and 490€ for the professional edition. I know no cases of anyone who actually bought Windows XP or any other type of software, I definitly agree with piracy for home use, if we look at it closely everything is piracy even taping the news from TV.

Even though I agree with piracy for home use, I certainly don't agree with it for commercial/enterprise use, a company can very well spend a obscene amount of money in software, where a 16 year old with no income can't. A 16 year old who wants to buy Windows XP for example, here he would have to spend around 330€ or if he would order it online then he could find it for USD 90, and a 16 year old who would live in Malasia would have a cheap version of Windows XP+Office 2003 for USD 60. If Microsoft can afford to "lose" money to the domestic market in Asia why can't they do the same in the rest of the world? A friend of mine who went to Macau (China) said he saw games, oringal not pirated, which here are sold for 60€ and in Macau for 9,99€

Piracy is the only way for a domestic user to have software like Photoshop CS, which I'd like to know how many of you actually bought it.

Another level of piracy is when it comes to music CDs or DVDs, I don't buy music CDs, I would if they didn't cost 29,99€, and I would buy a DVD if it didn't cost 39,99€ (doesn't matter what DVD it is, it will be around that price). But I also don't download DVD's from the internet, I will rent them and rip them, in a way I paid for them.

Don't come with things about how I should really pay for it, Portugal is not a third world country, but the minimum wage isn't 1200€,  its 375€ (hardly enough to survive!!!) and a person shouldn't be obligated to buy a piece of software that will cost her 90€ to boot her computer, while it only cost less than 50€ to the company to manufactur it!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your not "obilgated" to buy windows....You can use linux/unix but you would have to learn how to use that software just like "learning" windows.

Its a gray line but I agree that sometimes people do need to pirate software to try it and make sure it suit your needs then buy if it does.

The laziness of I can't afford is not an excuse to pirate the software there though use alternative software that does the samething, catch is most people are too lazy to learn a "new" piece of software. If kinda the car example that was given. You don't see me going to a restaruant and not paying my bill cause even though I love the food there I can't afford it.

[Mapped drives.]

Here is what I am trying to do.

Windows NT/2000 enviroment. Its mostly 2000 till the NT servers get converted to 2000 file servers.

I know this script below will enumerate mapped drives.

Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")
         Set oDrives = WshNetwork.EnumNetworkDrives
                  For i = 0 to oDrives.Count - 1 Step 2
            ''WScript.Echo "Drive " & oDrives.Item(i) & " = " & oDrives.Item(i+1)
         Next
         WScript.Echo 
        

and the map script is

Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")
WshNetwork.MapNetworkDrive "E:", "\\Server\FolderName"

So my end result is I want it check for mapped drives and if it finds them remap with the user choosing the drive letter since we have over 30+possible folder names that could be mapped otherwise I would map it to a particular drive all the time.

But I do need to exclude M drive though since its global and will always be there for user for storage/backup of files.

[When was the last time you reinstalled Windows?]

Fedora if you want lastest Linux, really depends on what your looking for. Fedora comes with a ton of software with it. If you want a slim/small distro slackware or debian is the route you might want to take.

There are what called Live CDs for Linux. Basically Linux on a CD so you can try it before installing it. Hope that helps ya.