RyanVM

Not a problem. We all have those days

Don't forget to run modifype on the dll after patching.

Yeah, the search tool is quite lacking. Unfortunately, I'm also at work right now, so I don't have access to my unattended CD. Shoot me an IM any time after 5 ET and I'd be happy to help you.

No prob. I started doing the same thing (having everything copy). Just so you know, it's really not as hard as it sounds.

I patched my SP2 syssetup.dll without problems. Just use the patcher in the thread.

Or as another alternate method (which I use) is to run the program directly from the CD. Saves a lot of time during textmode setup since all the files don't have to be copied off the CD. @the_duck, if you're interested in that, I can show you how to do it.

Yes, all you have to do is patch syssetup.dll and you won't see it. I've personally verified that it works.

EDIT: Nevermind, I misread how you said it. Do us a favor next time and don't put the c:\xpsp1a_eng_pro part in front of your path. We'll assume you're working from the root of your install source.

Dang straight. I hate this board Granted, the ITE8212 chip is the main source of my ire. A word of warning to potential motherboard buyers, I've seen this chip advertised on other boards as well (Asus I think) - AVOID IT LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW. It's a PCI bus hogging piece of crap that causes my sounds to get static every time I do anything with a drive connected to it. Absolute GARBAGE.

LZX:21 is what's giving you the higher compression. Those options are available with makecab as well, using the command switches /D CompressionType=LZX and /D CompressionMemory=21.

Why don't you take a look at Jdeboeck's batch files? They are able to remove drivers and other stuff and then recompress everything! http://jdeboeck.msfnhosting.com That's what I use . It suffers from the slow decompression time that I'm referring to. IIRC, you can adjust the settings so that the cab ends up at around 100MB (instead of ~80MB), but decompresses way faster. Heck, nLite even has the option to do the one or the other. I think I'm gonna PM nuhi to get him in this thread

OK, let's summarize the thread one more time then. On your CD, you have an $OEM$ directory. Directories within that use a special structure that can be used for copying to certain directories on the computer during an unattended setup. One such directory is $1, which translates to %systemdrive% (which is C:\ in 99% of installs - it's the drive that windows is installed to). So anything contained in $1 is copied to c:\ (for the sake of our example). So, if you have a folder named install inside $1, it'll be copied to c:\install. Get it?

About the only thing 7-zip's SFX module is missing at this point IMO is the ability to be completely hidden during extraction. Also, I'd like it if it were able to directly execute MSI files instead of needing msiexec to do it. Igor told me in email that he might put that into a future version.

I use a modified MSI file as well to say the proper version number and have PrintMe completely removed from it along with some other cleanups. Also, 7-zip compresses better EDIT: But yes, I'll probably switch to the /qb-! switch in the future. EDIT2: Also, 7-zip's SFX module seems to be better behaved that WinRAR's. I've personally experienced (and others have posted about the same problem) times where WinRAR will delete the temp files prematurely or Windows setup will continue to the next program before the current one finishes (probably because the SFX EXE doesn't stay resident in memory while the called program runs). Of course, your milage may vary, but I've played with SFX archives for quite awhile

There's no need to get hoity toity over it. Theres a certain understanding amongst those of us who frequent the forums that people are expected to do their homework prior to asking questions. Simply put, it gets tiring answering the same questions over and over when many of them have already been answered. http://unattended.msfn.org/ is a very valuable resource. I'd suggest that you check there first, then search for your question using the search tool of the forums, then post. You'll find that people are generally much more willing to help at that point. Relax buddy, we're here to help so long as you do some work on your end too.

Doesn't that imply that winnt.sif be also burned on CD? Should I copy the cd to the HD along with the winnt.sif? Won't that cause the same type of problem? Thanks for the help! Yes, winnt.sif resides in the i386 directory of the XP install CD. No, it doesn't get copied over to the hard drive (not directory, anyway). XP setup looks for the presence of the file and if it sees it, it uses it to get the setup parameters.

%systemdrive% in 99% of cases is a reference to c:\

Why not just boot from the CD and use winnt.sif?

read my post and the second half of lpl's last post

Just remember that anything contained in $OEM$\$1 is copied to the system root drive (generally c:\). So if you have $OEM$\$1\blah.exe, it'll be copied to c:\blah.exe and so forth. EDIT: *sniff* beaten like a rented mule

That answers that then

http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/files/acroread602.exe (15MB) Switchless

Why do you need to start setup from DOS?

Look in the "System Devices" section of Device Manager.

This is driving me nuts, because I think it was GreenMachine who posted on this before, but I can't find his post.