deadbug

I guess I must be missing a sense of humour! I renamed BPE1.DAT to BPE1.bin and bingo it works! Excuse me while I fume quietly in the corner for a while ...

I've remembered how to replace the installation key with a real one (!) and it looks like the Update pack has been successful - everything is indeed up to date (except KB892130, WGA Notifications and IE7, which is what I was expecting). Cool!

Now I think I've solved it fully. I copied the txtsetup.sif from \SETUP\XP\PRO\SPV (the one produced by Ryan's Integrator) and dropped it into \PRUV (overwriting the other one). Then I performed the required mangling of SetupSourcePath and ... bingo ... I now have a working installation (working == no error messages!) and Internet Explorer not only exists but can talk to the net. I guess I need to try a Windows Update at some stage to verify that the system is all patched up, but otherwise things are looking good!

I've solved my problem - at least partially. As I've got a multiboot DVD, I have a txtsetup.sif in \PRUV as well as in \SETUP\XP\Pro\SPV. The integrator carefully pruned the latter but didn't know about the former (and nor should it, I guess). I knocked out plugin.ocx from the other txtsetup.sif (and also knocked out sp2.cab, which is the next and final thing it trips over) and my install now appears to complete. However, it completes suspiciously quickly (although I've only tried it once and not timed it) and at the end it complains that framedyn.dll and srclient.dll are not around. On top of that there seems to be no Internet Explorer around .... I think I need to fiddle a little more.

Me too! I have a Multiboot DVD made using the Flyakite method. I altered it yesterday to use the RyanVM Update (2.1.9) and the WMP10 addon (3.1a??). To do this I took my \SETUP\OS\XP\Pro\SP2 directory (which is Windows XP with SP2 slipstreamed in) and copied it to \SETUP\OS\XP\Pro\SPV. Then I ran the Integrator against this new directory. Finally I created PRUV.DAT and \PRUV from the corresponding SP2 variants and patched as necessary. Booting gets me the message mentioned above. I checked and PLUGIN.OCX is indeed missing from the ...\SPV tree but it is present in the ...\SP2 tree. I would be asking this over in Ryan's forum but my registration isn't there yet and I saw this first! Thanks for any insights

I've been thinking about switching over from CDshell to SYSLINUX, mostly because SYSLINUX looks like it has a powerful extensible menu system. If you've already converted from CDshell to SYSLINUX, could you post a quick guide? I cannot see too much in the way of documentation for SYSLINUX. I expect it's not too hard to figure out, but some pointers could save a lot of time. I have the usual Multiboot DVD that can install various XP variants, invoke the UBCD, boot floppy images, boot SLAX. Thanks

FWIW there is now an MSI file available for download from foxitsoftware.com. /qn /norestart worked for me

I want to choose between the x86-32 version of Debian and the x86-64 version. They'll stomp all over each other if they're both in the root. Plus the root will be terribly untidy :-) You sound like you want both Knoppix and DSL available as options. So there's two good reasons to figure out how to achieve this. BTW: Slax is easy to move out of the root: it must be easy if a dufus like me can manage it! I've left the details either in this forum or in the slax ones.

I've been trying to do the same thing (multiple Linux/Unix distros on one DVD) with no real success so far. I've managed to get SLAX in there, but that only needs a tiny amount of mangling so that it all lives under \SLAX on the DVD. I can take a Debian ISO (business-card or net-install) and invoke that via CDshell's diskemu and it boots and runs quite happily but attempts to verify the integrity of the CD and obviously verifies the wrong thing (since it's not happy). There seems to be no easy way around this (but that's probably just because I don't know how the installer works). I've also started to look at one of the install-Debian-from-USB pages as that seems to perform some jiggery-pokery that then loads up an ISO (from the USB) and installs. Sounds like exactly what I need, but I've not had time to play with it much yet. Antonio

I've no idea whether people prefer attachments or in-line text - I guess you fall into the former camp :-) 5.0 final seems to have cured the three problems (everything worked in the near-full attempt I kicked off a while ago), so I've removed the log as superfluous. Now I just need to pick a theme and I'm done!

I've been trying RC2 as part of my UA CD to install apps for Windows XP SP2. The same config.js that works for v4.3.8 does not work for v5.2rc2. There are several problems: 1. Most of the commands involving nircmd.exe or taskill fail. The only difference I can see is that working commands (apart from mostly being cmd[1]) look like this: Cmd1 Success: 'D:\DVD-Apps\IZArc35.exe' '/S /verysilent /silent' whereas failing ones look like this: 'D:\DVD-Tools\nircmd.exe execmd move "~$folder.common_programs$\IZArc" "~$folder.common_programs$\Archivers\IZArc"' '' The config.js responsible for this example is: prog[pn]=['IZArc 3.5'] uid[pn]=['IZARC'] desc[pn]=['IZArc is a free archiving tool that suports many archive formats. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, view and write comments.'] ordr[pn]=[2006] cmd1[pn]=['%CDROM%\\DVD-Apps\\IZArc35.exe /S /verysilent /silent'] cmd2[pn]=['%CDROM%\\DVD-Tools\\nircmd.exe execmd move "~$folder.common_programs$\\IZArc" "~$folder.common_programs$\\Archivers\\IZArc"'] dflt[pn]=[verified] cat[pn]=['Archivers'] pn++ A minor problem is that if I set the timer to 600 seconds it counts down from 0:599 ... to 0:00, but I think someone has already reported that. Another more serious problem is that the installation always reboots at about the same place, for no obvious reason. In the example log I append below, the reboot happens after MS AntiSpyware installs but before Foxit does. I've tried a few times and removing the "suspect" program does nothing - it still reboots at roughly the same place. Is there any way of tracking down why it reboots? I don't think it is time based as I set an install off this morning and it was waiting for me to sort out yEnc (the AutoIt I wrote isn't so good!), and it rebooted shortly after I sorted yEnc tonight, 8 hours later. Here's the log in case it helps with some of these issues Thanks Edit: Log removed - 5.0 Final seems to have fixed all these issues.

Excellent. Many thanks for that. I didn't post mine because I was testing it out on W2K and WXP, but yours is better any way :-)

I've made good use of getOSver() to stop things installing where they shouldn't (or, more correctly, where they will fail to install and spoil the UA). I've come across a few products that need a finer granularity, such as Tiny Personal Firewall, which needs W2K >= SP3 or WXP >= SP1 (or something along those lines ... at least the install is good enough to tell me exactly what it wants!). So I'd like to ask for a getServicePack() [or getSP() or whatever] function to go with getOSver(). It looks like checking CSDVersion would do (it ways "Service Pack 2" on WXP SP2, the function should probably return "0", "1", "2" etc.). Any chance of that being added to api.js? If not (I know I sometimes ask for silly stuff :-)) where is the best place for me to define my own code so that I simultaneously make the smallest number of changes and maximise my chances of upgrading WPI seamlessly without losing my enhancement? Thanks.

I had another go at isntalling last night, this time installing WIndows XP SP 2 + the latest hotfixes and applications. From the log I still see all the nircmd.exe lines failing and the expected actions have not happened (desktop not cleaned up, Start menu not rearranged). My config.js is unchanged since v4.3.8 so I'm not sure what is going on. Here is a sample entry: prog[pn]=['Daemon Tools'] uid[pn]=['DAEMONTOOLS'] desc[pn]=['Installs Damon Tools virtual CD <i>Recommended</i>'] ordr[pn]=[30] cmd1[pn]=['%CDROM%\\DVD-Apps\\daemon347.msi /qn REBOOT=ReallySuppress'] cmd2[pn]=['%CDROM%\\DVD-Tools\\nircmd.exe execmd DEL /Q "~$folder.common_desktop$\\DAEMON Tools.lnk"'] dflt[pn]=[verified] cat[pn]=['Utilities'] pn++ cmd2 is supposed to go and remove a Desktop link, but the link is there after the install. If I run that same command afterwards, manually, the link is indeed removed. My ISP is still playing up so I can only post from the office and I cannot a snippet from the log file, but it looks (from memory) something like this: 'D:\DVD-Tools\nircmd.exe' 'execmd DEL/Q "~$folder.common_desktop$\\DAEMON Tools.lnk"' I'll try reverting to v4.3.8 tonight, leaving everything else unchanged. Any other ideas for what I else I should try? Thanks

Let me start by adding my appreciation for the hard work done to get to this point. Specifically thanks also for adding the logging function: it's already proving very useful for me! The log now lets me see that nircmd.exe on Windows 200 SP 4 returns errorlevel 9009. That's obviously not WPI's problem, but should I expect the return code to do anythign other than affect the gree-tick,yellow-?,red-cross that is displayed as WPI progresses through the list of apps to install? I did find one issue when running on W2K-SP4 .. as it starts WPI complains that checkExclusions() is not supported on line 511 of check.js. I'm having to report this based on paper notes I took during the install - my ISP was down last night - so I may not have the exact wording. Once again, many thanks for a terrific piece of work.

I'm asking here because I don't want to replicate someone else's work. I'd rather not find out later that I could have spent the time doing something else instead! It looks to be a bit more than a few midnight's worth of work too, since when I use bcdw to write a 1024x768 backdrop it takes several seconds to complete. So it might even be necessary to implement some sort of graphics driver. Even if that is not necessary, it still looks like a graphical mouse handler and graphics writing routines would have to be glued together at the hip (otherwise drawing a new image over the current mouse position will obliterate the mouse and leave artifacts when it moves). So quite a bit of work (and a fair amount of replication of reanimatolog 's existing "bcdw ShowGIF" - unless the source is around and I've just missed it.

EasyBoot is not free though :-( At least with BCDW's ShowGIF command I can switch to 1024x768 mode and display graphics. A whole screen display is quite slow though (and has to be done in pieces of 1024x128 otherwise BCDW runs out of memory)! For now I guess I'll try to put something graphical together using just the keyboard - at least I'll be able to see whether the display routines are fast enough to be usable. Any ideas about how hard it is to put together a CD Shell module (I'm presuming that's the easiest way to add mouse support in graphical mode)? Thanks

I want to put together a slightly fancier front-end to my multiboot DVD. As part of that I've used CD shell's "show image" to put up a picture and now I want to see a mouse move around on it. Not too much to ask I would have thought! But although I can see a text cursor moving aound in "show console" mode (text mode), there seems to be no cursor at all in graphics mode. Any one have any ideas? Any simple example cdshell.ini that I could try out? FWIW: I'm testing this in VMWare. Thanks

I would like to see an optional log kept (i.e. if I choose to have a log kept I would also like to choose where to keep it) of actions taken. Something like this: 03:27:12.00 starting uid OPENOFFICE, order 27 03:27:12.03 running cmd1 03:27:13.02 running cmd2 03:27:13:44 finished uid OPENOFFICE, order 27 So some simple timestamp format, an indication that a block is starting and finishing and an indication of when individual commands are run. In fact the previous poster is using some cmd entries to keep a log, so I'm obviously not the only one who occasionally has to debug their config.js :-) Thanks

I though duplicate sequence numbers were OK and that only the uid had to be unique? I'm doing this with Photoshop7 (I know it's old, but I bet it's smaller than CS2 :-)). I am invoking setup.exe but I can always write a timestamp to a log file on %systemdrive% before and after invoking setup.exe. I was just looking for some way of having that done automatically so I could look for "problems". I've read somewhere that multiple simultaneous MSI installations is bad, so if some of the installations just fire off a new task to do the real work, WPI will be none the wiser and just move on to the next one. A log would help me spot this sort of thing.

I've been playing with a Multiboot for a while so I've not had the chance to look any further into this until now. "Show Source" does tell me what WPI will do, but what I really want is a log of what actually happened and, perhaps more usefully for my problem, the time at which each command was issued. I cannot see anything that does this, or even generates any sort of log, which would be a good starting point for some hacking. Am I missing something or should I ask in the hope of an enhancement in the next release or should I just go and hack and see what I can come up with? Thanks.

I took a quick look - and it says SP3 onwards :-) I've found the problem BTW. It seems that update.exe is in I386\UPDATE\ and not in I386\. So if you try to just run the service pack EXE with the usual "-s:<wherever>" argument, it fails. I assume that this is a bug they fixed in W2K SP3. Anyway, I now have SP1 and SP2 slipstreamed as required (although I will not actually know whether the multiboot stuff works properly until tomorrow morning - right now I'm off to sleep!)

I've searched and failed to find an definitive answer to this one. I've successfully slipstreamed SP4 into Win2K. SP3 also works without a hitch. For completeness, I want to add Win2K+SP1 and Win2K+SP2 to my multiboot CD (it costs almost nothing in space and it gives me more stuff to add to the boot menu :-)). Both SP1 and SP2 fail. Both tell me that not all the necessary files are present. When I extract the files from sp1network.exe and look in I386 I see update.sy_, but no update.exe. I would just assume that W2K SP1/SP2 are too old for slipstreaming, except that the deployment doc on the MSDN CD for SP1 gives the usual slipstreaming instructions. I've even tried this under W2K itself (using VMware Workstation) and it still fails in the same way. Am I missing something fundamental or is it just not possible to slipstream these?

I'm using WPI 4.3.8 in my UA CD and mostly things work. Those few things that do not work are problems with program installs (or with my scripts) rather than issues with WPI. But I have found that sometimes things do not get installed, for no apparent reason. One example is Adobe Photoshop. My script has perhaps 100 apps and so forth that could get installed. If I cut things down to a dozen or so then Photoshop does get installed and all is well. If I go back up to 100+ apps Photoshop is not installed (no sign of it in Program Files etc.). I'm looking for some option that will cause WPI to write a log file somewhere to say that it is trying to install prog[N]. I can do this by adding a cmd[pn] to each entry, but before I do that I thought I would check to make sure that I'm not missing something obvious!