DarkPhantasmo

very nice! now, i have to go through and make changes again to my cd! hehe ... keep up the great work!

Well you could just do: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoSMHelp"=Hex:01,00,00,00 Remember though, that things get installed as the "Administrator" ... so what I do is I have a LAST.CMD file that I place in the All Users startup folder that does something similar to the following: @ECHO OFF IF %USERNAME% == Administrator GOTO ENDOFSCRIPT ECHO This is where you do stuff as the user you setup during the first boot ECHO Such as applying the registry entry above DEL "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\START MENU\PROGRAMS\STARTUP\LAST.CMD" :ENDOFSCRIPT EXIT

Time to test this out ... along with a few modifications to my install scripts. I just wish Virtual PC was faster...

I just noticed something while looking through my \PREP directory that the \PREP\2 folder is now empty ... I had run the DO.CMD script a couple times (the first time i forgot to change the path in those few spots) so i decided to look in the log file, and as i suspected, none of the files i had (before they were deleted) in the \PREP\2 folder got included. Also, as you mentioned, I did get that error about the MDAC hotfix, i may just remove that file all together and install it via the scripts later on in the process.

I just used your new script made my new iso image and am in the process of installing in Virtual PC as i type this. Right now its in the GUI portion of setup (on the Installing Windows)

One thing you can try to do to avoid the windows file protection stuff is to create a $$ folder in the $OEM$ folder. Inside the $$ folder create SYSTEM32 and SYSTEM32\DLLCACHE ... place the files you are copying over in your scripts into those 2 directories, and windows will "install" those files for you during the file copy process.

What I have done is created a seperate batch file for the items I would like to install as the user, them, at some point during the install process, i copy the batch file to the allusers startup folder and create a dummy file on the drive. In the batch file i have sometime like the following: IF NOT EXIST %SYSTEMDRIVE%\FILES\FIRSTBOOT GOTO SECONDBOOT DEL %SYSTEMDRIVE%\FILES\FIRSTBOOT > NUL GOTO ENDOFSCRIPT :SECONDBOOT Obviously :ENDOFSCRIPT is the line right before the EXIT line in the batch file. The firstboot file gets created during my "main_batch.cmd" file. One of the last things I do in thist batch file is delete itself from the startup folder. UPDATE: I have simplified things just a bit. In my "LAST.CMD" that gets placed in the all users startup folder does not do that IF NOT EXIST ... stuff anymore, i simply do the following: IF %USERNAME% == Administrator goto ENDOFSCRIPT { do my stuff i want to do and then delete the LAST.CMD file from startup } :ENDOFSCRIPT