osborned_rcc

You can use the RunOnceEx method to run a cmd file before Explorer loads.

I'm having a problem where SetupCopyOEMInf.exe does not finish running before Setup starts driver detection. It gets about halfway through and then detection kicks in during integration. It still finishes, but I don't know if I'm losing a few drivers or not. Is there something I can do about this?

Alright, another neat thing shows up and helps me out, I tried the Foxie plugin for IE, and the built-in spyware tool ripped out a reg key I had hidden away that nothing else found. www.getfoxie.com

Alright, I'm unsure at what point this started, but every PC I've slipstreamed with my latest round of disks have come up with the vx2.look2me trojan in them. MS AntiSpyware grabs it as soon as I log in for the first time. I've torn my dev computer up trying to find any traces of it, and while I DID remove it with CWShredder, my new slipstreams are still coming up with it. I'm trying to determine if it's really on my slipstream, or if it's propagating through our network somehow. I've run Trojanhunter on full scan through my PC and through the DVD, which supposedly can find all traces of this, but has so far turned up a blank. Anybody else having these problems?

Well if you're using the right driver, then it looks like you're going to have to set it up with the VGA cable, then switch to DVI after you're done. I'm thinking the driver can't finish being set up for DVI without some user input of some kind, and that's what's hanging you up.

Go to support.dell.com, enter your service tag, and ensure that you are using the appropriate video driver from Dell. Any other non-Dell, but OEM driver WILL NOT work with their setup. I know this from experience as those splitter setups don't work at all if the driver is non-Dell, the stock Nvidia drivers don't enable all the Dell dual-screen features. The Dell-Nvidia Drivers are lower-version than the latest Forceware, but have been modified to enable the DVI features.

I'm not sure if SetupCopyOEMInf.exe works on 2000 or not, but if so, download it, copy the drivers to the hard drive, and integrate them using the exe. Here's the thread for the executable: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=43795

Nah, we've got an Extreme Networks antispam filter built into our Exchange server. We're pretty tough.

I'm not sure about that, as taking a look at the explanation for that switch says it simply runs "Scan for New Hardware", and doing that manually in Device Manager after integrating drivers never worked. What Bilou's code seems to do is to force Device Manager to force each unknown device to be rescanned. "Scan for New Hardware" shouldn't do anything, as the hardware's already been FOUND, it just hadn't been installed. I've tried Bilou's code and it works fine. I simply put it in my cleanup file and don't worry about messing with AutoIt scripts in a DetachedProgram or anything, it's just taken care of. The setup process is a bit slower, but it works, so I don't care if it's not pretty. Bilou's code presents a great simple way to dynamically integrate drivers.

Of course, a few minutes after I post this, I find a hopeful thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=52741

Hi, my name's David Osborne, I'm the MIS Support Manager for Redlands Community College in El Reno, OK. I came here because I was trying to develop an unattended install disk to make flashing new stock Dell PC's a lot easier. Things are going pretty well so far, picked up a lot of tips here already. There are a ton of truly talented and knowledgeable people here, and I'm glad to be a part of the community. Thanks! David Osborne MIS Support Manager Redlands Community College, El Reno, OK osborned@redlandscc.edu http://www.redlandscc.edu http://it.redlandscc.edu

What I'm trying to do is to minimize coding time, by running SetupCopyOEMInf.exe AFTER setup, then somehow forcing PnP enumeration again. This is because if I run SetupCopyOEMInf.exe after install, the drivers for the "unknown" devices are there, they're just not loaded until I run the Update Hardware Wizard. Is there a program out there that runs auto-update on all devices, or re-runs PnP discovery? The closest thing I've found out there might be the sysprep tool, using the -pnp argument, but it seems it's really a tool for imaging rather than a general tool, and I'm unsure what it might do if I call it in my cleanup file. The -pnp argument forces PnP discovery after a reboot, but then I don't know what else it's supposed to do. My idea here is that I don't bother using Winnt.sif to find drivers, keep my drivers on CD, run SetupCopyOEMInf.exe against the drivers on the CD, then force PnP discovery to setup the new drivers. After this, the cleanup.cmd file performs a reboot and voila, all drivers are installed. I'm not worried about leaving the drivers on the hard drive as I'm setting up stock Dell PC's for labs and offices. Any other ideas?

Okay, never mind, it WAS a driver issue, but not the kind I thought it was. Turns out that on this particular model, the Drivers from CD trick (with presetup.cmd) will not work, as SetDevicePath.exe apparently writes the wrong kind of path. I went back to the winnt.sif method, manually writing in the device paths, and everything installed just fine and dandy. I guess let this be documentation that these particular drivers have issues with the presetup.cmd method.

I'm getting more and more certain that it's not a driver issue at all. I can boot into safe mode (but not with networking) and the only driver having any issues is the NIC driver, that asks for a .sys file, which I point to, and then everything's fine with that one. As for the SATA driver, I don't think that could be a problem if the entire installation goes through before it hangs.

Alright, on this machine everything was working perfectly until I converted to the RunOnceEx method, then the PC will hang at the Windows XP load screen. The progress bar just stops. On any other computer the install goes perfectly. The only special thing about this one is it's SATA hard drive, but that wasn't a problem before I converted to RunOnceEx. I've updated the driver folder with the latest Dell drivers I could find for the model, still no help. I've rebuilt the disk from scratch. I even removed SetupCopyOEMInf.exe in case that was causing problems, still no help. Any ideas?