jburbell

Thanks gunsmokingman. Are you sure that it's ok to run programs at this stage? I'm a complete newbie at this and don't know, for example, if the installation process has installed things that require a reboot before user programs start getting run. If there aren't any problems, I would prefer to use RunOnceEx anyway (cos *cough* it looks cool). So... does anyone see any problems with using rundll32 iernonce.dll to install at this stage before rebooting? Thanks again, Jesmond [edited for punctuation - **** important]

Hi, A few experiments with iernonce.dll later, and I think this is the behaviour of RunOnceEx: 1. Make private list of all RunOnceEx registry keys and values. 2. Iterate the private list, deleting each value (read command) from the real registry as it begins to execute that command. 3. When it has finished every value in a particular key it deletes the key (from the real registry). 4. When it has finished every key it deletes the TITLE value (from the real registry). The important thing is that however you manipulate the values after RunOnceEx has started running, it still runs the original set of keys and values. At least that's what my tests show;) Thanks all. Jesmond

Quick replies, thanks there! mgleason007: If I understand you right that's my third suggestion!? Zxian: I'm not worried about overlapping numbers. I'm worried that RunOnceEx will notice the added registry values and immediately continue the list, as opposed to waiting until rebooting. To put it another way: does the RunOnceEx process make a copy of the appropriate registry keys when it starts, and then use its own private copy, or does it keep a current_number and just directly check the registry to see what's next. If the former, my task is easy; if the latter, more difficult. I guess I can check quite easily. Er, well, erm, the thing is I'm kinda wimpy. I don't like the idea of assuming that all the installation package does is install drivers. As I understand it, the winnt.sif approach copies the drivers, but never executes anything. Now I simply don't know what my driver executables do. I don't know which ones just install drivers, which install drivers and apps, and I just feel safer installing from an executable. I have the feeling though that everyone's gonna shoot me down here! Thanks again for the help! (I'm gonna run a quick experiment to see how RunOnceEx works...) Jesmond

Hi all, I did a search, had many results, all of them irrelevant! Here's the situation. I'm doing an unattended install of XP HE, and I'm using RunOnceEx to install some drivers (I'm not using the winnt.sif approach) and applications. I would like to restart after installing the drivers, and then continue with the applications. I see three ways of doing this. 1. Use the reboot option of the final driver to be installed: would work I think, but means I need to fiddle if I add a driver or change the installation order. 2. Use shutdown.exe: RunOnceEx thinks that this has finished instantly. I could use sleep.exe, but it feels sloppy to be trying to synchronise sleep and shutdown. If I use 5 secs with shutdown and 10 secs with sleep, is that guaranteed to work, or is there some other behaviour? 3. Use two .cmd files: (RunOnceExDrivers.cmd is run from commandlines.txt) RunOnceExDrivers.cmd add registry entries to install the drivers, as per normal add registry entries to run RunOnceExApplications.cmd add registry entries to call shutdown.exe RunOnceExApplications.cmd add registry entries to install the applications, as per normal I can imagine this causing problems because you're changing the registry entries (by calling RunOnceExApplications.cmd) as it's processing the list. Does anyone know if this is an issue or not? So I thought I'd throw it out to the experts! Any feedback very welcome. Ta, Jesmond