flyakite

Yeah, I used the methods listed at www.tech-hints.com, which use Bart's loader.bin, deload.bin, diskem1 and diskemu.cmd. My diskemu.cmd works fine and presents me with all the options, and I have 3 options for XP Pro. I just tried the regular option with no WINNT.SIF and that problem keeps happening.

lol, I searched google for that error message, and the very first entry that showed up was to a thread here on MSFN. http://board.MSFN.org/index.php?showtopic=9353 Check that thread out. Looks like there are a couple of things you can try. FIRST. MsDosInititated="0" SHOULD read MsDosInitiated="0" You had Initit, which should be Initiat IF that doesn't work, THEN try these. Rename your winnt.sif to WINNT.SIF all caps. Remove quotes from MsDosInititated="0" UnattendedInstall="Yes" so it's just 0 and Yes. OemPnPDriversPath=Drivers\Motorolla\;Drivers\usb2\ should be OemPnPDriversPath="\Drivers\Motorolla\;\Drivers\usb2\" You need the back slashes in front of Drivers so that it knows they are directories.

Okay, well, I had it working before when I first started creating this DVD, but that was 8 operating systems ago. Now I have 9 full OSes on this cd. I have definitely surpassed 2.2gb, but I am creating the ISO in CDIMAGE and testing in Virtual PC. My ROOT folder is 4.40 GB in size, and CDIMAGE creates an iso 2.56 GB in size. I have only really edited 4 files. xpboot.bin, which became my volume .DAT files in the root of the cd. SETUPLDR.BIN which points to my volumes, and TXTSETUP.SIF which points to my setup folder "\SETUP\WINXPPRO\". I have deleted bootfix.bin. Deleting it (as far as I can tell) just bypasses the "Press any key to boot from cd..." dialog.

Okay, I used to have a lot of trouble with this, so I'm going explain how this works. For multi-boot cds, or, a single OS multi-option cd where the i386 folder is NOT visible in the root of the cd, this is what happens. At boot, diskemu.cmd presents a menu full of options. Each option accesses a certain .DAT file. This .DAT file is just xpboot.bin with the file extension changed to .dat, and the name changed to correspond to the OS you want to load. Once the .dat file is accessed, it looks at this portion of code 'SETUPLDR.BINBOOTFIX.BINI386' for where to look for the boot folder. On a NORMAL cd, the boot folder is the same as the I386 folder, however we have multiple options for the same OS so this is not the case. You have to change 'I386' in that portion of code to reflect the specific OS volume you want to boot. If you have 3 volumes for XP Pro such as 'PRO1', 'PRO2', and 'PRO3', and you want to boot the first one, you simply change 'I386' to 'PRO1'. The boot process then looks for SETUPLDR.BIN which should contain 4 references to I386 for multiple file access reasons. These 4 occurances should be changed to your volume folder again (PRO1, HOM2, etc.). Afterwards, TXTSETUP.SIF is then loaded, and the line "SetupSourcePath = "\"" must be changed to your setup folder (eg. \setup\xpro\, \uenglish\winxphome\) for the actual files for XP Pro. This tells setup where to look for 'setup.exe'. bootfix.bin is NEVER needed on your cd IF you are using diskemu.cmd. All bootfix.bin does is when diskemu.cmd loads the setup for your OS, bootfix.bin just presents the dialog "Press any key to boot from CD..." and really isn't necessary. Without it, it will simply just begin to run the Setup for XP or whichever OS you are loading. So, all in all you should only be messing with 4 files: xpboot.bin - must be in root of cd, extension changed to .DAT, and named after your boot folder. diskemu.cmd MUST point to this file. setupldr.bin - must be in boot folder (eg. VOL1, PRO1, HOM2, WNPE, 2PRO, etc) txtsetup.sif - must be in boot folder (see above) bootfix.bin - can be deleted. Does NOT need modified if kept. ALSO - Search your root folder and subfolders for "xpboot.bi_, setupldr.bi_, and txtsetup.si_". If these files exist you MUST delete them or else setup will use those files before the modified ones. On a side note, the specific volumes such as VOL1, or PRO1, or whatever you have named them are just the entire set of XP bootdisks put into one folder. If you are not trimming down your cd but you still want to have multiple boot options, you can download these disks from here. Simply extract the .exe file into the seperate WinImage files, open in WinImage and then extract the files to your boot folder.

I have this problem with my XP Pro and Home multi-boot cd. When it runs setup it says "Setup cannot find a previous version of Windows installed on your computer. To continue, Setup needs to verify that you qualify to use this upgrade product." I just copied the XP files directly off of my working non/upgrade cd, edited the necessary .bin and dat files and now this problem is coming up. Does anyone have any idea what causes this to happen?

lol, what the heck. Seriously, sometimes I don't understand why things go wrong with my DVD. So I tried again, and it seemed like I was taking the same route I had taken before, and lo and behold it works. This same thing happened when dealing with my Windows 98 SE .ima file. Anyway, problem solved. Now I finally have my 10 OS mutli-boot DVD working properly. Phew.

I don't think that's quite right. The thread gosh had about putting WinPE and XP on the same cd didn't require anything like that. Plus, ERD Commander 2003 iso I have loads perfectly fine on it's own, I just can't get it to work correctly when adding the files to my DVD and editing the .bin files and whatever.

Numinous, I have a feeling you know the answer to this, although if anyone knows I'd definitely appreciate the help. I've got a multi-boot DVD with: 2000 Pro 2000 Advanced ME 98 SE XP Pro XP Home Server 2003 Standard Server 2003 Enterprise Server 2003 Web and now I want to add ERD Commander 2003. Whenever I test it in Virtual PC, I get a blue screen saying something along the lines of: Cannot load the hive file systemroot\system32\config\default The file is invalid, corrupt, or missing. My ERD Commander 2003 iso file has 3 folders: Documents and Settings i386 Tools The 'Documents and Settings' folder has subfolders in it, but all are empty. The tools folder contains some miscellaneous apps that I can move within the i386 folder if needed, but that's it. I can't figure out why this is happening. Once I get this fixed, my DVD will finally be finished. How should the folder structure for ERD be setup, and does anything other than setupldr.bin and the .dat file in the DVD root need to be edited? Do I need to edit txtsetup.sif? Thanks in advance.

Really? Hmm... that's odd. I used my own and hacked it with ResHacker. Double check and make sure your msgina.dll file didn't somehow get corrupted in the process of modifying it. To replace my files correctly, what I do is create a folder in C:\WINDOWS called boot, and place a backup msgina.dll file and my hacked msgina file in the folder. Then I boot Windows into "Safe Mode with Command Prompt" and change the directory to C:\Windows\boot. Then "copy msgina.dll \windows\system32\dllcache". From there, start up Windows, end the process "explorer.exe" and go to File -> New Task. Navigate to C:\Windows\Boot, right click your msgina.dll, copy, then browse to C:\Windows\System32. rename the msgina.dll there to msgina.bak, then copy your file into there. If Windows Copy Protection comes up just click cancel. Restart XP and everything should be fine. That's a lot of work for one file, but generally I have many more .dll files, so I just copy *.dll and so it makes the process worthwhile.

LOL, again, not quite. All I use is NTFS.

Not quite. I've replaced msgina.dll at least 20+ times through safemode w/ command prompt and have not had problems. Here is a picture of what the logoff dialog looks like with the hacked msgina.dll I was using.

Basically, the problem that happens when modifying files lies withing ResHacker. Every now and then, when you are modifying a file and saving it a lot as you modify, it will become corrupt without you knowing it. I used to modify all of my main system files (shell32, msgina, explorer, cmd, wmp, calc, etc) with icons from OSX, and I replaced my msgina file with my modified version and I couldn't login because it was screwed up. I fixed it by having a backup and just booting into command prompt and copying the correct one back over. The way I knew it was corrupt for sure was to open it up with ResHacker, and in the folder pane expand a few sections and click on their resources. When it was corrupt the String Table resources when clicked on would display an error dialogue and would not display the strings. So basically, if you want to be on the safe side, open msgina.dll in ResHacker and click on some different resources, and make sure no error dialoges come up. As a side note, just to let anyone know, modifying files is very time consuming. I was checking my old files I have saved that I tweaked a long time ago, and I ended up modifying 15 default control panel files, 7 3rd party control panel files, 38 .dll files, and 10 .exe files. For those interested in modifying your shell32.dll file, I hope you have a LOT of time on your hands. It contains 238 seperate icon groups (contains the seperate sizes and color formats for one individual icon). Also, be aware that IF ResHacker happens to corrupt your file, there is no way to fix it, you have to start over, so I recommend everynow and then save, close reshacker, open the file back up and make sure everything is ok.

msgina.dll is what controls the appearance of the Shut Down dialogue. You can modify it to contain different images, to be a different size, whatever you want. shell32.dll is the file that controls almost every system icon on your computer. If you right click a folder (not a system folder like My Documents) and choose Properties, then Customize, then Change Icon at the bottom, the dialogue that comes up by default shows all of the icons shell32.dll controls. Many people create custom dlls that have replaced all the normal icons with a special set like the Apple OSX icons, or the Snow E 2 icons. Unless you use a custom shutdown dialogue or shell32 file then there is no point with messing with those files. If you try to edit msgina.dll and it somehow becomes corrupted in the process but you are unaware, and you replace your normal msgina.dll, you are going to have some serious problems.

EDIT: Crap, lol, I wasn't thinking. My idea involves writing information to files on a CD or DVD, which is not possible. ****, I thought it was an interesting idea though. Here's an idea I had that expands upon gosh's method of multiple installation volumes for regular, unattended, and OEMPreinstall options. My idea is to write a program that operates in DOS that allows the user to choose what to install when they choose the OEMPreinstall option from the bootup menu. It would display a numbered list of items. Example: 1) Main Batch (WMP9, DirectX9, MSN Messenger 6.0) 2) Movie Maker 2 3) Hotfixes 4) Registry Tweaks 5) Applications 6) Predesigned winnt.sif 7) Install Windows XP Pro SP1 Then it would prompt the user, and if you wanted to install just hotfixes and registry tweaks, you would enter "3,4" and it would then append the hotfixes.cmd path such as %systemroot%\install\hotfixes.cmd" to winnt.sif. You could have a winnt.sif built with everything but the GUIRunOnce entries, and then that would be the default winnt.sif. If you chose 6, it would use a renamed version of your old winnt.sif that already had all your GUIRunOnce commands and copy that over to the winnt.sif located in i386. Also, if say "3,4,5" was entered, it would append the proper information to winnt.sif then present a new prompt with a list of applications. Example: 1) Nero 6 2) Kazaa Lite K++ 3) Yahoo Messenger 4) ATI Control Panel 3.8 5) Etc.... When options were selected "1,2,3" it would write a custom applications.cmd file that adds lines like ECHO. ECHO Registering Nero Burning ROM... REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\install\Applications\Nero\register.reg ECHO. ECHO Installing Nero Burning ROM 6.0.0.19 ECHO Please wait... start /wait %systemdrive%\install\Applications\Nero\nero60019.exe /silent /noreboot ECHO. ECHO Installing Kazaa Lite K-plus-plus 2.4.3 ECHO Please wait... start /wait %systemdrive%\install\Applications\KazaaLite\klitekpp243e.exe /silent ECHO. ECHO Changing Shared Folder Path MKDIR "C:\Program Files\Kazaa Lite K++\My Shared Folder\" REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\install\Applications\KazaaLite\kazaa.reg ECHO. ECHO Deleting Old Shared Folder RD /S /Q "C:\My Shared Folder\" to the applications.cmd file. Basically, this whole method allows you to give your cd to friends or family, and if they want to use OEMPreinstall they can either choose what programs they do or do not want to install, allows them to choose whether or not they want to use your registry tweaks or they can use the Predesigned winnt.sif which will load your original winnt.sif that you've built for unattended installs. Or if you have multiple computers but you some don't have internet access you wouldn't have to install Kazaa, but you could still install say QuickTime. This would actually be a very simple application to write, but each user here would have to write their own since we all use different layouts for our $OEM$ folder as well as just different programs. Just thought it was an interesting concept.

Like I said before, read the tutorials at www.tech-hints.com Read them THOROUGHLY, do not just skim through it. If you follow exactly what they tell you to do, it will work. Yes, it takes time, but none of this is fast. If you want to do something like a multi-boot os cd, then you just have to deal with it.

No, it won't. When setup comes up. You want to do choose the clean install option. It will copy files to your computer but will NOT overwrite anything already on there. Once it's done, it should just close on it's own if I remember correctly. Afterwards, you should have some weird folders in your C:\. Just follow the starting post of this thread to do the rest.

You need to browse to the directory of the cd. If say, you have your cd copied to a folder called XP on your C:\. Start - Run - then type "command" without the quotes to open command prompt. From there you would type: cd XP cd (change directory) XP changes to the XP folder in your C:\. Then, to get to i386 type cd i386 then from there type winnt32.exe /noreboot. Basically in the command prompt you have to navigate to where your winnt32.exe file is for the OS your're trying to shrink.

OemFilesPath Specifies the path to the \$OEM$ folder (containing OEM files) if it does not exist under the i386 folder of the distribution share point. Syntax OemFilesPath =path_to_$OEM$_folder Value path_to_$OEM$_folder Example OemFilesPath = "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\OEM_Files" Comments The path can be a UNC name. Enclose path_to_$OEM$_folder in quotation marks if it is a long file name. For more information about the \$OEM$ folder, if you are a computer manufacturer, see the Microsoft Windows XP OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK) User Guide. Otherwise, see the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Deployment Guide. Could you technically use OemFilesPath = "%CDROM2%\$OEM$" and just move your $OEM$ folder onto a second cd, then make sure both cds are in the drives when installing Windows? In theory this should work right? I want to test it but I'm not sure how to do that in Virtual PC, and I'm out of blank DVDs at the moment.

Whoa whoa whoa..... does OemFilesPath=".\$OEM$" truly control the path of the $OEM$ folder? If so, could I technically put my $OEM$ folder on a second cd, and use OemFilesPath= "%cdrom2%\$OEM$", and just have the boot disk in the first drive and the OEM disk in the second drive? This would save hassle with with webmedics method, in which you have to run commands to copy things over, and you'd have to add commands to get the $$ crap to copy over as well.

I think most of you are very naive and oblivious to how things work. I suggest you all read this article: http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21583.html Sure, Microsoft releases a lot of bug fixes, but what does that mean exactly? And keep in mind a lot of problems exist within 3rd party applications code. When your program crashes, who is really to blame? Microsoft, or the company that developed the program? And sure, everyone says Linux is much more stable. Well, let's all switch to Linux then. But if you don't think the people out there hacking computers are going to stop because we're all on Linux you have another thing coming. They will still find ways to infiltrate your system. They will still write viruses. It's inevitable. If there is a will there is a way. People hacked the X-box, the Playstation, the Pentagon. What makes you think your Linux machine can't be hacked? Also, look at what Linux supports and what Windows does. If Linux could support every piece of software and hardware Windows could, you better **** believe you'd have a lot more bugs. If the hardware/software base was as limited as it is on Linux, Windows would also be much more stable. But Linux doesn't. You can't run all your favorite games. You can't have all your favorite hardware supported. OS comparisons are always unfair because the OSes are completely different and the user base is entirely different. Linux/Unix and OSX can't support the range of hardware/software that Windows does. And a SMALL percentage of people use alternative Windows OSes. So if Windows is the majority, the majority of code will be written for Windows, thus allowing more possibilities of bugs. And of course, if the majority of the world is using Windows, of course hackers are going to exploit Windows. If Windows occupied a 2% OS userbase, no one would even bother hacking it. You people need to realize how in the hell things work. If you don't like Windows, don't use it. No one is forcing you to. If you don't like Windows, write your own **** OS and see how easy it is to make millions of lines of code compatible with almost every piece of hardware and software released.

It's not really that difficult, it's just time consuming. If you need bootdisks for any certain OS you can find them here. Just take your time and follow the directions. Don't worry about slipstreaming or any of that stuff. Just follow the instructions and it should work.

Tech Hints This site has all the info you will need. The info from each section can be combined onto one cd. Windows Server 2003 is not covered on the site, but the method is the EXACT same as the methods listed under the Windows XP section.

I've got about 7 OSes on my custom DVD, but I can't seem to get Windows 98 or ME to install. Whenever I choose my Windows 98 option from my menu, it grabs the .IMA file then says "No bootdisk found" or something to that affect. Could anyone who has successfuly gotten 98 SE to install tell me if they're doing something different, and if not could you possibly post your 'config.sys' and 'autoexec.bat' code here? My Windows 98 SETUP.EXE file is located on my dvd at "%cddrive%\SETUP\WIN98SE\" I can't for the life of me figure out what is wrong. I've tried many things but none have worked. Thanks.

Is your OEM folder PARALLEL to your i386 folder? In other words, when looking in the root of the cd (or wherever i386 is), can you see both the i386 folder AND the $OEM$ folders? Also make sure your registry file is in $OEM$\$1\install\ just in case. Because if you have it in the same folder as the batch file then it won't work, because the batch is pointing to a directory called 'install'. Just some possible solutions.

I can't seem to get cdimage to create an iso using gosh's method or tech-hints method. Everytime I run it, it just displays the switches available for the program and gives me a command prompt again. It doesn't give me error messages or anything else like that. Anyone have any idea why this is? EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out, lol.