un4given1

I could understand the need for such a method. Someone earlier in the thread said "Why do it this way when there is a hacked OPK file." Well, I'll tell you why. Using that file is a violation of it's EULA. That file is meant for select/OEM/volume partners and should not be used by anyone but those who are licensed for it. That is why this method would be better. That's just my 2 cents.

We are doing our XP rollup very soon and we struggled with this question. However, we decided that with the change of the OS we would change to some of the "eye candy" that XP offers. While still using the classic Start menu, we did switch to the Luna taskbar. We figured it was a happy medium.

Luna actually has 3 color schemes. Blue, Silver and Olive I myself have everything "Classic" except the taskbar which I have set to use the Luna-Silver theme.

It's important to note that SETX is not installed by default. You can get it from the support tools directory on the CD. You would need to put this in your $$ directory or in any other that the PATH variable already looks.

or just go directory to Windows Update Catalog http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/catalog

you really shouldn't use two sticks of mem that aren't the same speed. Granted that the faster will clock down, but it isn't recommended. If you want better stability you should purchase memory that is the same manufacturer and specs. I run 2 sticks of Nanya CAS 2.0 PC2100 (on 256, other 512). I don't have any issues.

it's your forum, not mine.

Since using such a utility is concidered "cracking" this guideline prohibits it.... But, I'm not a moderator...

Sorry bud... You will not find an anser to that here. It is against forum policy to post information that circumvents Windows security.

brelfielfan: I know it is possible because I used to work for a company that did it. I can not really give any insight into it though. As long as you can automate the installation then you should have no problem.

The whole idea of RIS is not to have a boot disk, as I said before. What most people do not know is that RIS is not only for installing an OS. You can create tools on the RIS CIW that allow you to boot to the network from any location and use these tools. You tools could be a utility that allows you to view the NTFS partition or maybe a virus scanner or a password utility. I am not trying to get into a "Anything Windows can do, Linux can do cheaper" discussion, all I am trying to do is point out the facts. I use RIS every day. I do all of the administration of the RIS server. That page you put up webmedic has a lot of myth on it. It's one man's opinion of a product he probably has a semi-understanding of, but has never used to the scale of which I do.

Nowhere does Microsoft state that drivers can be added to the boot disk. They CAN NOT be added to the boot disk. They can however be added to the RIS server. The idea of RIS is not to have to use a boot disk. As long as the PC is PXE compatable (which 99% of PCs in the last 5 years are) you can boot to the network. Windows 2000 Server DOES allow you to add network drivers. I only recently got the Windows Server 2003 box and I did it that way on 2000 for over a year. I would like to see the source of this information. Regardless if they switch to WinPE it could still use a RIS environment. I doubt they will do away with RIS.

There isn't a NIC card that can not be added to the RIS server. It's rather simple. You just place the drivers for the NIC in a folder and use "OEMDriverPath" (I think that's it) to point to the drivers. There are very few occasions that this will not work, but I have run across a situation where I had to copy 2 of the files to the i386 directory. Let me know if you want more information on this.

Using ghost is not a possiblity in a situation such as mine. You would have to worry about SIDs and joining each PC to the domain manually. I do not recommend ghost to anyone because I do not feel that it is a 100% solution. If configured properly you can use one image using a CD or RIS that will work on EVERY PC. I use one image on more than 20 different computer configurations and I do not have any issues except the occasional missing NIC drivers which are easily updated. Oh, and not to mention the cost factor of updating hundreds of PCs. The hardware itself is expensive enough, but then so is the software. Most PCs were purchased with OEM licenses and the software can not be reused. It's not until recently that we became a select partner and have open license.

webmedic: with a Windows 2000/2003 server environment we have had a 99.9% uptime in the past 2 years. It's all about who is administering the systems. I am an MS supporter. You are not. There is nothing wrong with that. We could argue it all day long. Whatever works for one person might not work for another. The Linux solution you speak of is just using Linux as a Windows share and doing a network unattended installation. Even that isn't close to what RIS really is. If you feel you can save thousands of dollars doing it all with Linux, then more power to you. Windows Server 2003 is three times the server Windows 2000 Server was. It's stable, very stable.

I customize my installations for the purpose of creating company standards and speeding up installations. My installations differ from most of the users here because I do not use CDs. I use Windows Server 2003 Remote Installation Services. I started working for the company I do over a year and a half ago. At that time we did installations using a CD and clicking "Next." I begged to get a server set up with RIS. I had heard a lot of good things about it and knew that it would benefit us. They gave me an old server and put Windows 2000 Server on it and gave me full rights to do whatever I wanted with it. In the last year I have turned it around to the point where I just got a new server with Windows Server 2003 on it and they have made it a production box and gave me full administration rights. I administer the Server, the images, all software, Office administration points and anything dealing with automation. I do a lot more but RIS is the fun part of my job. I love manipulating it to do exactly what I want. We have a Windows XP rollout comming up in about a month and I have been put in charge of the whole thing. I am responsible for every PC that will be on our network. That is over 500 in 16 different locations. And (if you read my update to my RIS thread earlier today) I just figured out a new method to better speed installations by allowing for a technician to select a users job function or even one by one software packages during the CIW of RIS. Before the installation was done by RIS and then I would run a software script that I made that would ask you a series of questions about which versions of software you want to install, if it was a laptop or desktop, and a bunch of other things and then it would isntall them all unattended, but it was a 2 step process. I scoured the web looking for information on how to do it and I can guarantee that not one person has documented it. I will be doing so on my website very soon for everyone who is interested. I love my job. There are a lot of good ideas available here and everywhere else, but the truth is that if you can think it then you can do it. Nothing isn't possible.

You are a little off. This setting is only an alternate setting. If it is unable to use the primary Windows XP will attempt to use these alternate settings. This does not in any way allow you to set multiple IPs on one NIC.

I FIGURED IT OUT!!! I know that many of you will never use RIS, and nowhere on the net will you find this information, but I want to finally make it available for anyone else who has the same idea as me. Here is what I did... I added an item to the OSChoose Client Installation Wizard Screens to gather a variable. (The problem originally was that I could not figure out how to pass this variable to the finished product) <BOLD>Position ID: </BOLD><INPUT NAME="POSID" SIZE=1 MAXLENGTH=1> Of course there will be a list of positions in the OSChooser screen, but for now all I wanted to do was pass the variable. Then, I added an item to the [GuiRunOnce] that output the variable. You could use many methods... here are some. I found out a little more about how RIS works and that helped me to figure this out. After the CIW the RIS server takes the SIF file and fills in any variables that are available. It then saves the SIF file in it's RemInst\tmp directory as GUID.sif (where GUID is the actual PC GUID). When the PC reboots for GUI mode setup it pulls this file and uses it. I do not know where it saves it but I do know that it is not saved as a SIF file anymore. I was unable to find it at the point of cmdlines.txt by running a CMD prompt, but that isn't important. So, when it starts windows for the first time and runs the [GuiRunOnce] items it launches the command that you specified above (take your pick) and the variable is part of it. I have been battling this for months. There is not one bit of information about this anywhere. There is little information to begin with for RIS. I have had to figure a lot of it out myself, but I guess that just helps me to understand it a little better huh? This is one of the reasons that I have started my own forum network. I hope to help other to better understand this and many of the undocumented items in Windows. I hope this information helps at least one person! Let me know if you use this.

Windows XP does not have software built in to create additional IP addresses on one NIC. Server products have this functionality. You would most likely have to purchase another NIC if this is the functionality you would like. There may be 3rd party software but I do not know of any.

gamehead200: You really shouldn't have posted that link. That is to a password cracker, and it forbidden by forum policy. I am surprised that a moderator hasn't snuffed that link already.

Orca is a nice utility. It's free and it's from MS. You can get it by installing the Windows XP SDK. It adds a nice feature where you can right click on an MSI file and it will give you the option to "Edit with Orca" Good Luck!

run the rollup with a /? switch and you will see they have changed.

Gosh: This is a method I use for software installations for the company I work for. I have a script that determines windows version, office version, Norton version, Lotus Notes version, Acrobat Reader version, as well as other softwares and then updates them accordingly. I use batch files myself to accomplish this. It's a great idea though. The script I have goes as far as disecting the IP address on the machine and determining which store it is at, and since each store has a different norton server it updates accordingly. As it is run on each PC it dumps a log file on a network location including all of the information. I have found that there is almost nothing that can't be done with batch scripts.

zuky: Welcome!

I don't know about the "overwritten" part, but yes you can install regkeys during install using cmdlines.txt