Bezalel

You would need a parralel printer that can use the generic driver for this to work

You might be able to make a cableset that will allow you to connect the video output to the input of a video capture card (on another PC).

Take a look at Post #43 The first working version of the tool (and proof of concept) is posted there. The next version will be completely redesigned.

I beleive that Dell is required to make external installation media available to you. They are permitted to charge you for the media.

Is there a command line version of this program? (Or will I have to use AutoIT?)

CD1 of R2 is the same as SP1. The product key determies if R2 will be installed or not. CD2 is not channel specific. (You will still need an OEM R2 key)

Take a look at ScreenTek. They deal exclusively in replacement screens and are much cheaper than the laptop manufacurers.

I just go an MCE Remote keyboard and would like to also use it for an XP Pro installation. Which parts of Update Rollup 1 do I have to put in my Pro install to support this keyboard?

Probaply not, but if you have an OEM Pro SP2 CD and the files TABLETPC.CAB and NETFX.CAB you can make your own CD. (And if your TabletPC was made by a Royalty OEM you can keep the preactivation.)

An OEM can have multiple SLP strings in their OEMBIOS files. This allows them to use a single image for multiple product lines.

My experiance is that the files should be interchangable. Since almost everything in the thread is based on observation and not MS documentation and I don't have (and never even saw) a Hedy PC I can't offer any more advice. If you are sure that you built the CD correctly I will add a notice in my RapidShare Directory with your observations.

I have an application that is provided to me as a link to a .jnlp file. Is there any way to just intall this program (and not launch it) from a batch file? I can't just give my users the link becase it needs to be run by an administrator the first time. The program I'm trying to install is http://us2.five9.com/start/lib/agent.jnlp

I would do Step 3, Step 1, Step 4, and then intgrate the hotfixes. Also be sure to test your CD between each step.

You can run a program that does not produce any output and redirect the output to a text file. wuauclt > blank.txt wuauclt was first program I could think of that never produces any output. If you have a C compiler you can compile this program that does nothing and use it instead of wuauclt. int main(){}

You should be able to use the Key on your laptop with a generic OEM CD. You will just have to activate by phone because your key is blocked from online activation. If you want to rebuild a preactivated CD you can get the OEMBIOS files from http://www.oembios.net (Posting OEMBIOS files was already OKed by a mod) and compress them with makecab. You can use a key from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...oy/wpadepl.mspx.

So I think it will be better if you remove the RegionalSettings section of your winnt.sif file. Hope this will help you. These instructions are not are not based on technical issues, MS just doesn't want you to distribute PCs that might have differant regional settings than your end users expect.

Is it possible to nest the for statements? set tags=programs documents music videos for %%I in (%tags%) do for %%J in (c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z) do if exist "%%J:%%I.sys" set %%I=%%J: Update: I tested this code and it works.

Use the following format in your cmdlines.txt [Commands] "command to install Ghost" "command to install AutoIT" "command to install anything else" Each command will be run at T-12 The working directory at this stage will be \$OEM$\ so the root of your CD will be ..\ in case you dont want to copy the installers to your hard drive. (I put the installers I don't want copied to my hard drive directly in $OEM$)

ATTRIB +S +H +R h:\media.sys The only problem is that your scripts will fail if they can't find the file.

Why don't you just install them directly from cmdlines.txt? In my opinion RunOnceEx is overkill for most instalations and is only nessasary for installers that need to perform tasks after a reboot.

My Dell CD did not work on a SmartStep or Dimension L (both of these models were discontinued before XP was introduced) It does work on every other Dell I tried on (over 20 models).

ZileXa's method just is an AutoIT script that does an online activation uning the GUI. A simpler method is to use the activation API provided by MS. for each Obj in GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2").InstancesOf ("win32_WindowsProductActivation") if Obj.ActivationRequired <> 0 then Obj.ActivateOnline() next

If you have a [Components] section in your winnt.sif you must specify the Media Center components in order for them to be installed. If you are doing a network install you must use the switch /makelocalsource:all. Some patches break the install because the Media Center components will only install if you have a specific version of .NET installed.

You could get the Manufacturer and Model using WMI (and Serial# if you know where that partiucular manufacturer keeps it). The first time you can use WMI is during GuiRunOnce. There is no way to get the support information using WMI so either you will have to leave it out or create a template (or select from multiple templates based on the manufacturer). I am working on a project the reads the SMBIOS table directly from memory bypassing WMI so that I can have this information availabe from cmdlines.txt.

There is no direct variable for $Docs but you can use %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\..