gosh

All about User Account Control (UAC) Recently i explored Vista's unattend settings, and much to my surprise there wasn't anything documented to disable or customize user account control (UAC). I really hate UAC, i find it's the first thing i disable after doing a clean install. Figuring there might be a hidden unatten setting for UAC i did some exploring to see what files, registry keys, and settings comprise UAC. Registry Keys There is only one way to enable or disable UAC, using the following registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System "EnableLUA"=dword:00000001 where 1 - enables UAC, 2 - Disables UAC Security Center Notifications When you disable UAC you instantly get an annoying balloon popup that's really annoying. It seems these keys disable that behavior. HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\AutoUpdateDisableNotify HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\UacDisableNotify HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\InternetSettingsDisableNotify I assume if you set a dword of 1 you won't get any complaining from security center. Interestingly, the internal name for UAC must be LUA. So LUA and UAC are used interchangebly. Running UAC interface from a command line shell32.dll has this <!--TurnUserAccountControl(UAC)onoroff--> <sh:taskid="{F9C55B09-E6DE-4D79-93C4-64A656D20074}"needsElevation="true"> <sh:name>@shell32.dll,-24964</sh:name> <sh:keywords>@shell32.dll,-24965</sh:keywords> <sh:command>shell:::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\9\::{60632754-c523-4b62-b45c-4172da012619}\pageChangeSecuritySettings</sh:command> </sh:task> This means you can run the interface from a run box using this command: shell:::{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\9\::{60632754-c523-4b62-b45c-4172da012619}\pageChangeSecuritySettings (that's all one line) Files that look at UAC c:\Windows\inf\secrecs.inf c:\Windows\PLA\Rules\Rules.System.Diagnostics.xml c:\Windows\PLA\System\System Diagnostics.xml c:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE.SAV c:\Windows\System32\en-US\msconfig.exe.mui c:\Windows\System32\powercpl.dll c:\Windows\System32\SMI\Store\Machine\SCHEMA.DAT c:\Windows\System32\SMI\Store\Machine\schema.dat.LOG1 c:\Windows\System32\usercpl.dll c:\Windows\winsxs\Backup\x86_microsoft-windows-s..urationengineclient_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_35d7205fdc305e3e.manifest c:\Windows\winsxs\Backup\x86_microsoft-windows-s..urationengineclient_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_35d7205fdc305e3e_secrecs.inf_bf424507 c:\Windows\winsxs\Manifests\x86_microsoft-windows-lua-settings_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_336d896c1da7c520.manifest c:\Windows\winsxs\Manifests\x86_microsoft-windows-s..urationengineclient_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_35d7205fdc305e3e.manifest c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-msconfig-exe.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_en-us_75e9bb24559d44f2\msconfig.exe.mui c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-p..rastructureconsumer_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_b1a5cca33386fc09\Rules.System.Diagnostics.xml c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-p..rastructureconsumer_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_b1a5cca33386fc09\System Diagnostics.xml c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-powercpl_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_5faa30ff774d32fa\powercpl.dll c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-s..urationengineclient_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_35d7205fdc305e3e\secrecs.inf c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-usercpl_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_8998328751339c1c\usercpl.dll c:\Windows\winsxs\x86_subsystem-for-unix-based-applications_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16386_none_71b195c9f3048b05\psxss.exe Security Templates to customize UAC secrecs.inf sceregvl Conclusion There are no documented unattend UAC settings for Vista. Doing research it seems UAC is enable or disabled with a simle policy that i assume is run by group policy on startup (which is why you need to reboot after making changes to UAC). The easiest way to disable UAC is by modifying the registry key. I expect Microsoft to add options to customize UAC in a future Vista service pack. -gosh

Could you use a reghack for HKLM\System\Setup at the 13 min mark? I assume sysprep -factory adds a registry key here. -gosh

Windows 95 setup only looked for the presence of one of a number of files. One of those files was command.com. You could simply make a dummy file called command.com in the root of the c drive and win95 would pass the compliance check. Because people did this, windows 98 randomly checks for the presence of about 120 files. If any files from this list are not found the compliancy check is failed. Not only that, windows 98 stored a checksum of the files it looked for so you couldn't make a dummy file. To get around people finding out this list of files setup looks for windows xp simply looks for a previous media. I'm not sure what files it looks for, but it is probably a list of known files along with checksums of the files. If you want to do an unattended install, you really need a fully compliant media. This would be in setupp.ini -gosh

That's why you don't buy a computer from one of those big box retailers. They save money by using cheap components that use more resources, such as winmodems. Winmodems are cheaper but use the computers hardware to do the modulating instead of a chip on the modem itself. -gosh

install linux -gosh

It's available now on msdn and the express versions are available. Pro version is 3.3 gigs, getting it now can't wait. -gosh

You cannot bypass that message, you have to put in a previous media at that point to continue, there's no setting to get around that. -gosh

have you tried copying both cd's into the same folder? it should work w/o modification -gosh

why would you extract a service pack just to go looking at random files/folders? -gosh

How did she survive the poor thing! Almost 2 hours. I hear she broke a nail http://www.tmz.com/2007/11/15/lindsay-loha...cks-in-to-jail/ -gosh

Ive used microsft deploy, it looks very promising. I was able to use ms deploy to install xp sp2 from a flash drive (the flash drive was 1 gig, the deploy files were just under 952 megs). I think over time as more people use it itll be very popular. -gosh

when you see that screen that does performance OOBE is running. I believe it's just oobe.exe. When you get that screen press Shift+F10, and type taskmgr, then you can see the processes. -gosh

type net view \\buggs - what error do you get? Are you using Quotas? You searched google right? Doing a 2 second google search i found this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...Ben-us%3B177078 -gosh

My point is net stop and net start doesn't let you customize anything. For example, let's say you want to create a restore point from the command line or change the settings. Stopping a service won't let you do that. Stopping a service to disable functionality is very crude. What if Microsoft changes system restore in a future version of windows to not delete restore points when the service is stopped? -gosh

Using an unattend file you cannot repair windows because setup will see your answer file and process it. You would have to use 2 boot options when booting from cd - one for unattend install, and one that doesn't have an answer file. My 'reduce source' method documents this on my site and in this forum. -gosh

You could set the logon message using group policy, then to customize the message you could use a different logon message for each OU. For example, you could set a logon message for the HR OU, then a different logon message for Management OU, etc -gosh

runonceexprocess was created to "flush" out the runonceex key. runonceex is processed on startup by explorer.exe. Because setup doesn't run the shell setup has to manually "flush" anything built up in the runonceex key. It does this after the optional components are all installed. So anything added to the key is flushed at the 13 min mark, and then of course on first logon when explorer runs. -gosh

You both had good ideas, but there's a more efficient way to do it 1 - Copy depends.exe and depends.exe from the xp or 2003 support tools and paste them into your system32 folder 2 - Open depends and open srclient.dll. See screenshot below All of these functions can be run from the command line example rundll32 srclient.dll,DisableSR That should disable system restore. NOTE: It's case sensitive! -gosh

youre thinking of INF

netsh can do that -gosh

download microsoft deploy from the microsoft download center. I installed it and used it to do an unattended install of xp sp2 from a 1 gig flash drive. MS Deploy let's you add your own apps and hotfixes and custom settings. I only did a basic install to test functionality. -gosh

nm i found this http://www.andrewbibby.co.uk/index.php/200...-trial-version/ , im gonna try it. -gosh

Why not use regmon to see what registry key is changed? Or hex inetcpl.cpl -gosh

What you're talking about is active setup. Anything set to 0 for installed is run at first logon then set to 1. Runonceex does work in server 2003. There is a server 2003 runonceex example on my website that works fine. -gosh

Microsft Deploy let's you install windows xp / vista / server 2008 from a flash drive. -gosh