gosh

well how about some info on the blue screen? When you take your car to the mechanic, do you say, "sometimes my car makes noises, do you know what causes that?" ???? -gosh

There are many ways to customize the homepage and firstrun. You can use an unattend file, you can create a custom .ins file. Refer to ieak -gosh

wb GM -gosh

That's a bad idea. For one the drivers wouldn't be signed. For another, not all xp drivers work in xp. You would be better off making your own driver cab that has drivers for your hardware. -gosh

what files? What do you mean they cant be opened -gosh

bios, display, remove any external usb devices -gosh

You can do shift +f10 anytime in gui mode once setup starts (after the catalogs are registered). Once done just type taskmgr.exe and end task on setup and the pc will reboot back into your old install, or of course you can let the install finish. -gosh

I can never get advanced search to work. I click on search, do advanced search, i type in containing+text+txtsetup.sif, to find that command that searchings txtsetup.sif. However the search results only have one keyword, not all 3. IE search will return results with containing or text or txtsetup.sif, not all 3 together. Search should only return results with all 3 search terms. What am i doing wrong here? -gosh

win2k supports f6. When you boot from the cd at the bottom of the screen does it say to press f6? You only have a couple of seconds at the start of setup to do this. Make sure you have a floppy with winnt.oem i believe is the file it looks for. -gosh

You only need ProductKey="xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx.xxxx" in the unattend file, however as a good practice you should also used productid, which was used in win2k productkey="(key)" productid="(key)" It doesn't matter where in the unattend file it is located. What you need to do is post your setuplog.txt and setupact.log so i can see what is being logged. Also, try the product key doing a regular install and see if setup accepts it. -gosh

Typing shift + f10 then net user administrator password, then exit, is a lot of work? Sometimes you don't have internet access and just have a windows cd, it's good to know how to reset any windows password with just an xp cd. I've done it myself many times when i hosed my system and only had an xp cd. -gosh

Install the updates one by one to see which one is causing the problem. -gosh

you dont have to finish the install. once the install starts you use the net user command, then reboot and go back into your old install. You might need to change one registry key for sprestart.exe -gosh

Youre right that vista sucks, but microsoft is still a monopoly and whether you like it or not eventually everyone will have to use vista. -gosh

Just do a repair install of windows, and in gui mode type Shift + F10 and type net user administrator password, to reset the pw to password. I reported this issue to microsoft when xp launched, and i was told since you have to have local access to the box is violates one of those 10 rules of security, so microsoft won't fix the bug. -gosh

For consistancy, Microsoft recommend doing an unattended install with all your custom settings, then imaging. Microsoft actually does this for windows vista - vista is installed, customized, sysprep'ed, then imaged into install.wim. -gosh

Winsock corruption is usually caused by malware and firewalls. So i would check for malware, and make sure your firewall is working properly. -gosh

What do you mean you couldn't make a flat with another partition? What part failed? -gosh

It's a registry setting. It's documented several times in the forum. -gosh

An easy way to create a shortcut with with an inf. And lucky for you, i've made an inf that creates shortcuts. You can use it for examples of what to do. -gosh g3_shortcuts.inf

If you're installing ie7 during windows setup it's very easy to use install.inf. Simply delete install.in_ and put install.ins in it's place, windows will use that. You can also point to the install.inf using the unattend file for windows xp setup. -gosh

error 5 is access is denied, however you need to post the exact error with possible screen shot for any help. -gosh

Dosnet.inf used to be used to create the boot floppies. You can probably delete those sections safely, although there's a chance recovery console might use them. Simply delete the sections and try! -gosh

You probably need to stop then restart the spooler. Doing this clear's the spooler's cache, and i assume resets those messages. -gosh

If HP or whomever wants to blow you off, what they'll do is go to microsoft's website and find a hotfix that isn't public. Then they'll tell you, "oh you need this nonpublic hotfix, contact microsoft". You've fallen for this scam. The problem is not a "corrupt dll", it's incompetent HP support. -gosh