gosh

What i do is open every media player i have (windvd, quicktime...) and disable them from using any media format. Then i open media player and select what i want. For media player 9, when you log into a new user it should prompt you for what file types you want to associate media player with. You could also copy your profile to the default user profile, then make a new account. In other words, copy your ntuser.dat to the ntuser.dat in default user profile, then make new account via user accounts. -gosh

Or did MSFN disable the option to see who's browsing a thread? -gosh

XP setup runs under the system account. Any changes made during setup are written to the default user. To prove this, at any point in gui setup press Shift + F10, and at the command prompt type 'set'. You should see something like userprofile=defaultuser. After setup completes you log into an account like administrator. Thus, Cmdlines and svcpack save registry changes to default profile. -gosh

Most problems with activation deal with invalid permissions or files missing/not registered. To narrow down the problem, make sure the xp activation files are there, and register them. That'll fix 90% of the activation problems. Just because you found one post on google describing your exact issue, i highly doubt there's a known issue with the hotfixes. If a hotfix broke activation, EVERYONE installing those hotfixes would have the same issue. Instead of finding 1 post on google, you would find 1 million. -gosh

Slipstream first, THEN reduce the size using my guide. THEN add stuff like $OEM$ folder. Remember you can only use this to do cd based installs, so to test it to make sure it works you'll probably want to use vmware or virtual pc. -gosh

If it's just drivers i would skip the installshield. Delete your setupapi.log, then run the setup. When youre done look at setupapi.log again and see what inf is being used. If you cannot find the inf, you can look at device manager to see the inf name. When you install a 3rd party inf, it copies itself to the windows\inf folder as oemx.inf, such as oem10.inf. Then just follow the instructions for the OemPnPDriversPath to slipstream it. I made a cd with my usb drivers and nic drivers, and it worked flawlessly. if you provided download url for drivers i could probably do all this for you if you want. -gosh

It should be same as win2k and xp, but i haven't gotten around to server 2003 yet. I figure a new server won't come out until around 2006, so i got time to learn win2k3. -gosh

Well first, driving signing is setupapi.log, so you could look at that to see what inf or whatever is giving the headache. Is this win2k or xp? For win2k you can modify the driver signing key directly in the registry, in xp the key is booby trapped so you cannot directly modify it. Either way the unattend file is right. Is there a public download for these blue tooth drivers? Are these the microsoft bluetooth drivers? Some oem's preinstalled the bluetooth drivers on xp home systems, you might want to look through google to see how they did this. Are you using latest version of the software? Maybe an app installed before this app is changing digital signing. -gosh

Removed has to be my favorite video of the year so far, very shocking. Who needs britney spears and madonna when you have lords of acid? Video should only be viewed by 18+ -gosh Edited due to graphic content not sutable for our younger members

Great. If you have any scripts you'd like to share please post them for all to learn from. -gosh

thanku I hope people appreciate my work and use it in their unattended cd's. -gosh

One item on my unattended "wish list" has been to have the ability to put the cd name and version number in 1 file, and have my unattended cd look at the file for the cd name and version. For example, take my last cd: The html autorun had the cd name and version twice. My apps.bat has the cd version number in it for logging. I also have the cd name and version in the cd boot menu. One common problem is remembering to change the cd name and version in every place of my unattended cd before i burn it. In the past i've forgotten to change the cd version and name in my autorun and boot menu. Nothing is more annoying, then spending months on an unattended cd but having the wrong name or version on the boot menu! This is not a new concept. Recently for longhorn microsoft champed my idea. See here. I spent months searching for an answer, finding instead many dead roads. One idea was to make an .xml file that could be accessed via html. The problem is my cd boot menu doesn't use html. One of the hardest things to do is to load text from a file and set it as a variable. Finally i found this method. I haven't had time to fully test it, but it seems like a champ. Here is my current winpesetup.bat file. More about this file later. As you can see it's a work in progress, so expect some of the code to be incomplete or not make sense. This file is awesome. winpesetup.bat Ok, this might seem complicated but it's really not. End user runs my cd, and is presented with winpesetup.bat. The file first sets up the menu by setting the cdrom as a variable to be used later. The menu then loads the contens of cd.ver and sets it as a variable. In this case, cd.ver has the cd name and version. Make cd.ver and put whatever you want in it and run my winpesetup.bat, you'll see what i mean. As far as winpesetup.bat goes, i'm gonna run it from winpe and within the windows GUI, presenting a common interface. Since my cd installs windows from winpe, it bypasses the problem of my xp boot menu not using variables. You could use this variable anytime during setup, such as in apps.bat This accomplishes my goal of setting the cd name and version once. Winpesetup.bat is very complicated; im gonna use a ramdrive and save inputed varibles to a registry file and apps.bat will import it. Once winpesetup.bat is done i'll more fully explain it's role in my unattended cd. Enjoy, -gosh

I have very ambitious goals for my next cd. One goal i have is to make a batch file that can tell what OS version and OS type you have during installation, and set it as a variable. This will allow you to make 1 batch file that you could use to install on win2k/xp/etc. Most people won't find a use for this, but for people looking for advanced options in an unattended cd, this is priceless. Took me 2 months to figure out. One of my requirements was to make a batch or vbs file that would run on a default install of xp. In other words, i didn't want to do anything such as registering 3rd party files, or mess with xp. I just wanted a script i could run that could set os version and type as a variable that i could use later in a batch file. I also wanted something very simple and easy to use. To fit this requirement i came up with os.vbs and a script. Below is os.vbs, put it in your $OEM$\$$\System32 folder. Make sure unattend file has oempreinstall=yes. os.vbs Putting os.vbs into $OEM$ folder allows it to be available during unattended install.Now here's part of my apps.bat file. Using os.vbs, it sets the OS type and version as variables, then installs programs using those variables. I call it the pre section of the file, since it sets everything up. So when this batch file is run with os.vbs, it'll set the ostype to the version of windows, and it'll set the product_type to the os type (workstation or server, if you wanted to you could customize it to what type of server). The second part of the batch file uses the variables to install applications. For example, to install norton i call %product_type%.bat. In the norton folder, i have workstation.bat and server.bat. If workstation.bat is called, is installs norton antivirus corp edition for clients, if server.bat is called, it installs norton antivirus server edition. You could see how useful these variables could be. Another example is media player. There's different versions of media player 9 for win2k and xp. If apps.bat is run on win2k, it calls win2k.bat which installs the win2k version of wmp9. If apps.bat is run on xp, it calls winxppro.bat or winxphome.bat which installs the xp version of wmp9. So as you can see, it would be very possible to make a single batch file that can be used to install win2k and xp. Most people won't need this type of customization. I originally came up with this idea for 2 reasons: 1 - I've made many unattended cd's, and a very common problem is trying to use the latest version of my $OEM$ Folder. Each cd i make has an updated version of $OEM$. When i make a new cd, i have to look through my cd's to see what is the newest version of $OEM$. With one common script for every OS, i wouldn't have to modify it for each cd. Instead i could use one $OEM$ folder for every unattended cd, saving time and making things simpler. 2 - I've made cd's that install 2 different os', such as my XP2k cd. It would be very useful to have 1 $OEM$ folder for everything, rather than editing each $OEM$ folder for each install. So again, my method is not for everyone. For some people such as myself, this method is invaluable. It took me a couple months of research to put it all together. From my research i can safely say it's not easy to do what this does! Enjoy, -gosh

For setup.iss so the popular installshield guide For norton, you didn't say how your installing it. Try using guirunonce. -gosh

How about save the settings the user choses to an .inf file? On a totally unrelated note: I've been researching on how to make xp setup prompt you for what programs you want installed. I know the early betas of xp (whistler) did this by default. I found an unattend switch to enable this, Method=custom i believe, but i tried this method and it does nothing. Can anyone enlighten me on how to make xp prompt you for what programs you want installed? -gosh

I edited my first post to include information on how to do that. -gosh

That's not true at all. Deny all ntfs permissions to wpa.dbl and reboot -gosh

More details would help. What does the blue screen say? Are you booting from cd? Did you follow my steps step by step? Usually you will discover the problem when you go through my guide again. You might want to make a seperate thread for any issues you have with this install. -gosh

Ghost is nice. Good compression ratio. Only takes me 5 mins or so to ghost a partition. -gosh

I posted how to fix this, use the search for my post on using homepage.inf -gosh

I've never seen hotfixes cause this. You could have a bad install. If this is a clean install, just try this again. If you get the same error, make sure your cd isn't doing anything like deleting wpa.dbl or unregistering files. -gosh

www.google.com -gosh

That will corrupt the files. You cannot edit a binary file with a text editor. Download a hex editor at www.bpsoft.com -gosh

Now i see what numerous meant. He is saying to slipstream the xp rollup, then install the hotfixes using guirunonce. I don't see why he couldn't just come out and say that. I still don't see how doing this helps dial-up users. The only thing this does is save you some disk space. The xp install will still be the same time. Dialup users will still have to download the hotfixes, etc. -gosh

My point is simply how is using GuiRunOnce any faster or better than using cmdlines or svcpack? Everyone prefers there own method, im just asking how using GuiRunOnce makes the setup faster or better. From my perspective it doesn't. Whatever method you're using - whether svcpack, cmdlines, or guirunonce - you still gotta wait as the hotfixes extract, run, and install. And Gecko's comment is valid, how does running qchain help? Especially now that the rollup is out and all those old hotfixes aren't needed anymore. -gosh