["selected partition requires at least 85995 MB free space"]

Hello richardland!

How is your Disk looking like for the moment? Is it a new one wihtout any partitions or is there something loaded on that disk?

AFAIK the product key screen is skipable with a valid product key only. And you should never use empty tags in Autounattend.xml like this:

<ProductKey></ProductKey>

This will almost fail.

Regards,

Martin

[Vista QFE slipstreaming]

Do you have a link for MS post?

And do you may know, if it does matter in which row you're installing the Updates?

Thanks 'n' regards

Martin

EDIT:

You don't have to look at the row, if you use one command line seperating the different cabs with ";". Haven't tested... just read in WAIK-Help.

[%configsetroot%]

Hello maxX!

That's right! You dare not use "Exit" cause batch commands a running quickly and so the "Exit" is executed already before setup.exe is started properly. My mistake. I think I have not had explained that well enough the first time.

But glad to see that you're on the right way now!

Regards,

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

Do you use an "Exit" command in SetDriversRoot.cmd?

Have you tried setting "Pause" command behind X:\Setup.exe command, like this:

FOR %%i IN (C D E F G H I J K L N M O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) DO IF EXIST %%i:\DriversRoot.txt SET DriversRoot=%%i:\

X:\setup.exe

Pause

Regards,

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

I don't think, that it's set to the registry. That would not make sense IMO, cause the registry get lost after reboot.

I think they call these information with API functions. MS will bring out a tool - SCM (System Configuration Manager) - which will make it possible to take influence of setup procedure and integrating your own scripts. I think this will be very need.

Regards,

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

When you exit the Command Prompt window or your custom shell application, Windows PE restarts.

That is ture, if you leaving it without calling anything else. But if you call the Vista setup.exe wihtin this cmd as last command it will not restart - it will run the setup.

I've tested that many times doing it with adapted boot.wim of Vista-DVD. I never create PE using copype.cmd so far, cause you've the srt-package-problem than.

Regards,

Martin

[Select the operation system you want to install]

You'll find more detailed information here.

Regards,

Martin

[SkipMachineOObe is deprecated]

@ Gwido:

I don't know.

Martin

[SkipMachineOObe is deprecated]

I believe this is a bug in the OPK/WAIK,

I have not seen anything official about it but I have had the same issue and It has not affected doing unattended installs. I take it more as a warning and something that Microsoft will fix (with luck) in ther next update of the WAIK. I think MS have bigger issues at the moment like releasing SP1 for Vista, which through the rumour mill will not be that far away.

Gwido

It's not a bug. MS wants that we don't use this setting. Cause system can end up in unproper state, if you use <SkipMachineOOBE>. Instead you should answer all "questions" of MachineOOBE in your AutoUnattend.xml. These settings are described in the doc Settings to Use for Automating Windows Welcome in Unattended Setup Reference Help file.

And there is a bug. It will ignore the setting for Network Location in Autounattend.xml. You need to fix that with a regtweak for the moment:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\Signatures\FirstNetwork" /v Category /t REG_DWORD /d 00000000 /f

/d 00000000 means Home/Work

/d 00000001 means Public

The key has to be set after sysprep but before OOBE will run.

For further information about <SkipMachineOOBE> read here on Microsoft Forums.

Regards,

Martin

[(urgent)Vista audit app install - shortcuts in current user]

You nee the following tag in specialize pass of your answer file:

<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>

Regards,

Martin

[Select the operation system you want to install]

Look here.

Regards,

Martin

[Vista Pre-Install from SBS2003 Not Working]

Please remove your key!

Regards,

Martin

EDIT:

You need to connect PE to the Network first or you need to check if it's connected to the network properly.

Can you send a ping to the SBS (IP and Name). Can you access the share using net use?

[Vista QFE slipstreaming]

I apologize if this is a dupe topic or has been answered elsewhere I feel I've scoured the forum for hints or answers without luck so far.

Does anyone know how to slipstream the QFE's so that they are part of the OS on boot. Currently I'm doing this to update the base install:

imagex /mountrw install.wim 1 c:\mount

expand Windows6.0-KB931573-x86.msu -f:* c:\temp

pkgmgr /o:"c:\mount;c:\mount\windows" /l:c:\temp\logfile /n:c:\temp\Windows6.0-KB931573-x86.xml

imagex /unmount /commit c:\mount

...

Hello sprack!

Do you use the Windows6.0-KB931573-x86.xml (and the other QFE-xml files) like it is, or do you change the path inside. Cause all paths inside the xml are starting with %configsetroot%.

I've replaced that with the path, where I've expanded the QFEs to. Than pkgmgr is trying to integrate them. But it fails for me at least. But I'm sill on RC1 here only.

Regards,

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

Hello maxXPsoft!

First of all, thanks a lot for your feedback!

If you have problems to set the DriversRoot variable using startnet.cmd, than leave the startnet.cmd untouched. So the only enty in startnet.cmd is (lile it is originaly):

wpeinit

Now change the SetDriversRoot.cmd like this:

FOR %%i IN (C D E F G H I J K L N M O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) DO IF EXIST %%i:\DriversRoot.txt SET DriversRoot=%%i:\
X:\setup.exe

Now create a new file in %windir%\system32 called winpeshl.ini:

[LaunchApp]
AppPath=%Windir%\System32\SetDriversRoot.cmd

Now it should work! Had some feedbacks from tow German guys having the same problem like you. The steps above were working for them.

I don't know, if you have a WinPE-Disk which boots you to a cmd. Than you could simple test the steps above manually, before wasting ISOs.

So far I've not had the time to find out, why it's working for me from startnet.cmd and why it's not working for some others.

Regards,

Martin

[Current_User Regtweaks doesn't work ?]

Hello keul!

You can use CopyProfile with sysprep only AFAIK. So far I've not found an easier way to apply Regtweaks for Default-User than using sysprep, like described above.

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

Well I don't need to install to many drivers for my system. A Raid driver, sound driver and video. The video driver is installed at this state without the .exe certainly. So I would need to install this later. But that should not be a problem hopefully.

It's important to call a cmd to set the variable. If I try to set it directly with startnet.cmd than it does not work.

It would be usefull to have a confirmation of that procedure from others. But it works basicly here.

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

I just got the solution for this yesterday... after spending a lot time on it. Mount your boot.wim, you have to mount the second subimage:

imagex /mountrw <PathToYourVistaDVD>\sources\boot.wim 2 C:\Mount

Now browse to C:\Mount\Windows\System32 and look for startnet.cmd. Open startnet.cmd with Notepad and enter the following line:

%Systemroot%\System32\SetDriversRoot.cmd
wpeinit

Save the startnet.cmd. Now create a new file in System32 with Notepad and save it as SetDriversRoot.cmd. The SetDriversRoot.cmd should have the following content:

@echo off

FOR %%i IN (C D E F G H I J K L N M O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) DO IF EXIST %%i:\DriversRoot.txt SET DriversRoot=%%i:\

Exit

Save the SetDriversRoot.cmd and than unmount your boot.wim:

imagex /unmount /commit C:\Mount

Now browse to the Root of your VistaDVD and create a new text-file. Label it DriversRoot.txt. Now create your iso.

This will set the variable %DriversRoot% so you can use it during WinPE pass to install drivers directly from DVD. This would work for USB-Stick, too. Than you would have to put the DriversRoot.txt in the Root of your Stick.

Note:

Tested this during WinPE pass driver installation. I'm pretty sure that it will not work in audit mode for example, cause there a some reboots between. But for audit mode you could set a new %DriversRoot% variable I guess.

If it should not work for you, please let me know!

Regards,

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

AutoIt is allways the worst case solution IMO. Works, if nothing else is possible.

But I still would prefere a solution during WinPE pass, cause gave me least trouble so far. And meanwhile I'm interested how it works. There must be a solution to set a global environment variable under PE 2.0. I just can't see the right way ATM.

Thanks,

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

If we mount wim, open the registry and find the key that assign the drive letter for CD/DVD drive, can we put there a "O:\" letter for example or Vista choose the letter early in setup?

Well this solution would be static than, right?! So it will not work for all systems. We need to set the %Variable% once the drive letters are set for all media.

And I'm looking for a solution during WinPE pass. Later passes will run in driver signing prompt issues.

Does anybody know how WinPE does start? I'm talking about the process before startnet.cmd is executed now.

Martin

[%configsetroot%]

To set a global %Variable% we would need to know, how Win PE does handle the environment.

It's not reading from HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Envrionment. It's may reading it before starting but not while PE is running. So far I've found no way to "refresh" the environment and let it read changes from the Reg-Key above. But I don't know to much about PE. So maybe sombody else knows better...

Martin

[a sample autounattend.xml - working good]

@ EmRoD:

For sure this works, but it's not like installing drivers from DVD. We're trying to find a method, where drivers getting installed right away from the media. If you're installing from DVD for example using configsetroot the Vista DVD will be copied to your HD two times. That's not wasting time only in worst case you could run out of Disk space during installation.

Martin

[a sample autounattend.xml - working good]

... also let me know how you get on with %CDRoot% dont have a chance to test tommorrow busy but last time ...

Hello maxX & urie!

Like expected %CDRoot% does not work to install drivers during WinPE pass.

For the moment I try to use my own %DriversRoot% variable using setx.exe. But I'm not successfull. Well... if I check the registry in WinPE using regedit. %DriversRoot% seems to be setted to Environment. But if I open a cmd-Windows the DriversRoot variable does not appear in the list even it's present in the registry.

EDIT:

Forget about this part... global environment can't be set in running system.

Starting Setup from WinPE results in an error that boot critical drivers are not valid. This error means, it can not find the path. So %DriversRoot% variable does not work.

Do you have any ideas here?

Thanks,

Martin

[Unattended install from DVD]

Hello shortie!

This line is for the WSIM. So WSIM knows on which catloge the answerfile is based. Depending on Vista version (ultimate, business etc.) not all components are available.

You may want to have a look here, if you just starting setting up an unattended DVD.

Martin

[a sample autounattend.xml - working good]

Hello shortie!

Look here.

Martin

[a sample autounattend.xml - working good]

@maxXPsoft:

No, I've not tested it yet, but I will the next few hours. Sounds to me that nDrew tested it and it seemed to work for him.

However I'll try out and let you know!

If this should not work, I'll test to run a script from WinPE which will set a variable to use with a removable device and install drivers than during WinPE pass using this "selfmade" variable. Don't know for the moment, if setup is doing a reboot before it's installing drivers during WinPE. Cause than my idea would not work, too.

Martin