[SP2 - Missing copyright year at windows XP boot]

Obviously the rate of progress has slowed. In the absence of competition, Microsoft has been allowed to rest on its laurels.

See from 1995-1999 we went from Windows 95/WinNT3.51 to Windows 2000. From 1999 to 2004(5,6,7 maybe??) its Windows 2000 to Windows XP SP2.

We witness the same with IE. Speculation that the IE team has been reformed in the face of competition from Firefox etc.

Unfortunately there is no equivalent for the current desktop operating system. So we are in for a long wait for the next update.

[SP2 - Missing copyright year at windows XP boot]

With SP1 and before, the Windows XP bootscreen had the year:

Copyright © 1985-2001

Microsoft Corporation

With SP2 it just has:

Copyright © Microsoft Corporation

Could it be Microsoft are ashamed that it may well be 5+ years between Windows revisions, and don't want users reminded of that fact at every boot??

That's not to mention XP was no huge revolution from the existing 2000.

[How to set sound volume to max.]

There's some APIs demo'd in the link

Codeproject

I also attach a basic implementation.

[Problems with eliminating oobe.inf]

Following the posts which showed how to remove WMP by commenting out DefaultInstall lines, I tried the same thing with oobe.inf.

I am using the proper corporate version with a proper corporate key, so I thought the activation exes, html and other assorted nonsense would not be necessary.

Anyway the install is fine, but the network adapter will not get a DHCP address.

When I run ipconfig /renew, the response is "The system cannot find the file specified"

So I am left wondering what is so important about oobe that influences the network connection's ability to renew a DHCP???

Thanks in advance for any ideas

[How To: Not Install Core Os Componants]

In the components section of winnt.sif it is possible to add

msmsgs=off

which will prevent installation of Messenger. Never found a way to avoid movie maker etc.

[Registry Tweak To Change The Login Screen Theme]

Give this a try:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Control Panel\Colors]
"ActiveTitle"="10 36 106"
"Background"="58 110 165"
"ButtonDkShadow"="64 64 64"
"ButtonFace"="212 208 200"
"ButtonLight"="212 208 200"
"ButtonShadow"="128 128 128"
"GradientActiveTitle"="166 202 240"
"GradientInactiveTitle"="192 192 192"
"GrayText"="128 128 128"
"Hilight"="10 36 106"
"InactiveTitle"="128 128 128"
"InactiveTitleText"="212 208 200"
"Menu"="212 208 200"
"MenuHilight"="0 0 0"
"MenuBar"="212 208 200"

[HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]
"CaptionFont"=hex:f5,ff,ff,ff,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,bc,02,00,00,\
  00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,54,00,61,00,68,00,6f,00,6d,00,61,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
  00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
"CaptionHeight"="-270"
"MenuHeight"="-270"
"ScrollHeight"="-240"
"ScrollWidth"="-240"
"SmCaptionHeight"="-180"
"SmCaptionWidth"="-180"

[HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager]
"ThemeActive"="0"
"LoadedBefore"="0"
"WCreatedUser"="1"

Changing the background colour is left as an exercise for the reader.

Regards

James

[Silent Installation Problems]

I find that the Wise Package Studio has a good tool for enabling an MSI based installer to be silenced. I do this with ACDSEE because I don't need half the things in the power pack.

Basically it simulates the running of the .msi, and records your input. Then a MST transform file is created. This is all standard Microsoft Installer technology so there's no extra exes or patches that may go wrong.

if you can acquire this product then it's a good idea. There's also an evaluation version for download.

Regards

James

[Installing RAID directly (on WinXP SP1 CD) ?]

In my experience it is possible to do the completely unattended install of Intel ICH5R raid drivers.

The step I had to do is copy the drivers into 2 locations on your XP SP1 CD.

1) \$OEM$\TEXTMODE

2) \I386\$OEM$

Why the second directory is necessary is a mystery. But the advantage is that no hacking of txtsetup.sif is necessary, which can be a maintenance headache.

Regards

James