Wicked187

Has anyone come up with a way to silently install OpenSSH for Windows? The package is available at http://lexa.mckenna.edu/sshwindows It uses the NSIS packager. I have it do a silent install, but it still has one popup, and it doesn't run some other needed commands to start the service.

996: You have nested doubled quotes... When you use the double quote in your HTML, the VBScript thinks it is closing out the double quote for it. Use single quotes for your HTML and double quotes for your VBScript.

I use Classic... it is faster, and I especially like the Classic start menu and Contol Panel View... it is nice for my users as well, as they are used to Win 98 and 2K

This is a pretty simple setup... Just make a distribution point on the network, and run the i386/Winnt32.exe... instead of creating a Winnt.sif... I create an unattend.txt and specify the following in my batch script: set AnswerFile=.\unattend.txt set UdfFile=.\unattend.udb set ComputerName=%1 set SetupFiles=.\I386 start /wait I386\winnt32.exe /s:%SetupFiles% /unattend0:%AnswerFile% /udf:%ComputerName%,%UdfFile% /makelocalsource /dudisable /syspart:C:\ /tempdrive:C:\ /copysource:lang Essentially save that and run <filename>.bat <COMPUTERNAME> and it run fine, you will need some tweaking... and you may not need the computer name, I use that because I deploy many PCs through this.

I know how to use the search function, it just isn't working. Out of 20 searches, it has worked about 3 times.

It may be a good idea to edit your original post and remove something that you would not want all over the Internet. *Hint* It is not your password.

THe search doesn't seem to be working, everytime I do a search, it retruns zero results. even on simple things, like "theme"

Does anyone know of a registry tweak to change the theme of the login screen? I want it to be the Classic theme, and not Luna. This is not to change it from the playschool-ish "Click on Me" login, but the theme on the Ctrl+Alt+Del login...

I have decided that I am just going to replace the ntuser.dat in the Default User profile... I have been testing out xcopy and copy, and I cannot find a way to overwrite a hidden file... are there any ways of doing this, or perhaps, is there a command to change attributes like chmod in *nix? [EDIT] I found it, attrib -H <filename> removes the hidden status...

Unattend.doc in the the deploy.cab contains a list of all the components.... [Edit] This was the case in Windows 2000, but not XP... Most of the components names are the same, but there are some new ones.

Does anyone know where I can get a list of components for use in the [Components] section? I really just want to know the name for Games, as I do not want any games installed on the computer.

Will modifying the the HKEY_CURRENT_USER while no one is logged in, as is the case when running from cmdlines.txt, apply it to the HKEY_USER for all users?

That didn't work, no Quick Launch was there... Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way... Maybe I should setup a profile, and have it be copied to the Default User profile... will it be over written if I put in via the $OEM$ method?

I am trying to tweak the user environment settings before I deploy XP to all of our desktops, and I am having problems finding registry tweaks for the theme. I want to use the "Windows Classic" theme, "Classic View" in the Control Panel, I want the "Quick Launch" enabled by default, and I want "Windows Classic Folders" for Explorer. I cannot seem to find tweaks for this.

I have not used Windows Server 2003 yet, so RIS is probably different, but in Windows 2000 Server, you could not add NIC drivers, as stated by M$ themselves... the boot diskette just would not allow for it, and if you cannot get the diskette to boot up, then you cannot connect to the TFTP server, and you cannot install your image. As for having SID problems and such with Ghost... you just use Sysprep, it removes the SID and lets you script the Mini-setup that occurs afterwards, which includes joining the domain. My problem was with disimilar hardware. Personally, I have moved past RIS, it just doesn't really offer what is needed. Microsoft themselves have stated that they do not intend for it to be around much longer anyway. They are pushing WinPE. But, I regress, I have not used Windows Server 2003, so there is a lot I am missing, for sure.

Absolutely. This is not something made for standalone machines, this is made for corporate networks and such. Having a CD or 2 would be a lot easier for something like that.

Group Policy has to be done from an Active Directory server. You wouldn't be replicating it to your CD, everything would automatically install after being joined to the Active Directory domain, which can be automated by an unattend script. There are various modes to distribute software via Group Policy, but basically what happens is things get installed to computers automatically, based on what you set in a database, either because of the user logged in or the computer itself.

*bump* Please help a guy out and respond with any suggestions and experiences

The biggest reason to do it over the network is because it is a nice resource. I am in the process of of making our deployment, and there is a lot of testing and changes, so making a CD for each time is quite an overload. I don't know about you, but I do not need anymore coasters. Besides, with it being on the network, I can control access to it via file and share permissions on the server.

Check out PE-Builder? It isn't WinPE, but it was inspired by it. It's main focus was to be used as a nice recovery tool, but I have used it to kick off unattended installs over the network.

Please Post a Response I have been visiting this site for the past few days, and it has helped me move towards better standardization on the desktop for my company. I am just wondering how many people here are doing this to help their home setup, and how many people here are trying to streamline IT processes for their company. A little background to my situation... I work for a hotel amenities manufacturer, and we currently have 2 locations, one in the US (Corporate), and one in the UK. We have only recently had the UK office, and even more recently has my employment started. So, I inherited our network, and all of it's problems (as so many admins do). Recently, I went on a trip to our UK office to standardize everything, and figure out why they were having issues connecting to our AS/400. It turned out that Welchia was loose on the network and congested their DSL connection, and thus the VPN connection to the corporate office. I decided to go ahead and reinstall all the desktop computers, since I wanted to standardize anyway, and clean up the servers. Before, I had done a major deployment of Windows 2000 with RIS and Group Policy to install all the software. It worked great. But, never again was I able to use RIS successfully. My plan for this trip was to use Sysprep to prepare images and then use Ghost to deploy them. This fell through because the hardware was too dissimalar. So, I was forced to work 37 hours straight and reinstall every computer manually, in order to meet my deadline and get back on the plane to go home. This experience left me thoroughly upset, and I decided that this cannot happen again. So two weeks ago I started looking for a better solution. RIS was in the circular bin because it's limited set of NICs supported, and disk duplication was out because of dissimilar hardware... Doing an unattended install seemed the most reliable way to get things done... now how do I make it easier? I decided I was going to look for WinPE and see what it could offer, which lead me to finding PE-Builder, a nice free app that makes a bootable Windows XP environment on a CD... now I use this to kickstart an unattended install over the network, and all is starting to pan out well. If any of you are admins that use this to make your life easier, let me know what things you are doing. As for myself... I like installing and having SP1, SRP1 and the rest of the hotfixes installed, I am now looking to keep this silly playschool setup out of the office and use the Classic setup. The biggest problem, I think, faced by admins, is locking users down, and making things work in a multi-user environment. If really do not want the install to have to log in once and run some apps, and then hope that things work for all users... So I think I will stick with using Group Policy for deploying most apps, especially Office.

Goto http://www.transcender.com/, you can download demos of their practice tests... they help you out to gauge your knowledge of the exam quite well... I am going to do the upgrade to Win2K3 soon, so I will probably check them out today, as well.

XP the ability... Click on TCP/IP Properties and click the Advanced button. Under the IP Settings tab, you will see where you can add IPs, but you are unable to add IPs if you are using DHCP.

It is a analog modem... 56K, that is what it reads in his post. I would look for drivers for it. What is the brand... alot of the older external 56K modems needed no drivers at all, but if it is a newer 3Com or something, you may need them.

That is not a thought that I would release to the public, if I had it. NICs are quite different. If it is a generic brand, STAY AWAY. They can become nice garage can accessories quite quickly. D-Link is a prime example... there NICs just burn out from use... Get Intel or 3Com, you will be safe.