[Tools to deploy a sysprep image]

They both look ok, but neither appears to run from a DOS boot disk. for the restore i wanted to create a simple batch file menu front end to select from 1 or 2 different images.

[Tools to deploy a sysprep image]

Does anyone know of any good deployment tools that i can use to deploy my sysprep image. I'm using ghost which works fine but i am using it within my workplace and the ghost licensing means i have to buy 1 license per machine i image. We sell the PC's on as part of our equipment so i only ever deploy the image once on each PC. This makes it a very expensive way to do it as we need to deploy the same image about 800 times a year. I'm looking for either a free tool, or one that i can pay for that doesnt require a license per image deployed. It ideally needs to be a DOS command line utility.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[VOL and | pipe problem]

I have an unattended install that starts from DOS and displays a message, partitions and formats the HD then reboots and starts the install. There is a line in my batch that looks at the volume name to deceide if its done the partition and format already. The line uses 'vol' and pipes the output into the 'find' command and sets the error level if it finds a match. The lines are :

rem check for volume labels here

rem jump next section if match is found

@vol c: | find "BALCD" /c > NUL

@if NOT errorlevel==1 goto instLCD

@vol c: | find "BACRT" /c > NUL

@if NOT errorlevel==1 goto instCRT

This all works fine when testing with my floppy drive. I have now burnt a CD containing the files from the FD as my install must only be a single cd. The problem is that the pipe | command pipes the information via a temp file and not in RAM. So it works fine when useing a FD but i get a write error when usgin the CD. Does anyone know a way around this, or maybe have an alternate 'vol' command?

[MsDosInitiated question]

What effect on the unattended install does setting MsDosInitiated to 1 actually have. I have found lots of sites saying 'set to 1 if starting install from a floppy', but none that actually describe what the install does different if this is set.

[Unattended Works Different to RIS]

i think that the $oem$ folder has to go in a different place depending on the install method. for a normal unattended install the $oem$ folder sits in the root along side the i386. for the network install try putting the $oem$ into the i386 folder.

[Using winnt.exe to start unattended install]

Ahhh, that makes sense. I assumed it would work in the same way as the winnt32.exe. I did think about doing the fdisk'ing and formating from within my batch. only problem is it has to be NTFS. There is also another issue i thought of. Once the installation has completed coping the files from the CD to the c drive it reboots and needs to boot from the c drive to continue the installation. At the moment it will just keep booting back to my CD, and running the batch file over and over. The normal windows installation seems to get around this by adding the boot up message to the beginnning of the cd saying 'Press any key to boot from cd', then if you dont it boots from the HD. I dont have this and so far havent been able to figure out how to do it.

[Using winnt.exe to start unattended install]

Hopefully someone can help me as im struggling a litte. I have a working xp unattended install, but at the request of someone else i need to call a .bat file to display a startup message at the beginning of the install. So far i have created a bootable DOS CD that does this. The CD also contains the xp setup files and i am calling the winnt.exe from the batch file after the user has hit a key. The command line i am using for starting the winnt.exe install is:

d:\i386\winnt.exe /u:d:\i386\winnt.sif /s:d:\i386

This starts the unattended install but it immediatley stops with an error saying 'An internal error has occured. Could not find a place for the swap file'

It seems like it is not performing the auto partition and format before attempting to start the installation and therfore does not have a c drive to copy the files to. I know my winnt.sif is good because it works fine when i create the cd image with nlite and boot straight into the unattended setup.

Either im doing something wrong, or perhaps there are differences in the way winnt.exe and winnt32.exe start the install process. Any suggestions would be fantastic!

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.

[display message to user when install starts]

Thanks for the responses. Yes i agree this seems the best method. It hadn't occured to me to use the winnt.exe instead of winnt32.exe. I will have to try a make my own boot disk as the bart version puts lots of text on the screen during the boot. i need a very 'clean' boot with no messages.

[display message to user when install starts]

The PC may not have an OS installed. there would need to be some kind of OS running to run the batch file. i did try creating a DOS boot CD and running from that(actaully it was a win98 boot cd). The batch file part worked ok, but the windows installation would not start. I guess to do with DOS being 16bit OS and the windows installer needs to be started from a 32bit OS.

[display message to user when install starts]

I have a working XP unattended install but am trying to add a message to the user prompting them to unplug the ethernet cable, then to hit a key to continue. The message ideally needs to appear before the install starts, but if not then as early as possible in the install. Any suggestions please.