petteysw

cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I personally am working on my own revamp of nlite / '7lite' my ideas are similar to utilize commandline/ batch starting with a ';;;' deliminated file that parses through a for statement each section of the deliminator represents a string - filename, download location etc. once i have the first version put together i will post. i am utilizing wget, 7zip, and a visual basic gui. as for working on 7 i was more intersted in using the command tools in the waik. building a list of absolutely free and open source software to put in these lists with unattended/silent install seems to be the difficult part. i was able to reverse engineer tgup for antvir & found a way of installing aim 7 silently. obviously lists like this make it really simple for updates & keeping track of what apps are upto date. my goal was xmas - in current phase i can say xp pro / home / mce /tablet unattended should be supported... as far as 7 that i am holding off till i finish xp ... i did find ways of slipstreaming sp3 into mce without it crippling the product - either way - my goal is one gui for xp & windows 7... i have off thurs to sat this week & code for my free time (no kids no family etc.) i will let you know where i end up on sat night. Currently all i have is a datagrid that can open this deliminated file & save & some user input to post into that grid - along with tinyurl api to change urls so that the dos batch doesn't go batty when it runs for accross it.

http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/19/ usingfind answer at this link the guiunattended section of the winnt.sif file will allow changing documents and settings before install.. i have been working on a reinstall from harddrive using the unattended guide... i should be done before the end of .3/08... still working on a way to change the windows driver path and inf folder path to second drive and assigning it during install if at all possible... so that way all the drivers and inf files for those drivers are placed on second drive as well... also need a way to run export and import of hive files so that installed programs in a seperate program files dir may run after a reinstall... this should answer your question... you will need to run a reg / batch file during the guiunattended detached program to change it.... this can be done with a set /p prompt via batch.... untested on my end but thanks for the idea as i know it should work... but that may not be the case... i will test it but i probably won't update my results till i finish this project.

well after working for dell..... they pre activate there computers so it is activated when you get it.... but unfortunately if someone steals the product key or cd, and activates another computer your out of luck because you won't be able to reactivate for 120days... microsofts grace period for reinstall.... must back up wpa.dbl and place it back into system32 folder before clicking on activate for a reactivation to work, so if your good... you can get two computers out of a dell install cd.... bad information but it works wpa.dbl files only work on the same exact processor serial id - that is how microsoft tracks there activations lslslalalala

so the final answer to my original question is simply.... install, then format the drives then reinstall.... with the paths to the other drive... or use windows pe,, which i actually have so that worked or pre partition the drives with another tool or just don't do it because the issues with seperating documents and settings from the systemdrive are a large hassel especially using the same user name on the next install... and getting extra default user folders and stuff like that... still working on it though, i won't stop

okay, try this.... put the rd command onto a bootdisk (make one) then remdir ( most likely in the system32 folder) then boot from the bootdisk run rd "pathname and stop with the folder you would like to delete" /s hope that helps sadly the documents and settings folder is write protected due the ntuser.dat file in many of the folders... you could also try killing explorer.exe in safe mode then run cmd console and do it there... may or may not work

the following is one of my batch files i use for troubleshooting / making sure i get the commands right the first time..... allows you to put in any command you want during the install... also lets you see the progress of the directory/ file tree..... during install very handy tool i ' d say echo off :world cls echo type in a dos command now, and press enter echo if not sure just press enter echo on echo off set /p comx= echo on %comx% pause echo off cls echo would you like to put in another command? echo press 1 for yes echo press 0 for no set /p killx= if %killx%==1 goto world

going to try the converntfs first and see what results i actually get when it finishes... then i will try c: as os and d: as large block partition, and see the results of that.... i think second option is best but requires to used the detached program entry to run at t-9 before the registry looks to the d: drive for the profile and program changes- that was the original issue....

found my answer to my question..... the filesystem entry is suppossed to be ConvertNtfs, not just ntfs also it still causes the mft file allocation issue i expected after doing more research but here is the link to where i found a solution to this issue as well http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/winpr...preinstall.mspx and of course using a registry entry for the mft file allocation will also help

Oh future note since the filesystem entry only refers to the systemvolume, it doesn't change the c to format to ntfs, it still uses fat, just a note- that was the first thing i tried.... going to try removing all of the partition related lines from the winnt.sif, because i won't need them.... using a default selection mode for the text setup phase due to the install/reinstall issue and the fact that removing the ability to upgrade a system is not part of sales----

it is for oem production actually , part of the reason i am avoiding extra tools.... i was seperating out program files, user profiles, to the c drive, and it worked great except for the fat partition part, i was looking more and i think the conversion will be fine because it is going to be the largest partition anyways.... basically making a disk that does both install and reinstall, and keeping the old user accounts via registry backups etc..... if it works i will post links to my downloads when i finish.... but i am working on this for an actuall vendor so i have to keep some wraps on the details... even though most people on this site already know how to do this... but for some reason the current major oem vendors haven't.... poor home users....

i have got everything down to do this except one minor issue.... i am able to format out both c: and d: by creating the partitions , c: is the larger, and d: is 10gb for the windows installation... then i choose to install windows on d: and then c: is required to be formated because the boot files are required to be on c:.... now with out an unattended install i am able to format both in ntfs... but when i started an unattended install - default options mode - i am unable to select what format i would like to format c: with, it just defaults as fat32, and i definitely don't want that.... because a converted volume is less stable than a fresh one due to mft allocation and such.... anyone know an answer to this odd question