prathapml

Oh my god! So many switches for the MSI ! Thanx for sharing the info.

You can also find an older version (non-SP2) of it right on your WinXP CD in "\SUPPORT\TOOLS\deploy.cab".

If you're looking for similar desktop shells - check out Aston Desktop.

Piracy happens all across the globe. It can't be stamped out unless all of us get together to support a legalising drive. But no, most large companies offer mere platitudes to anti-piracy, but won't do anything to really eliminate it. Because they are afraid that then ppl will run to their competitor or open-source.

Full story The latest Windows firewall is better than nothing - but I for one won't be relying on it With Microsoft having released Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) to manufacturing, the technology that some have nicknamed "Security Pack 2", coupled with recent rumblings from Microsoft, is spinning the spotlight towards the personal firewall and antivirus sectors. For starters, after installing SP2, users of XP will notice the addition of a security dashboard to Windows' Control Panel known as the Security Centre. This simple status report on your system's defences answers such basic questions as whether your firewall and antivirus systems are turned on, whether your antivirus solution is using the most recent signature file, and whether your operating system has received all available critical updates. Today, Windows will tell us that critical updates are waiting to be downloaded through an indicator that pops up from the Windows tray, or following a "scan for updates" that takes place after Windows Update is manually invoked. Until SP2, users could never go to one central location to get an easily scannable status report on their systems' readiness to deal with the most prevalent threats. Barring any known compatibility problems between SP2 and your company's computing infrastructure (like that which has been reported to have occurred at IBM), this feature alone makes SP2 worth the upgrade. The security dashboard is less of an innovation than it is the reuse of an existing Windows API known as the Windows Management Interface (WMI). During a video interview, Microsoft spokesperson Greg Sullivan said that "WMI is used mostly by IT managers to enforce policies broadly across their domains." But, as it turns out, the API is flexible enough that it can be used to interrogate the status of firewall and antivirus products as long as the developers of those products support that sort of WMI-based interrogation. Knowing that third-party vendors of personal firewalls such as Zone Labs and Sygate may need some time to support the interface, Microsoft jerry-rigged a connection between the Security Centre and most of the popular third party security products -- a sign of the lengths to which Microsoft will go to deputise customers in the battle against hackers. Quietly, however, even before SP2 had officially shipped, Zone Labs became one of the first to jump on the WMI bandwagon. Within the past few days, the company issued WMI-compatible updates to the freely downloadable Zone Alarm personal firewall, Zone Alarm Pro (the paid version) and Zone Alarm Security Suite (includes antivirus technology licensed from Computer Associates). If you're running any of those products and the product hasn't already notified you of the update's availability, you should be able to get the update from Zone Labs' site. Though I haven't checked with every firewall vendor, Sygate product manager Elisha Riedlinger told me that Sygate expects to have WMI support in its firewall sometime in the fourth quarter. According to Zone Labs' vice president of business development Fred Felman: "Our update accomplishes two things. First, our firewalls and antivirus solutions can now report their status to SP2's Security Centre. [Also,] we can turn off the Windows Firewall when we are installed and we turn it back on if we're uninstalled." This is the way Microsoft would want it to be. According to Microsoft's Sullivan, only 10 percent of Windows users have a personal firewall on their systems. In the interview, he said Microsoft had to ask itself: "What can we do to make sure that this system right out of the box is as rock solid as we can make it, so that the user doesn't have to do anything?" At least part of the answer for Microsoft was to make improvements to the firewall built into Windows and turn it on by default -- which is exactly what the Windows Firewall does once it's installed. As I've posited before, improvements to the Windows Firewall are a controversial issue, the flames of which are being fanned by recent revelations that another answer to Sullivan's "What can we do?" may be "a Microsoft antivirus product".

Virus writers are suffering from the perils of open source. We have a modest proposal to help them overcome this It is with some trepidation that we report on the rise of the open-source virus. According to F-Secure's antivirus research team, open-source viruses can generate nearly as many variants in a day as the closed-source ones do in a month. This would seem to be a conclusive vindication for the benefits of open-source development -– freely available information leads to a vigorous and productive environment. Yet the closed viruses, such as Bagel and Mydoom, are much more effective. This suggests that the argument of the proprietary lobby -– closed software is higher quality -– has some weight. These two observations are not necessarily at odds. After all, six hundred variants of the same code from a crowd of hackers are likely to be easy to recognise and filter en masse, while anyone with access to closed code is going to be motivated and able to make things significantly different for each release. Indeed, Sophos says that open-source variants are often caught by generic filters. It's time for the virus writing community to listen to Microsoft, and do a proper TCO, time to market and deployment cost analysis. After all, what's the point of five hundred virus writers labouring for a month and only infecting twenty million computers, when one proprietary team of three can produce a virus in a week that hits fifty million? In terms of productivity, the latter approach is over a thousand times more effective. (These figures are entirely fictitious. Before committing to a strategy, we advise you to pay analysts to make up equivalent data professionally). So open-source virus production is insecure, ineffective and more expensive in every way. The virus writers should immediately ban open source as a dangerous, cancerous distraction to their industry and institute a proper policy of IP management, backed up as necessary with legal sanctions and/or Ivan's Health & Safety Inspectorate. This is the only way to encourage innovation. Indeed, because the virus industry is comparatively small and self-contained, there is a good chance that it can evolve really effective techniques for controlling workers and data from which the wider world could profitably learn. Without a proper structure of certification for skills, of course, even a well-drilled workforce will be ineffective. We suggest that concomitant with imposing controls on source code, the virus industry create a centralised qualification system with a well-defined career progression path. Promising youngsters can be pressed into a cadre while they are still open to correct ideas: an early start in the Viral Youth would provide a solid basis for the party -- sorry, industry -- leaders of the future. The combination of discipline, proper structure and imposed motivation will revolutionise the virus world. Tomorrow could belong to them. Full story

Battery life has been one of consumers' biggest issues with technology for years, and that's not likely to change… but things are getting better During the holiday season, many wish for greater understanding between people and nations. Others just want better batteries. Although electronics manufacturers have made substantial strides in getting their devices to eke more life out of a battery charge, one of the chief complaints among consumers remains the perceived short run time of audio players, notebooks and other devices. "You can never be too rich, too thin or have enough battery life," said Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD Techworld. "While everyone is focused on improving battery life, we still have a long way to go." In many ways, it's a Sisyphean task. On the one hand, technologies deployed over the past few years -- deep sleep states, screens made of organic light-emitting diodes, chips that can regulate their speeds and energy-efficient software -- have dramatically reduced power consumption and thereby extended battery life on a variety of devices. Batteries in notebooks, which five years ago typically lasted only two hours, now can run up to five or more hours. The Logitech MX 1000 cordless mouse, meanwhile, can run 21 days on a full charge, thanks to a wide variety of tweaks to virtually all of the internal components that use electricity, the company says. "We are about three times longer than when we started the cordless-mouse category," said Ashish Arora, director of product marketing at Logitech. "It is a major component of the cordless experience." What's more, the Swiss-US company incorporated features that seek to eliminate some of the frustrations common with battery-powered devices. Ten minutes in the charger gives the mouse enough energy to run a full day, while a full charge only takes about 3 hours. Surveys taken by the company also show that customers will pay a $10 premium in some cases for better battery life. "Almost across the board, every device you can buy this year is more efficient than last year's by 10 to 20 percent," said Richard Doherty, an analyst at The Envisioneering Group. Apple Computer's latest iPod, for example, which has a color screen, can run longer than earlier black-and-white versions, he said. On the other hand, devices are getting more complex and requiring more power. Wireless connectivity and 15-inch screens, baroque excesses less than four years ago, are now standard notebook features. Customers also expect companies to live up to their claims. Full story

got cheated out of what britney promised

Yes, it has. XCOPY.exe is present too.The main things missing (from unattended point of view) is taskkill.exe and gpedit.msc and PageFileConfig.VBS.

Some of the most noticeable features of this version were of course the unconventional interface with title bar merged with the menu bar. There are lots of buttons and some new scrolling bars. Buttons have submenus, which gives access to options normally buried deep in settings. There are RSS Scrollers displaying live news and weather information (if you feed in a ZIP code). One of the major changes from earlier versions is the integration of Internet Explorer rendering engine as an option. Tabs get individual menus, which let user set custom settings for separate websites. Options include switching the tab to display the IE version of the loaded website. And user can setup individual settings like ActiveX, Java, JavaScript, and others for different websites using the tab menu. More Info - Review First look at firefox-based Netscape

Yet another phishing scam? Okay well, please take a look if the person in this topic is also having the same email as sent to you ppl - link. If so, then probably we could tell him how he can extricate himself out of that mess.

If you just don't want it from start menu>Programs alone, just delete the shortcuts.Otherwise, use the [Components] section in winnt.sif with IEaccess=off and OEaccess=off. Oh, I see you don't want the IE and OE to be in stickies? If so, I'll just dig out my registry collection and post the needed key here.

Ha ha.... Get the full-french version of 6.0.2 - and then RyanVM has a guide to cut down the size (by merging the update to 6.0.1) and make it a SFX. ****! late by 2 mins. he's already beaten me to the post.

First and foremost, get rid of win98 - move to win2k or XP. Next, maybe your present win98 install is infected with viruses or worms (or you are subjected to a phishing attack). Remember, you should not need to give proof (to a real banking provider) that you own the account by logging in - they have other methods to confirm. So under no circumstances, should you give your password on it now - somebody else might get hold of it and do things you'd not like. If you can't move to win2k/XP, atleast do a clean re-install of Win98 to get rid of all the junk that might have built-up. Oh, and welcome to MSFN forums.

XP home is the same process as the Pro CD. But where you *WILL* find it different in your case, is that the upgrade CD will ask for valid qualifying media - so it will not be fully unattended. This is only because the XP home CD you mention is not a retail CD. Other than that, all else would be the same.

Bi0haZarD gave the solution. But if you want this: You need something called SysPrep - it will basically run the setup, then package your system once again - so that you can enter in the key (and whatever else you choose). The intention behind SysPrep being that windows is already setup and installed on the system - it is a post-install per-PC configuration tool. Dell and such manufacturers use sysprep - try searching the forum for more info on it.

Yes, but Incroyable HULK wanted a french version of it.@Incroyable HULK Why not just download a newer version (6.0.2 is latest now), make an Admin-install point of it, and then make a RAR/SFX of it. That will still make the size as small as what you are now having while using the ( -p"-s /v\"/qn\"") switch, but the time taken to install the acrobat reader will be much quicker.

Hi Shaz2sxy, Welcome to MSFN. Check out this topic to get a start - click here. And please make use of the "Search" function of the forum - your topic has been discussed so thread-bare that you'd be hard-pressed to find something missing!

Are you setting up a multi-boot CD? (like 3-in-1, or something?) If so, you need a boot-loader - check out CDshell and EasyBoot. If those are too big for what you want to accomplish, probably just a simple editing of the existing boot-sector (on which you want to pattern yours) in a hex-editor will do.

I think nvDVD is install-shield-based installer - so follow the steps given for that in the guide. The google apps, try the standard switches on them - you'll come across a number of switches in the guide - so try each one of them and you'll find which one works. As for the other progs, I think its already answered by astalavista. Do post back on how your unattended install is progressing!

Set this registry key to how you want, and apply it at T-12 (thru cmdlines.txt): ; Custom Regional settings [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International] "sShortDate"="dd-MMM-yyyy"

PHEW! Happy to see that most of you don't like smoking. I don't smoke either, since its like investing in your own death (pay money and court death - losing money for nothing so that you can pay more money in future towards curing yourself ). Whatever else had to be said is already been said before me.

Please attach it if there's large chunks of code! :angrym: Or better still, host it elsewhere and post link to the file.

Actually, the switch you should use is not "/QNB" You should use "/QB" --- OR --- "/QN" like, diskeeper.msi /QB

Welcome to MSFN skunny! And we hope to become an even bigger source! B)