prathapml

A beginner's guide to multi-boot discs This section of the forum deals with Multi-boot CDs and DVDs. Please read this small write-up attentively, as this covers many of the most frequently asked questions (FAQ) on the forum. Example: The sort of discs you have seen in the possession of busy sys-admins, or those with a number of differently configured PCs to support. A single CD/DVD with multiple OSes on it, or multiple versions of a single OS on it can be called a "multi-boot" disc. It is so-called because it will contain multiple boot-sectors on it, extracted from different CDs/floppies, among which you can choose when you boot-up from it. This is the section where you ask questions on how to setup a DVD with, say, Windows 2000 and Windows XP which you can then select between, from a boot menu on what to install. People normally put 2 or more types of a windows xp/2k install on one disc when they make a multi-boot disc. Or, they might go the whole hog (just for the thrills) and put ALL 5 SUPPORTED VERSIONS of windows on one DVD. The limitation to making multi-boot discs is the capacity of your media. You can use 2 approaches to solve this - one is to simply use a DVD, the other is to "optimize" your ISO-image to cut it down to be able to burn it on a CD. All processes that you need to do, are the same whether for a CD or a DVD, the only difference being that DVD gives more capacity for your software. It is understandable, that if you haven't yet seen a multi-boot disc previously, and have only recently got the idea of making one - a multi-boot disc is an abstract concept at best, and hard to visualize. But don't mind the fact that you might be a beginner. Don't think too much about how its going to work out, just plan out what the result should be, and start off with making it. Practically making the multi-boot will start to make things clearer, and obvious bugs in the process come out into the open. Asking theoretical questions like "I'm gonna do it in such-and-such a method, will this work?" are redundant, because there's too many variables involved, and we can't say for sure. You have to practicalise to understand it. You would normally need to carry out multiple tests of your disc before you can confirm that it is working as planned. You can simply extract the boot-sector from a CD to get it on the disc as an option, or take the floppy of your favourite bootable-diagnostic tool and make an image of it, and add it to the list. It is seen that adding Linux as an option to your multi-boot DVDs is somewhat more difficult than adding windows OSes and boot-disks - so if you wanted to try adding linux to your install disc just for the sake of doing so, don't. You may use either CDshell or EasyBoot for the purpose of making your disc's multi-boot menu. Use a re-writable CD to test out your multi-boot CD, (and unattended setups from the CD probably) on your machine. But, it is recommended that you make an ISO9660 CD-image (a .ISO file) of what you are going to burn onto a disc - and use some application like VMware or VirtualPC (which simulate a PC with all associated hardware and so on) to test. Here's a guide to get you started (on how to setup a multi-boot DVD from scratch) - in most cases, that is all that you would ever need. Follow the instructions in the guide properly (for the OSes you need), and you will get a perfectly made disc. You can't expect to be able to make your multi-boot disc without an intermediate level of knowledge about how OSes install and boot from their installation media. If you feel like a new-comer to all this, and need someone to sum it all up for you, you might like to browse around the forums for a few days, so that you start understanding what it is all about. If you have any problems, re-read this FAQ and the guide linked to above again - you might have missed out on a tiny-but-important detail. IMPORTANT ARTICLES: It has been observed that making a multi-boot sometimes involves methods associated with an unattended install of windows. nLite for slimming your Windows install source to fit on one CD WinPE for speeding up your windows installs Lastly, before asking a question, please use the Search function (see the link to search in the top-right corner of the page). Searching spares you some days of waiting for an answer, and the others in the forum also wouldn't need to reply with a response that has already been given and discussed lots of times in the past. Remember to set the "Search posts from..." criterion in the drop-down box to "Any Date" instead of the default of only searching for the past 30 days. I will keep refining and adding to this FAQ, as new questions start being asked frequently. NOTE - Using the "Print this topic" function for this page, will result in poor display of this topic, just print this page directly if you want to.

good idea...... But then, your driver signing is violated (I know, you can set winnt.sif to ignore signing, but still I wouldn't do it).

There's no doubt that this tip works. But just a suggestion: You could put the icon into $OEM$\$$ folder, so that it copies over to the C:\Windows folder. That way, a redundant folder called autorun need not be created. Of course, your code should change to: [autorun] ICON=Windows\HDD.ICO

Excuse me....... but this is a repetition for the last time, that the 61.77 drivers are not WHQL approved. You need WHQL'ed drivers, and should use 61.76. Then it will work. IF YOU USE A non-WHQL DRIVER, IT WILL NOT WORK (not perfectly, atleast).

Please have a look at the guides section on MSFN. BTW, here's the guide you want - guide. If you want to make a better-looking, and easier to use multi-boot menu, use EasyBoot: home easyboot forums - the easyboot forums will help you in making the menu

Hi andrew, Welcome to MSFN forums. I'm sure there'll be plenty of people happy to help you.

I have a licence for winxp home. I chose home edition for myself, 'coz it is cheaper than pro, and doesn't really miss out on what I need to do at home. But there's a number of PCs that we support that run XP Pro Corp., so I figured its sufficient to use home edition at home.

Yes, its possible, but your win98 ramdisk doesn't at all matter here. Only a WinPE-based setup can give this feature... You can try searching the forums for details - it has been well-discussed in the past.

Yes. But then (using winnt.sif for autologon) only the admin account get apps and reg-tweaks. If you want to stay with the .REG method you started out with, you might want to read this post - info (my post half-way down that page....)

For giving a longhorn look to all apps - changing the default theme to something that looks like longhorn (slate? jade?) and having SmartbarXP installed might be a better option. Also, longhorn as you see it today is not longhorn - it will keep changing its UI and look until it gets released - until then, you are only seeing its proto-types. Simply copying the EXEs may or may not work - because much of longhorn is tied into .NET code, and managed DX (eventually). So, you may need to have .NET framework installed to run those new EXEs, and god knows what dependencies those will have...... And yes, as Bâshrat the Sneaky asks..... what exactly is new in the longhorn versions of these programs? (other than build version )

Instead of avoiding duplicate files, don't mind them, and optimize your CD. Search the forums for details on that. Or, as alanoll said, you could avoid having the two $OEM$ folders having the same content, and have all needed-by-both-installs files in a folder at the CD-root. Then use the %CDROM%\your_folder method. (atleast that's what I think he meant)

Right, that's what this section is for. Here's a Multi-boot DVD guide, of the kind you are looking for - http://flyakite.msfnhosting.com @Moderators- I believe a sticky in this forum, with basic details on what this section is and does, might be in order......

I believe you got the above switch from some thread meant for RunOnceEx install method - if so, just remove the unnecessary slashes and quotes in the command and try again. If not, the easiest solution I can think of, is to run that same setup in normal windows mode, to make an administrative install point (using "/A" switch). Then, when it is done, you can simply run its MSI without needing all those complications, like this: start /wait %systemdrive%\install\Applications\AcdSee\install.msi /QB- USERNAME=NAME COMPANYNAME=COMPANY SLL_LICENSENUMBER="SERIAL" REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS If neither of the solutions above work, I'm sure that somebody else will come along, who has tried what you are doing, and reply to this.

All you need to do is to have this 4-line batch command executed *after* setup reboots (at the first auto-logon) if exist "%systemroot%\system32\ati????.???" ( echo Installing ATi Control Panel start /wait %systemdrive%\drivers\ATi\ATi-CPL.msi /QB" )Or something thereabouts would help? (this is just a seeding idea - I have NO way of knowing if it will work, I don't have ATi) You might look up this topic (ancient, but relevant) - something related to this topic. Hoping this helps.....

Microsoft Certification is currently top-dog in the industry. While Novell cert. isn't bad, there aren't many places you could really get to, with that (no, there are many openings for novell as well, but openings for MS-based certs. are simply higher).

Oh good - you yourself said where to disable CEIP from. (I was yet to look into it, now I can directly do what you said). That's cool!

Well, this (folders being referred to) *IS* on a windows disc - we are talking of having the windows setup, office 2003, other apps, and o2k3 activation being pre-setup.

@HeartsOfWar You might like to check out WineX 3.1, Codeweaver's wine, and Crossover Office (with regard to your previous post about linux). Google for more details! @MCT sorry, but actually the same logic works the other way round, (whatever good windows has, linux has it too) here. Which is a sad thing because, OpenOffice then becomes an un-innovative copier of MS-Office - whereas it could have been vastly different and better. Anyway, this is not the place to talk about linux, let's get back on topic.

That's what I was told - but the queue seems TOOOO long. I left my connection and ShareAza up for 3 days at a stretch - still, not one byte had got added to the count. The most damned thing about this is that it seems to happen only when you are downloading especially large files - it will reach up to 90% transferred, and then stop altogether. After that, the only option I've seen to work was to start it from the beginning separately, again.

It is. I've already gotten the set of DVDs. Cool! Is that (free shipping) only within the US, or global?

You can set the user pic this way - pre-set it To have a custom theme as your default right from your first login, you have to have 3 things done: 1. Hack your uxtheme.dll to allow third-party themes. 2. Place your theme at the location you want. 3. Place this section in winnt.sif [Shell] CustomDefaultThemeFile="%systemroot%\Resources\Themes\Slate.theme" DefaultStartPanelOff=No DefaultThemesOff=No (Change the properties there to how you want) All the rest of the things you asked for are done by the registry, and you can go to this thread to read up on all those, and more - Registry Tweaks.... Hoping this helps....

The official download site still talks of v2.0, and I got that months ago. Is what you are saying, a new release since then? I went into my installed dir of ShAza, and file-version properties say "2.0.0.0". Is the new version showing that different as you say?

A simple search in the forums, or on google would have turned this up: 1. Virtual machine shootout: VMware vs. Virtual PC 2. VirtualPC 2004 vs. VMWare 4 Performance Review (older) @MCT go away, troll (just kidding) Linux has its own advantages and negatives, which we won't touch upon here, because we are on MSFN.

Well, well....... what do we have here - 3 weeks have passed, and the download still is stuck at the same position. @XtremeMaC Set it to connect to 3 G2 hosts, and to 500 e-Donkey clients. Why its not connecting to Gnutella2 for you, is beyond me - but if it begins connecting, let it connect to 3 G2 hosts. And, its not actually the way ShareAza depicts it in "Networks Connected" Tab - you are figuratively "uplinked" via one ed2k peer, and then you are connected to the number of peers you specify (raise it from 200 to 500 as I said above). Then, see the upload queues, and dis-able each of them, except for eDonkey core. Set the eDonkey core upload limit to as low as you want, and select "Maximum" instead of "Average" in the drop-down box below. The above tweaking raised my down-stream speeds to the max. of my connection's throughput, and also prevented using up bandwidth in providing others the files shared on my HD.

A good, trained eye-sight, and a fast-reading speed to recognize which mails in the inbox are spam, and which aren't.I am a manual, do-it-yourself subscriber. I had used many of the the services/apps mentioned in the poll above, but then if you inadvertently got one of your known contacts _somehow_ listed as spam on these lists, contact becomes difficult and business suffers.