prathapml

No, the flash version is up-to-date, Shockwave is not (only v8.x in that installer link above, latest is v10.x).

You do get updated VM drivers with VMware 4.5.2-8848 (it may seem like a minor version upgrade, but its an upgrade worth the download time). Go into the folder where you installed VMware (normally "C:\program files\VMware\VMware Workstation"). You'll find mountable CD images of drivers for various OSes - we want windows.iso. Then, open that ISO and browse this path through it - "\program files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers". Now, simply take out the appropriate winxp driver files from the folders there, and put them all in one folder (since there's only a few files in the drivers to be setup).

Absolutely anything is better than OE crap, considering the number of bugs/security-holes it is bullet-ridden with. OE is a red-carpet welcome to worms and viruses, and has enough bugs built-in to annoy you even if it doesn't manage to fetch viruses for your pleasure If you want to try more alternatives, check out Eudora and IncrediMail for e-mail clients. Keep in mind they are both paid products, though. See here about how you can use thunderbird with a Yahoo free e-mail account. Does that balance the lack of hotmail-accessibility ? Also, if you want to discuss things such as where to access a certain feature from, and whether or not some capabilities you take for granted are available in thunderbird - why not join their IRC chat? Gives you far quicker replies, from much more knowledgeable people. As for your experience with Firefox (not 'Firebox' as you called it, LOL): 1. IE6 has become pretty good (fantastic, in fact) with XP's SP2 updates, so you could stay with it. 2. If it's the interface and pop-ups and memory usage that's bugging you, check out these IE-based browsing shells - Maxthon, Avant - and see if it interests you. 3. If you still want to switch, check out the daddy of firefox - Mozilla. 4. Some more alternative browsers worth considering are - Opera, and K-Meleon (kmeleon is based on the same HTML renderer as mozilla - gecko).

Which pales into in-significance when you find out (and have a necessity) that you can stuff in thrice as many things as you could when un-compressed

If you delete the files, but your Windows CD is still in the drive, those files will get restored. Try ejecting manually your CD, before the time comes to delete files.

Are those NIC drivers signed ? Are they WHQL-logo passed? If any of the above is true, you need this line in winnt.sif [Unattended] DriverSigningPolicy=IgnoreTry once with this setting, and report back whether your drivers get installed now.

That statement is to be viewed at from the angle of "by today's standards".Does anyone remember this? - "640 KB of RAM support ought to be enough for anybody". If you don't know who made this statement, it was by the same person who today exemplifies the other extreme (striving to make you upgrade to 640 MB of RAM at a minimum, LOL). The time-frame of LH's release well might make such hardware requirements seem puny. But, relevant here is the fact that MS normally makes their OSes require such hardware as was mainstream 2 years prior to release of the OS. So, if longhorn really is aiming at the year 2006-2007 for release, the minimum (note that the keyword here is 'minimum', not optimum) system requirements are going to be more in-line with what used to be high-end hardware in 2002 (I'm not going to start listing it here, we all know them well enough). The truth of LH's gluttonous wants may lie somewhere between that MS-watch article (linked above) and those listed (for the alpha) here.

The "/QB" switch for .NET Framework is correct. If it asks for some disk (as you say), then there's something wrong with the installer (maybe you deleted some file in it?). As for the necessity of using "/f" (to force write) in all those "REG ADD" commands, it is necessary to ensure that whatever is being written will *NECESSARILY* be written (it should not become a case of "this reg key might or might not be written") regardless of whether your registry is clean at that time or not. Also, the "/f" argument ensures silent operation, otherwise the batch file might stop during operation, asking for user input if it encounters any errors.

I refuse to vote My favourite game (and Best Strategy game according to me) is: Age of Empires - The Roman Expansion. While I generally do like the entire Age of Empires series (incl. AoM-The Titans), the one I mention above has special appeal to me because: 1. It carries on the tradition of strategy games, but with its own unique special features. 2. It is a bug-fixed version of AoE-1, and has more maps/campaigns to play. 3. It retains the fundamental attraction of running quite decently even on an old 100 MHz PC (so I can play it *ABSOLUTELY* wherever I want, without bothering about system requirements).

I understood what you meant. Well, you can install all the apps you want; and apply all reg-tweaks you want at T-13 (cmdlines.txt) itself. FYI, that's what I personally prefer and do on my install. XPlode runs fine from cmdlines, but if you want to install Office2003 at T-13, you'll find that you can't. Other than that, everything else runs in the same way. I don't use GUIrunonce anymore.

HOORAY for SP2. Finally gets released, after an extended wait of more than a year! I just hope it stays stable, though (shouldn't need a critical patch to use it right on the 3rd day after RTM).

Very useful feature, didn't know it existed! Thank you! Well, that's surprising. Since msinfo32 is the same as "Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> System Tools >> System Information".

To reach the source of the problem, let us use the process of elimination of possible causes - that will narrow down what you have to look for. Download VMware (google for it, get the 30-day free/unlimited trial) which simulates a machine virtually. Then, first use your XP SP1a CD to install WinXP within a virtual machine. If that also does not work, make an ISO image of your CD, mount it within VMware and try to install. If it works fine with the ISO image, then you know that there is some problem with your hardware. Otherwise, if it doesn't work there as well, either your CD is having some problem, or your way of doing the setup/uA Install is itself wrong.

Practical common-sense dictates that your OS (at this point of time) partition should not be more than 10 GB. Set the swapfile onto your other HDD (as you already said, so there's no need for a 2 GB partition on the 60gig). Partition the rest of the space into not more than 15 GB each. These policies are recommended for manageability of data, and to minimize the attack surface (i.e., even if 1 of your partitions was completely wiped out by a virus, your data on other partitions is still present).

Put this section in winnt.sif:[Shell] DefaultStartPanelOff=Yes DefaultThemesOff=Yes I hope you know how to apply a .reg file at T-13 stage of setup (which is when all customizations applied get done for the default user). Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 ; This will set visual effects to best performance [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VisualEffects] "VisualFXSetting"=dword:00000002

You can use gdisk (comes with norton ghost) if you want a scriptable fdisk-type tool. If you are anyway going to do partitioning manually from DOS-mode, you might as well use Partition Magic 8 (if you have a license for it).

Yup! Have a look at my detailed post related to this (right above).

No, it wouldn't - if such a file existed, the "copy" command will ask for confirmation to overwrite. If you did want to overwrite, you'd use the /Y switch along with copy, which will do things silently without prompting the user (which is how we basically want our uA installs to be). Eg: copy /Y "source_file_location" "destination_file_location"

I suppose it works that way too ('coz mmarable above says it does). But, personally, this is what I would do: 1. Keep the bmp at "$OEM$\$1\install\" path 2. and copy over the files to the right location using a command (below) from any .cmd which runs at first-logon 3. This would be the command: copy "%SystemDrive%\install\user1.bmp" "%AllUsersProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user1.bmp"

Ah! So that explains one more mystery. In SP2 RC2, the bootlogo has changed to not display any "Home edition" or "Professional" text. And the year of copyright (1981-2001) has been cut out. But at first-boot (after setup finishes), when the screen auto-resizes itself according to the resolutions specified in winnt.sif, you see (for barely a few seconds) the old-style boot-screen (at higher resolution, and occupying only a small,central part of the otherwise-black display). That is the first and last time you see the old-type boot-screen on SP2. So that 'boot-screen' actually isn't that ?....... It is OOBE ?...... Well, makes sense, doesn't it? [/satisfied]

First suggestion : the very large posting of code messes up the view. Small chunks of code are fine, but pages of code? Attach the **** file instead of having the code posted directly. Here's my msbatch.inf for winME (attached, can also be used/customised for win98) - fully unattended, no questions asked setup. Just put this file in the directory where the cabs are present, and start Setup.exe to install. An interesting tidbit of info for those who have got tired of seeing the bill-boards (ads/info that is presented in the back-ground) during installation: Run "Setup.exe /IV" to get a clean, (and faster install in some cases) screen. That will cut-out the bill-boards (ads) you see during setup. MSBATCH.INF

First of all, check if file-name extensions is not being shown, the exact file name should be: WINNT.SIF Sometimes people have accidentally had their setup file name winnt.sif.TXT - which is obviously unused by setup. I also noticed that you called the file "winnit.sif" which is wrong (name it as mentioned above).

From the look of it, seems like you're either doing this on a 64-bit PC (which may error out), or your XP install source or the service-pack version is 64-bit. That just could be a cause for the problems you are facing. Try eliminating those factors.

Okay, let's settle the issue un-ambiguously. Yes, it is possible to fully automate windows setup, the best way to do that being what ml20 (2nd post in this thread) has said. But keep in mind that it involves ripping out all your existing data on that HD. Otherwise, you can just keep the "AutoPartition=1" value alone (without repartition). It will work in the way that "Bâshrat the Sneaky"s post above states (a small correction here, it will *NOT* re-format any existing partions, *NEVER*). If a windows-compatible FS primary partition exists on the first StorageDevice, setup will install to that partition, otherwise, setup creates a partition that occupies the entire available free partition-space on HDD (it will not interfere with any incompatible FS partitions, like those of linux/BeOS/etc.) Which is again not a very good option, (as anyone who has experienced an over-burdened C: drive, or a Windows.000, or a UserName.ABC folder problem will tell you) for those of us who insist on clean installs. The only true saviour is the WinPE-based method of install (which again has its own quirks and problems). In this, a Win32 pre-installation environment (similar to what you see at T-39 in normal setup) gets initialized/booted-up from CD, and thereafter what you do with it is left to your imagination. You can then do the below: 1. Set it to run a .cmd which will..... 2. run a diskpart script (diskpart is what you see in the text-mode partitioning as well) 3. Which is configured to silently format the first primary partition (in NTFS) on the first IDE HD. 4. mount that partition as C: 5. Create whatever other partitions you want as per the sizes you want! 5. start I386\winnt32.exe with switches (for choosing the unattend.txt of your choice, options of copying cource, etc.) 6. after that, everything else happens in the way we are accustomed to. As would be obvious, it takes a **** lot of time before you can get a setup running off WinPE without major mess-ups. WinPE is geared towards a wholly different audience (not casual/home users), and its functioning makes that as obvious as can be. For more info on the WinPE/bartPE based method of installing windows, search the MSFN forums. Count the small mercies, and blessings in life - and just use the simplest method, which is manually partitioning in text-mode.

There's some humour going on here (in first post by topic starter) - did someone notice the word in emphasis? Well, I concur with his typo, alright! Windows does seem to go out to 'lunch' pretty often