Tripredacus

I'm sure some documentation will get released on how to do it. They always send us DVDs with the SP on it but we didn't get this one yet. I hope they just send us a whole new media because its annoying to make new Vista images. Right now it takes over 2 hours to make an SP1 image, but hopefully I'll figure out that WDS thing.

Its hard to tell from that picture but it looks like the inactive windows are blurry. Are you at the native resolution for your display?

Are you sure its a PE 2.x? The website does indeed talk about Win PE, but then right next to it has this Which makes me think it is the 1.x series instead. Especially since it talks about booting to the PE using RIS.

I can't find anything specific, it seems Diskpart can't rename a volume. You might have to do this by editing the BCD for the ramdisk.

I need some help as searching for this is not very easy for me to find results. I need to limit a user from being able to delete a volume in Disk Management in Windows XP Pro SP2 with either Local Computer Policy or by use of PowerShell. If you have no idea, is there a good place to find out how to make custom GPOs for the local system? Or any good PowerShell reference concerning limiting MMC options? I already have Windows PowerShell Scripting Guide by Ed Wilson (2008) pn X14-15140, but it is a hard read to find this kind of specific info. Thanks Update: It looks like using i/x/CACLS would be the best, to deny all permissions to the volume which should stop users from deleting the partition. However, the volume has no drive letter. Is there a way to assign an ACL to a GUID or other system level descriptor for the volume?

Revised restart.exe code in AutoIT. Switch MsgBox(1, "Restart", "You have chosen to restart the computer. Click OK to continue.") Case 1;OK pressed RunWait (@ComSpec & " /c c:\mbr 0 1 /h") RunWait (@ComSpec & " /c x:\windows\system32\wpeutil reboot") Case 2;CANCEL pressed Exit() EndSwitch Note that it does more than restart. It hides the recovery partition again... and I forgot that the recovery partition will appear as the C Drive, so the drive letter changing script isn't going to work for me in this case. I will have to do a lot of pilot testing to verify that the recovery partition is always the C Drive. The Card Reader issue may only appear during deployment and not during recovery, and if this is the case then I'm not going to have to worry about it. It has already been accepted that if the recovery partition fails to work in the field, it will come back on RMA to get redone anyways. This is good news at least! Now here is a big issue. When the recovery partition loads, it resets the MBR via winpeshl.ini. This is required otherwise after the restart, it won't go back to the system partition. One of my concerns is a big "what if" such as a user boots into the recovery partition and then powers off the machine, the battery dies, etc. This will leave the recovery partition visible in Windows which is a big no-no. I may end up having it hide the partition during winpeshl.ini as well to eliminate this issue. Any ideas about this possible problem? I'll work on the admin prompt code after lunch and hopefully post a revised version of that as well. I wanted to add that I've found an additional issue. While testing to see how Windows sees the recovery partition, I realised that it is possible for the end user to delete the partition from Disk Management. Any ideas of how I can change the image so that this option is not available? Here is the test code for the admin prompt. Also in AutoIT. It hasn't been tested but it passes Beta Compile. $GUI = GUICreate("Login",210,80,-1,-1,0x16C80000,0x00000181) $USERNAME = GUICtrlCreateInput("Username",5,5,200,20,0x01) $PASSWORD = GUICtrlCreateInput("Password",5,30,200,20,0x21) $LOGIN = GUICtrlCreateButton("Login",50,55,100,20) GUISetState(@SW_SHOW,$GUI) While 1 $MSG = GUIGetMsg() If $MSG = $LOGIN Then If GUICtrlRead($USERNAME) == "username" And GUICtrlRead($PASSWORD) == "password" Then Run(@Comspec & " /c cmd.exe") Exit Else MsgBox(0,"Login","Incorrect username or password.") EndIf ElseIf $MSG = -3 Then Exit EndIf WEnd Exit

Getting it to run from the main HTA is not a problem. I need to have some sort of splash screen or animation to be displayed while it is running diskpart, as well as while it is running imagex. This is why I changed to launch a separate HTA that runs those commands. Once I can get that small HTA to run properly, I can insert an animated GIF or something into there.

It seems like you've already gotten your answer on the AutoIT forums. That is the best place to go with questions about their software. http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.ph...xcel+quickbooks

This seems to be the popular thread of the week! No awards tho! http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=134397 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...20&start=20 Those are just two examples...

As noted before, it all depends on how you use it. Most of the things the registry cleaners get rid of like orphaned keys, etc do nothing for performance. Usually only ones that let you change services and startup apps will make things faster. I typically will use a cleaner to do this because its easier than digging in the regedit every time.

In my case, if the HDD is C and I format it and make it C again, I won't care what the UFD's drive letter is because most importantly, it isn't going to be C.

I have a plan for most of those items. The HTA launching issue is in a thread in the programming forum. I am using a method from other programs I have used so am expecting the same results... maybe I am missing a peice there. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=134164 The ok/cancel box is not something I need help on, its just on my checklist. As far as the password prompt, its because I have to change how I have the code arranged. Currently, after the correct credentials are typed in, it launches a program, cmd.exe. However, I need to wrap that into a funtion and add exit() to that function only. Previously I tried putting it at the end of the script but it just would taskkill itself It is written in AutoIT. I forgot an additional item, need to take into effect the Realtek Card Reader issue. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=134398

I've run into the same problem on note/netbooks that have a realtek card reader in them. They get assigned the first available drive letter even if you set it in the BIOS to be recognized as a FDD. I have a theory, since I will have to do this as well, but I haven't scripted it out or tried to use it yet. Its on my list of things to do for my recovery partition project. So here is my idea and you can try it out: Use Diskpart to reassign the drive letter to something else. Example: sel vol c assign letter=s sel disk 0 clean create part pri active format fs=ntfs quick assign letter=c The first two lines are all you would need to change the drive letter. These commands are known to work in Win PE 2.x. I have not tested older or newer PE versions. You don't have to change the C to S, change it to whatever letter will be available.

Take a look into our Application Installs section.

Welcome to the MSFN! I also had problems with the Windows 7 beta version. It seems there are some bad compiles up there that do in fact work but have CRC errors. For example, I burned it to a CD but the CD could not do the install. I ended up mounting the ISO with Daemon tools and installing it that way. What version are you using? What is the filename of the ISO? What OS is on your Technician PC?

Also think of the memory hit these drives would have. Buffering the content to read the files, etc. I doubt we will see this on any form of Windows that we see today. How much memory do you need to read the thing? Imagine how bad the initial MTBF for the drives will be! Also how long to burn the disc too! The idea reminds me of this: Its funny how everything nowadays seems to all be theory, as portions of the industry are moving faster than others and there is a huge bottleneck!

I'm going to drop my task list in this thread to help me track my progress. It may have been easier to have done this earlier, as I am almost finished with the alpha version. Current issues: 1. Repair and Full recovery buttons do not launch their helper HTAs properly. MSHTA is executed but the HTA does not appear. Testing in VM fails script processing because the VM is running XP Pro and not WinPE. Currently, repair and full HTA files are untested as to whether or not they actually work. 2. Command prompt authenticator box stays open after cmd.exe is launched. 3. Display resolution issue has possible fix, see here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=134244 4. Need to change restart button to open a OK/Cancel msgbox instead of a standard OK box. This way if the user clicks the button by accident they won't be forced to reboot even if they cancel. 5. Go through the "corporate test" meaning showing the software to management. I am currently using example branding items, such as a place to put a company logo and corporate copyright information. Also need to approve all colors, verbiage, and boot process wording, blah blah blah. Also determine final recovery partition size, currently using 14GB! For a general update, all current testing is being done on an MSI Wind model netbook. It has been a tough transition for me. Basically this all started one day because I was bored and wanted to figure out a solution to making a recovery partition for Vista, since we aren't going to upgrade our SoftThinks software for it. And I did it in the demo version of Flash. I had previously written software in Flash so I didn't need more than 30 days to do it. So it came under the attention of the bigwigs and they want me to work on it for real. Well, for real meant I couldn't use Flash (not because it was the demo) because we don't have a license for it. I think we have Photoshop but that's it from Adobe, maybe Acrobat. Anyways so I had to take my perfectly working and horrible looking idea and switch "engines" and make it nice looking and flawless. Well since I am only (currently) down to the five problems above, I think I am almost done. I think my first problem list was like 20+ and that didn't count my week or so trying to figure out how to use the MBR!

Well in XP is says it is running at 1024x600 @ 32bit color and 60Hz. Update: I just tested setres in XP. I guess with this notebook (MSI Wind) setres doesn't work like usual. Typically, if you use a 1 for refresh rate (or a 0) setres will use the display's default setting. But the Wind didn't like that option, it returned a DISP_CHANGE_BADMODE (-2) error. If I set the refresh rate to what it is supposed to be (60) instead of the auto setting (1) it works at least in XP. I will have to try it now in the PE to see if that solves it as well.

I figured it would be easier if I get rid of the exe that the script runs, and make the HTA run those commands. I set it up so that when I click a button on the main HTA, it opens one that uses the above code. By comparing other projects, I can get this other HTA to launch via: objShell.Run("mshta " & HTAFile),1,True However, there are some issues. I am testing in a VirtualBox because it is faster than having to rebuild the source every time. When I click the button, a second MSHTA.EXE will execute but the second file is not visible. The above snippet is how Geezery's GImageX HTA launches the diskpart.hta file, and it works fine there. I can open the file manually and it appears to be normal. However, since I am running in a VM the actions it attempts to take fail (because the path to imagex, for example) does not exist in the VM. So I can't figure out why it is hiding the new HTA. Here are some code peices. First, this is the subroutine used to launch the HTA from a button. This code can launch other EXEs or commands just fine. Sub RunRepair Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") ObjShell.Run("mshta repair.hta"),1,True On Error Resume Next Set objShell = Nothing End Sub I am nearly finished. Soon I can move this into in-house beta and get the software put through the corporate branding and approval process.

Is Gape the same person as Pablo? SP+ has gone well beyond flame wars against Pablo and his group.

Check out our Windows PE section for some different options and guides.

Here is a lead. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...17040&st=20

I never tried to figure it out. I merely track what the current part numbers we are using with what media. Like my XP SP2b CD I wrote "Use X14 COA" on it with a sharpie. But DSP and Retail isn't something I have to work with too much. I remember being really confused about CD Keys (or um serial numbers) when installing Windows 95 was still something that was done.

You will likely enjoy our Customizing Windows and Graphics section.

Welcome to the MSFN!