Tripredacus

Try putting it on a CD and see if you get different results. Are you doing this on a live machine or a VM?

I am, once again, trying to find an alternate solution to running a system recovery than using the software we currently use. This time, instead of duplicating their recovery partition in order to redeploy with Imagex, I am making one of my own. To do this, I built a custom Win PE that launches a Flash Projector app that the user can use to recover the C drive. I have not been able to see if this portion is working yet as I am having a problem getting it to attempt to boot to the second partition, or even the main partition. Jaclaz has mentioned a MBR app here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=769544 Which I must not be using properly. Let me run down the steps I've gone through so far, and how the system behaves after the reboot. 1. Boot into our normal PE and run the following in diskpart: select disk 0 clean create part pri size=62220 active assign letter=c format fs=ntfs quick create part pri select part 2 assign letter=d format fs=fat32 quick exit 2. Deploy the image to C, which is a Windows XP Pro SP2 x86 image. 3. Deploy the recovery image onto drive D 4. open up diskpart again select disk 0 select vol 1 att vol set hidden att vol set nodefaultdriveletter 5. Run mbr program (its in the recovery partition) mbr 0 /install selm 5 11 "Press F11 for recovery" 0xC 0x52 6. Restart the PC. If I let the computer boot normally, it reboots by itself and loops this way. This is fine atm because I don't care if it can boot into Windows. If I press F11 when the prompt comes up, it reports that it cannot find boot media, or if LAN boot is enabled, it tries to boot of the IBA (Intel Boot Agent). So I am thinking I am missing a step. Any ideas? The method of installing the MBR or the bootloader needs to be a 32bit app so that I can run it from the PE after imaging.

I'm not sure I am getting what you are asking. So instead, I will just run down how I use it. I took the original HTA (I'm using the older version but the same can be done with the current) and modified it. There are some things you need to modify, such as the Imagepath, which tells the HTA where to look for the images. I changed it to z:\. Then I edit my startnet.cmd file and have it map the Z: to the folder the WIMs are located in. Also need to add regsvr32 for the DLL included with the download, and lastly use mshta to launch the HTA itself. Rebuild the PE.wim and update it in WDS. Then you have your client that you want to image. Presuming you have images already or you can make new images. You boot to the network. If your WDS is set up properly, it will load the WinPE up on a RAMDISK on the client. The PE loads, turns on networking, maps the network drive, registers the DLL and opens the HTA. The HTA will then show you what images you have. If it can't find any images (or perhaps you don't have any yet) It will open a browse box. If you do have images, they will be listed. You select the WIM and image you want, and it will format the drive. After this it copies the image down. When it is done, you can reboot or shut down. This method works best on a WDS running Server 2008, as it supports multicast. Server 2003 has issues with more than 4 clients (in my experience and my setup). So using this HTA I can image up to 40 clients at once. 40 happens to be the number of interfaces I have on the same subnet as the WDS. See IcemanND's Win PE guide which is stickied to learn how to make your Win PE media (or boot image) and how to capture images.

0x80070026 0x26 = 38L = ERROR_HANDLE_EOF STRSAFE_E_END_OF_FILE Try turn off firewall and disable antivirus and run Windows Update again. This error is likely the file got corrupted while downloading it. You can try to download it directly instead of through Windows Update. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959209/

This program is run from the client and is not automated to the point that it doesn't require interaction. Its more of a GET instead of a PUSH with this, it is just an app that runs in the PE.

Resolution options are on line 26 of the HTA. SetResSettings = "1024 768 32 1" 'Setres default parameters. Make sure your file has these same settings.

As far as checking the CRC of an ISO, I do not know this answer. I have seen many issues with the newest WAIK ISO, including CRC errors, unable to burn properly. I have also experienced a problem with the new OPK ISO, which had 3 failed burns and I had to resort to mounting the ISO via an unsupported tool on Microsoft's site. A link to this tool in within the following: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916902

In order to troubleshoot your issue, you need to invoke the F8 at startup. Then choose "disable automatic restart on system failure" and then it should stop at a BSOD.

I fired up WinDiff to check the new version against my custom version. There isn't anything in this version for me to add really. The code differences aren't that big a deal to me. I did see (I think) that you removed the progress bar support during the /apply command. Instead of trying to make the incremental progress bar (as it would appear you wanted) how about just having an animated GIF or something to be on the screen? If could just be a fake progress bar. I've received complaints from my users about the progress bar because sometimes it doesn't even show up. Of course it would always appear as a gray rectangle. I also see that you put my custom WinPE backgrounds up on your site. Can you drop me a credit on your site someplace for them? I am going to be doing testing of WinPE 3.0 using your HTA (or my version of it) on both x86 and amd64 versions of WinPE. I will let you know if I encounter any problems.

I'm not sure. I do all my Win PE testing on a pilot network using physical servers and clients. I try not to use VM type sessions for testing because it does not translate well into the production environment.

What behaviour are you seeing with your CD? Is it not doing something properly? Is there an error or a message?

I am piloting a new burn-in program, and it is highly configurable. For example if you only want it to test memory, you can disable the other tests, otherwise you can test everything all at once. There is a regular and professional version, you probably don't need the Pro. Pro lets you test ports with loopback adapters, which is something my company requires. They have a 30 day trial that you can use for both editions. The product is called PassMark BurnInTest. http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm It can only be run in Windows, which contrasts with other burn software we've used in the past which only work as a Live CD, and are limited hardware wise. This one seems to like hardware that works as long as you have it installed in Windows. I still don't know if we are going to end up using it but it seems to work fine, although I haven't been able to get it to run off a WinPE disc yet. I haven't used it enough to know much more than that, so don't ask me any questions about it.

This is only in Windows. The brightness is fine at boot. Also, that is how I changed the brightness temporarily, by using the Fn + Sun up or Sun down.

You need to provide some additional information. Based upon the actual issue, this thread may yet be moved into a separate forum if this isn't an issue with Windows PE. Since you posted this as a reply to IcemanND's stickied thread, I am to presume that you followed his guide to create your PE for imaging. I need the following information: 1. What method of booting the WinPE are you using? PXE, UFD, CD? 2. Which Win PE version are you using and which architecture? 3. Did you use the WAIK, OPK or a third party tool (such as BartPE) to create your boot image? 4. Which operating system are you attempting to deploy? 5. What components were installed into your PE, such as WMI, Vista Offline Servicing 1.1, etc? 6. How much memory in the client (MININT) pc, also note if the client uses RAID or AHCI.

Geezery's HTA (which I use) is not locked down so that you cannot edit it. Therefore you can remove (remark) options out of the code to limit what your users can do. For example, in my version of his HTA (see it in my signature for a link) I remarked out the buttons for Capture, Append, Mount network drive. I did this because, in my production model, the standard users of this program should not need to ever use these options. In my case, mounting network drives is done via startnet.cmd and image maintenance is only the task of the evaluation guy, and myself, the image control guy. All the users get to do is deploy images and install software after the image is deployed. Of course your scope may be different and you can change things as you need to. Some knowledge of HTML and scripting languages is needed to edit them, but everything is open source so you can research it easily. I still do not understand everything in the HTA either.

My sister has a strange issue with her notebook. It is a Dell Studio 1535 that came with Vista Home Premium installed. When it is plugged in, the screen is dim, and when it is on battery, the screen is (normal) bright. I went into the power options where you can modify the power scheme, but there is no option for screen brightness. I've looked online and found tutorials to tell you exactly where it is, and with screenshots, but this option is not present. I did also find information about some OEM's own software may control certain configs and this would make some things not appear in normal CPLs. I was not able to find any Dell or Power related software installed on the computer, so I can't say that is the case with this one. I had temporary resolved the issue by changing the brightness with the keyboard, while on power and on battery. It seemed to remember these settings and haven't had a problem until today. Now it is doing what it did before. Is there any ideas about how to set the brightness levels in Windows, or why the option doesn't appear?

What video card are you using? Try to run the game as Administrator, and also change your video settings to low or off for everything to see if it still freezes. Yes the game will probably look like crap if you do this. Or if the game has a safe mode option, try that.

I do not have the ability to test this, but you can try removing the following files from your PE and see if it still works. usbehci.sys usbhub.sys usbport.sys

Is there a way to disable the account and free up the license? It usually isn't a good idea to delete an account of an ex-employee, but to assign them to a group that can't do anything. Maybe I'm not understanding how licensing figures into it tho.

It wouldn't hurt to go into the system restore to see what options it has. I've never seen one of those just go and start without having to click something. I have also seen system recoveries that provide a non-destructive repair type option as well. You might be able to find this info out online first before actually running the recovery in case you are worried about it taking off on you.

I just got a machine in that has a copy of Windows Embedded SP2 on it, and it is unfortunately the evaluation copy. All the Embedded images we create use a license key, but this one was made by another company. I need to find out when it will time bomb so I can inform the customer how long they can use it for. In Vista, you can use SLMGR to view current activation status and evaluation expiration date/time but this is not available in XP Pro or XP Embedded. Is there another way to view this information?

1. Do you have SP1 installed for Vista? 2. How much RAM on the clients that you boot to the PE? I am not going to rule out ISO corruption. I've had to reburn the OPK3 for Windows 7 3 times and I can't even get it to install because the Windows PE folder fails a CRC check. After I get it installed myself I will see if I get anything similar.

Sony had stopped shipping their recovery media about the time they started selling desktops with RAID in them, so around 2004 or 2005, when I was still working there. They also weren't shipping manuals either, but came with instructions on how to make your own recovery media. HP/Compaq is similar in this as well, as long as you leave their preinstalled software be, there is (should be) an option in the Start Menu to make the recovery media.

First I dealt with my old host closing up shop and being serverless for a few months. Then I got webspace up again but nothing to put on it. Any time there is any server change I always like to redo things again and start fresh. I went through and got a web server up and running on my computer at work (my production pc, not any of the servers) and began testing out systems. In the past, I had always created everything from scratch, because in said past, most products just didn't offer the things that I wanted, or I couldn't get my head around them. I tested out Mambo, Xoops and other CMS. I did not want to write my own CMS (I've done this before) because it takes too long to do it, and it isn't as secure as ones out in the open source community. After not being satisfied about any of the CMS I tried out, on a whim I tried out MediaWiki, which is the software used for WikiPedia and also Wikia's sites. I got it all up and running at work but wanted to make it better. Playing around with different skins and I found one that I liked but I needed to change it around. I got everything the way I wanted it and saved the files that I needed and emailed them to myself... Old fashioned! Then came the task of getting the Wiki installed on my server, and getting it to work, which took nearly a month. I finally got it all working today! And also got my custom skin to work as well. There are still a couple tweaks I need to do to make it perfect, but it feels good to have gotten this far already. Check it out and tell me what you think! http://tripredacus.net/ And yes, user registration is disabled at this point.

In a simple method, although it may be time consuming, is that you could use Imagex to capture the partition to a WIM file. You can store this WIM file anywhere that you would like, on the client's hard disk, or upload it to a file server, etc. Then you would need to take the files from the WIM and put them on the SAN, however I am not certain I understand how they work well enough to come up with a method of deploying the image onto it. Let me throw out some ideas and you can tell me if this makes any sense or if it gives you an idea. Typically, you would redeploy an image with imagex to the client you booted into the PE. However, imagex does not really care where it is being deployed to, you just need to specify a path for it to go. So let's say, for example, you have a mount point you can make available, and be able to map a network drive to it. Then you can have imagex apply the image to that drive letter instead of the local disk's drive letter. The only concerns I have about this idea is: 1. Make sure that the image will write only to the specific destination, and have enough space allocated to allow it to be deployed. 2. A likely considerable network load if the WIM is located in a place other than the local disk, or even the fact that you would be uploading the image over the network... I haven't attempted this method at all, but its what popped into my head atm.