Tripredacus

some boards with nForce/nVidia NIC are virtual devices controlled by the BIOS. For example, they don't have a hardware id assigned to them at the time of boot! so there is not a garauntee that it will even work with Ghost. I got it to work but it took me about two months, and we updated all boot keys to DOS 7 to get the drivers to load into memory properly. These NICs still aren't supported in the PE either. You'll have to find the files you need from online somewhere. I'm not sure how you're going to go about making the boot, but here is what I use in a config.sys. DEVICE=\net\Nvndis2.dos DEVICEHIGH=\net\protman.dos /I:\net DEVICEHIGH=\net\ndis.dos DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos DEVICE=emm386.exe /noems Of course we use older Ghost than you i bet.

Alright, I've been battling a problem trying to image 10 machines with Vista. I've outlined my original problems here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=779963 Out of the 10, I am left with three that won't reboot after the image is deployed. This has changed and is not an imaging question anymore, but I am not sure if it is hardware or software atm. What happens, after deployment, and restarted, it POSTs, then shows the black "Windows is preparing to start for the first time" screen, then goes to a black screen with an arrow, then goes to the loading screen (blue/green wallpaper) that says please wait in white with the "donut" spinning around. On these 3 machines, it will sit at that screen for as long as I decide to let it. The load is thus broken, as doing a restart at that point results in the "Windows was improperly restarted, click ok to restart and reinstall Windows" message. I've tried everything to determine what the problem could be. These machines contain a motherboard (q35jo), 4x 1GB RAM, 2 hard drives, a sound card and a video card in them. I've attempted the following: 1 - reimage using a different network port (different cable to different port on switch but same NIC) 2 - remove 2GB RAM and use remaining in dual channel mode. 3 - run memtest v3.3 and v3.4c (PASSED both) 4 - run a CPU tester* (PASSED) 5 - run WD Tools (PASSED full and quick tests) So at this point I can't figure out where the problem is. None in the network, passed all diagnostics, but won't load up the the Vista welcome screen. And before you say it, the image does not have the sound card software or driver installed. Any ideas? * cpu tester is a 32bit app I ran from the PE off the ramdrive.

I am also doing this differently than what you guys are talking about. I am not doing anything with the install.wim at all. We are not ready to deploy Vista in that manner. We will get there after we finish SP1 validation.

My PC scored a whopping 140 (or 134 or something like that) Marks in 3dmark06 and I got Crysis to run. So if you got a PC that can score better than that, yer all set.

I became wary of using ALT + 255 for use in filenames, because it is exploitable, being the ASCII code that the keyboard sends when you press the DELETE key.

I have been experiencing intermittant issues with the progress bar itself. I know it doesn't "work" but when it is on the screen, you get a long gray rectangle, which is helpful because you know when it is imaging, or when its waiting for you to start it. Here are the different things I have seen concerning it, and the last one is a problem. 1 - regular long rectangular bar covering 75 (or 80) % of the screen 2 - regular length but only a couple pixels in height 3 - regular length but 3-4x regular height 4 - not appearing at all I am wondering what can cause this. Its not resolution, as I've had 1, 2 and 4 happen at the same time on a bunch of same model notebooks. #3 was experienced on one PC in a group of 12 with the same CFG.

I agree. Now that we are using Imagex for production with our new server, I still keep Iceman's guide handy in case I ever need to look at anything. Its better than the OPK documentation and the Vista books we have because its all summarized into one little thing. No need for explaining what a WIM is or why x compression is better than y, etc.

They might. You just need to have a 32bit app to run in the PE. 16bit apps won't run, so example you can't run DEVCON in the PE like you could from a boot disk. EDIT: I'd like to add if you try to run a 16bit app from the PE, it returns an error stating it can't find the file. ex: "Cannot find devcon.exe" would appear if you tried running devcon.

Alright, a little update... I've had to rebuild the image a total of 5 times now. I also built the image on 3 different machines. We came to the conclusion that the software was interfering with Sysprep, so we elected to NOT install the Creative software and leave the installer on the desktop. This also means that we can't test to make sure each sound cards works unfortunately. Because I kept running into the ReArm limit, I hosed 2 images because of this. The 3rd image failed epicly in a fashion I can't seem to understand, other than the source machine may have had a bad stick of RAM. What happened was the Master PC worked fine (other than it uninstalled the software and driver) and it was acceptable to management. So I uploaded it, and brought it down on 8 other PCs. But for some reason the image was incomplete, as other drivers were not installed, applications couldn't open properly, etc. The Fourth image caused 3 different issues. 1) The computer wouldn't ever boot to the desktop after the first reboot, it would sit with the green/blue screen with the "please wait" at the bottom and the little donut spinning. I had 2 PCs do this and let them sit for 3 hours! 2) On the first reboot, it would get to the Please Wait screen and display a message box proclaiming "Windows suffered an incomplete or sudden restart" or something to that effect. It had the exclamation flag. And lastly 3) one booted to the Please Wait screen and displayed an exclamation about contacting Creative because their software failed to do something. In none of these situations was it possible to get to the Welcome (sysprep) screen. So image five we decided to not install the software like I said. I haven't redeployed it yet but I am certain it will work. If it doesn't, well it will be next week so I don't care about it right now! The other thing I learned is that you can't append to a WIM with imagex and deploy a different image from within the same WIM at the same time.

What happens if you do a manual run through using the cmd? Does a similar thing occur if you use diskpart/imagex?

I think what we are running into here are people who didn't experience how the development (cycle) played out for those older OSes. They don't remember how EVERYONE wanted Millenium when it was in RC1 or don't remember how NOTHING WORKED on Windows 2000 on opening day or how Longhorn ruled until MS put a different GUI on it. It's because they weren't around, maybe they were younger, or not born (face it, there's a lot of kids on the Internet nowadays) or weren't into computers this much, etc. Yes there will always be the argument of "it sucks when it comes out" vs "its always been that way" because new people are coming in and saying their part. I encounter this in the other forum arena I work with, that being Transformers. While it used to just be a bunch of people (older) of the same age group, it has become a battle of the generations as more people enter the community.

I got it working, but first a couple explanations about the differences in the traces. First, the W2K3 server uses a stand-alone DHCP server, which is why you see the PXE Server IP and bootfile name being broadcast in that example. With the 2008, it is running DHCP and PXE on the same box. I set up the 2003 that way because I couldn't get DHCP and PXE working on the same box... which is covered in some old thread on this forum. Alright the things I changed that did not resolve the issue: - remove localhost (127.0.0.1) from DNS and WINS/NBNS in the DHCP server options. - change the domain name from WDS.local to WDS What did work: - remove the WINS/NBNS server option altogether I was not sure why router was showing up because the Router and Remote Access Service is disabled, and there was no DHCP Server Option for anything relating to that. Atm it still just has PXEClient, DNS Hostname and DNS Server options. I didn't have to add the boot filename because I have WDS automatically load the same bootfile for x86 and x64 environments, even tho PXE always reports the architecture based on the hardware environment, and not which software we wish to install (how could it lol). Also, our WDS/2008 setup documentation from our Microsoft Rep had the instructions to add WINS into the config. I didn't set up the base settings for DHCP, only WDS. The other guy I work with put that in there so I didn't know it was there until you pointed it out. Also, can you explain "SMB Activity"? We tried looking it up but couldn't find a good explanation... and found WAY to many uses of SMB = Small/Medium Business.

Also, right now we are experiencing a lag issue but can't seem to trace it. The server is operating with 2 teamed (Team 0) gigabit NICs using Cat 6 cable on a gigabit switch. When we are deploying an image, network utilization is average 95%. When capturing an image, util is 2% or less, with spikes up to 40%. Doing a comparitive study, this means on a capture the 2008 is getting an average of 87Mbps from a client on a gigabit network. Compared to my 2003 server which gets an average of 58Mbps on a capture on a 100Mbps network. While 2008 network util is 0.40% to 2%, the 2003 gets 43% to 76%. But these numbers lie. Both servers are experiencing approximately the same capture speed, but experience different deploy speeds. What could be causing this limit on the capture (aka data-in) speed?

OK I did two tests. Environment 1: no error 192.168.0.5 = UNCLESOCKS (DC, WDS, DNS, PXE) Server 2003 Standard 192.168.0.6 = GHOSTSERVER (DHCP) Server 2003 Standard 192.168.0.10 = SIXSHOT (packet sniffer) Windows XP Pro SP2 192.168.0.11 = MININTxxxxx (booted into the PE via PXE) WinPE 2.0 Domain name = SHARK.attacksyou Environment 2: error 1231 172.0.1.87 = MININTxxxxx (booted into the PE via PXE) WinPE 2.0 172.0.1.2 = WDSSERVER Team 0 (DC, WDS, DNS, DHCP, PXE) Server 2008 Enterprise 172.0.1.3 = same as above but Team 1 Domain name = WDS.local We use the same winpe.wim to boot into on both servers. The 2008 gets an error, and the 2003 does not. The 2008 WDS settings are the same as the 2003 for WDS. The 2008 has two teamed NICs, while Team 1 does show up in a broadcast, it isn't actually connected to the network. There are no other computers connected to these two environments, with exception for SIXSHOT was in environment 2, but didn't show up in the trace like it did in environment 1. Also, both servers have a default gateway assigned that does not exist. So there are a lot of "where is x.x.x.1" messages in there because of this.

I've been doing a bit of work with our new 2k8 server, as the guy it was assigned to doesnt know how to use WDS. Anyways, we just upgraded it to 16GB of RAM so it runs real nice. We also are running a 1.7TB RAID 10 for storage, and some smaller capacity mirror for the OS. Right now we are battling this issue: http://www.msfn.org/board/System-Error-123...ve-t120006.html

I've experienced this behaviour only once before. But it was not from a broken install, it was when I worked at college and the computer had gotten a virus. The virus used a wrapper for all files to open through notepad instead of its designated application handler, in an effort to not allow you to clean the system. We ended up reimaging that computer in order to fix it.

The PE does have a time limit, although the newest version (from OPK 1.1) has 24 hours... This isn't always true however, since I had a machine in the PE for more than 3 days. I didn't do it on purpose, but I just didn't get around to working on that machine until then. Also, the PE doesn't load explorer, so you don't have a start menu. Some people have successfully gotten explorer to be the shell for PE, but you'll just have to browse the forum for those.

Well there is no start menu either. You could use a batch file with a menu, a script (like autoit or kixtart), or perhaps create your own HTA to launch the program from. Or, until you figure out how to do either of those two, you can just run the app from the command prompt, as I am currently doing as a workaround.

Yes. Mount your image, then use PEIMG to install the drivers into it. Iceman's ImageX tutorial may have some information you can use.

Hmm... We downloaded a new driver and it now survives a generalize... except its software seems to have gone missing. When it reboots now, it says it needs to install software for the device...

Sorry, my original problem was due to attempting to run a generalized sysprep more than 3 times on one image, which evidently kills the image and the ReArm. My current issue is that when I sysprep a machine with a Creative X-FI Xtreme PCI soundcard and WHQL signed drivers, and either go through the welcome or reboot into Audit mode, the driver is removed from the system. What steps can I do in order to stop Sysprep from removing this driver?

How shall I go about getting a network trace from just the startnet.cmd? I cannot use the instructions as provided to me in this posting: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=776402 LMK.

I have an image of a clean install with SP1, without any drivers installed except the NIC. If I get to it (i've been busy lately) I will drop it an export to see how big it is on Monday.

OK so today I got to do the first real test of our Server 2008 WDS. As I reported before, I wasn't the guy who was handling it, so I figured it would be all ready to go. Except it wasn't. So I set it all up pretty quick, but I am encountering a problem. I created a new user and assigned it to the administrators group. This user has a password that is acceptable by the complexity rules. I created a folder, and shared it on the network. By default, administrators get full control. So I boot a PC to the network, everything all loads up fine. This PC is booting into the WinPE, with some additions including GImageX HTA. Basically, its the same WinPE.wim that my 2003 server uses, so I know it functions properly. I mounted the PE and changed the startnet.cmd to map to the new server name and using the new creds. However, when the PE loads, it can't map the network drive, and returns System Error 1231, basically that the network resource is unavailable or not found. Now, if I open the CMD and manually type in the command, it maps without a problem. I have compared what I typed and what is in the startnet.cmd and it is exactly the same. For some reason there seems to be a delay after networking is enabled and the ability to use it. I KNOW that this is a problem with our Server 2008 and not the PE for reasons I have already stated. We have also tried disabling the firewall but to no avail. The NICs in the server are teamed if that helps at all. All configuration besides WDS are at their defaults. The other cfg we changed was making WDS use 1GB instead of 100 for its LAN profile. OH, I wanted to also post that I am currently using a workaround to resolve the issue, but I would prefer not having to do that. The following is an AutoIT script I wrote that we run from x:\windows\system32. ; Program to workaround GImageX getting System Error 1231 RunWait( @ComSpec & " /c net use z: \\wdsserver\images Password1 /user:remote" ) Sleep( 1000 ) ProcessClose( "mshta.exe" ) Run( "mshta x:\windows\system32\ImageX.hta" )

So it isn't blitzing the setting for the wallpaper or overriding it with a GPO, and if Explorer is killed the wallpaper reappears (or more correctly, the strange grey sheet in front of it is removed).As soon as explorer.exe is relaunched, the grey screen returns? Happens at all resolutions and colour depths? Happens for all users who log on? Changing the wallpaper has no effect? What colour is the desktop set to, when no wallpaper is in use? Take a hang mode ADPlus dump of explorer.exe and upload it somewhere, I can take a look if there is anything quirky going on in the running threads (but it may be something that has "been and gone"). http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/deb...ng/default.mspx ADPlus command line (ideally run after killing & relaunching explorer.exe without opening anything else): adplus -hang -ctcf -pn explorer.exe -o c:\dumps I'll get to retest it sometime in the future, just because this is so weird. The image was rebuilt this morning before I came in so we aren't experiencing this issue anymore. For the record, here are your answers: - The gray screen returns after relaunching explorer.exe. - This happens at all resolutions and color depths (including when no video drivers are installed) - You cannot change the wallpaper - It is possible to change the background color, but the only difference you see is the background color for text under icons. - Happens for all users. However I was not able to test a limited user. There was only the administrator account, and when I went to make a new account for testing, I could only make another administrator account. The option for creating a limited account was unavailable. Also, this also happened with the Guest account. I don't know how long it will be before I can test this again, but I did save the image.