Skip system assessment test running at 1st logon

[amit_talkin]

Hello friends,

I was playing around vista sp1 setup today and tried to stop system assessment test running at 1st logon ( winsat.exe ).

I am talking about Skipping the test, not completely removing it using vlite.

what i did to stop it is just simple.

1). made changes in install.wim and moved winsat.exe from system32 folder to elsewhere.

2). added a command to copy winsat.exe to system32 folder at 1st logon in answer file.

now, system assessment test runs before the command executes, so u will hear an error sound at 1st logon, which mean setup unable to find winsat.exe

and will skip it from running. after it, winsat.exe will be copied to its original location. u can now run system assessment test after logging in vista.

this is to save time of installation. as generally we have to re-index system rating after installing newer drivers. one disadvantage of bypassing this test is that one have to enable AERO theme manually. everyone know this!

hope this info is useful for some of u ppl.

plz share it if there are any other better ways to skip system assessment test with Aero theme working on 1st logon.

AMIT

Edited April 4, 2008 by amit_talkin

[fairyprincess]

Yeah this would be very nice to have a clean way of doing this, maybe with a script at the end to enable aero?

Btw is there a way of editing .wim files without downloading the whole 1 Gig WAIK?

[amit_talkin]

7zip supports WIM files..but it only can extract files from it.

only Imagex.exe is needed to edit wim files. if u can find it somewhere thn u wont need to download whole WAIK !

do u have any script to enable AERO without running system assessment?

Edited April 4, 2008 by amit_talkin

[maxXPsoft]

do u have any script to enable AERO without running system assessment?

Nice amit

will save time installing since I do so many

The reg key to enable will be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UxSms

"Start" with a value of 2 and its a Reg_Dword

NET START UxSms

Probably can run reg before the reboot and won't need to start the service with Net

I'll try that next time

[maxXPsoft]

amit

I just tried a rename on the Winsat.exe to winsat.old in system32 but that failed, it ran the performance test.

What did you do exactly to skip that?

I did rename it in Firstlogoncommands but that should have been after the fact

[amit_talkin]

Hi,

I did as described below,

1) mounted install.wim and moved "winsat.exe" from "system32" folder to "windows" directory.

( no need to rename winsat.exe, just move it to windows directory )

2) added a command to copy "winsat.exe" from "windows" directory to its original location.

<SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">

<Description>Copying Winsat</Description>

<Order>99</Order>

<CommandLine>cmd /c move /y %windir%\WinSAT.exe %windir%\System32\</CommandLine>

</SynchronousCommand>

this surely works...you can see error log after unattended install of it.

here is the entry of error occured while running winsat.exe

2008-04-04 19:00:01, Warning [msoobe.exe] Failed to run WinSAT

---

you will just hear the sound of failure and test will be skipped without showing any error.

AMIT

Edited April 7, 2008 by amit_talkin

[amit_talkin]

mmm...AERO wont be enabled Automatically without running winsat.exe. any working solution for it?

Edited April 8, 2008 by amit_talkin

[oskingen]

mmm...AERO wont be enabled without running winsat.exe. any working solution for it?

You can re enable it manually in the theme Setting. I don't know yet to do it automatically.

[maxXPsoft]

mmm...AERO wont be enabled without running winsat.exe. any working solution for it?

You try the reg tweak and the Net Start? 2 sets it to automatic, that may require reboot which I do after an install with all my Apps but should be able to pull those off in the FirstLogoncommands

Edit I'll try the moving next go round

Edited April 10, 2008 by maxXPsoft

[amit_talkin]

mmm...AERO wont be enabled without running winsat.exe. any working solution for it?

You try the reg tweak and the Net Start? 2 sets it to automatic, that may require reboot which I do after an install with all my Apps but should be able to pull those off in the FirstLogoncommands

Edit I'll try the moving next go round

I tried it, but didnt work for me

[maxXPsoft]

Windows Vista Experience Rating is saved in C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore directory into a xml file.

What I'm thinking is if you just add the file or files there during Install, perhaps with Firstlogoncommands then it will think Winsat ran and Aero will be enabled maybe with above things to start it. Need testing there.

Edited April 12, 2008 by maxXPsoft

[ajua]

Have you guys found a way to enable aero?

[maxXPsoft]

I disable it last time. When I ran it after load desktop I actually get a better score.

I'm sure it needs to see that Winsat ran so may need these things

Creates this file in C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore directory

2008-04-11 22.52.17.287 Assessment (Initial).WinSAT.xml

It creates these extra reg keys exactly like this also so may need them or your keys from an installed version

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winsat]
"LastExitCode"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winsat]
"LastExitCodeCantMsg"="Assessment Completed.

"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winsat]
"LastExitCodeWhyMsg"="The assessments or other operations completed successfully.

"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winsat]
"VideoMemoryBandwidth"=dword:0039b0d4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winsat]
"GraphicsFPS"=dword:00011718

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winsat]
"MFMediaMaxRunTime"=dword:0001d4c0

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinSATAPI]
"LastFormalAssessment"=dword:00040033

[amit_talkin]

Yes...those registry entries needed with the "Performance" folder n files....i got registry changes using regshot. but didnt apply it. because i was tired of too much formatting . if u have tested that, did u get AERO ?

[maxXPsoft]

1 more key when you enable Aero

REG ADD "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM" /v Composition /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Too late tonight and will try my full mods in the morning.