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Timezone & Admin password screens


Sp0iLedBrAt

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:hello: everybody, I'm new here and some of my answers may be here, but I wasn't able to find them.

When I test an XPSP3 installation on VirtualPC, during setup I always get the 1. Timezone settings page during the install (although I have manually entered it during nLite process) and 2. the page requiring Administrator password.

A possible solution was, I quote from nLite homepage: "Why does Timezone setting doesn't work?

This happens only if you choose ProvideDefault as Unattended mode, it's not an nLite issue, that's a Windows bug.

Quick fix would be to use one of the other Unattended modes, like DefaultHide."

But I have tried with DefaultHide mode and one more (I can't remember which, sorry, but it was full unattended) and I still got a page during XP setup to enter them again.

The second problem is the Administrator password; I know I can add it during the nLite process, but doesn't that mean that the Administrator will log on automatically with the given password? I would like, if possible, not to activate/enable the Administrator user for the time being since I have an admin user which I add to nLite.

Any help much appreciated. Thanks

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Welcome @ MSFN! :hello:

For most problems we need to see the "Last Session.ini" from CD-Root or nLite-folder. Please attach it.

There`s a "Last Session_u.ini" - if you attach it, please remove the Productkey.

For "Auto-Logon" you got to configure it in nLite - if you don`t, there`s no Auto-Logon.

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HI again, I'm attaching all the Last_session files so you can see the different things I tried. You will see that I have assigned a correct time zone for me, but during setup I am still asked to input it.

Concerning the Administrator option, maybe I wasn't clear enough: I don't want to activate the Administrator user, but I want to stop/avoid the screen during XP setup where I am asked to enter an Administrator password. Is this possible with nLite? These two screens prevent the XP setup from being fully unattended.

If it makes any difference, I'm using a P4 ASUS A3H notebook with Windows XP SP3. Adding drivers, programs and addons hasn't caused me a problem yet.

If you have any more questions about my procedure of nLite setup, I will be happy to answer them.

Thank you in advance.

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Sp0iLedBrAt, I'm not sure what you mean by you don't want to activate the Administrator account. I think it is always activated. I specify an Administrator PW and also an account for me with administrator privileges. I set this account to autologon. I get no stops and when the installation is complete, my personal account is logged on. I suggest you try the same. The time zone problem I don't have an idea yet. I see in your Last Session the control "CustomLocales" in your unattended section. I am not familiar with this. Please post a screen shot of your Regional tab of the unattended page. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

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Sp0iLedBrAt, I'm not sure what you mean by you don't want to activate the Administrator account. I think it is always activated. I specify an Administrator PW and also an account for me with administrator privileges. I set this account to autologon. I get no stops and when the installation is complete, my personal account is logged on. I suggest you try the same. The time zone problem I don't have an idea yet. I see in your Last Session the control "CustomLocales" in your unattended section. I am not familiar with this. Please post a screen shot of your Regional tab of the unattended page. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

Thanks for the advice, I will soon make an XP installation on Virtual PC and add the screenshots and Last_Session file.

I guess I owe you an explanation on the "Administrator" issue. As far as I know, the Admin. account is not always enabled, it's just present within the system. When you enable it (through Classic Logon or Device Manager), a separate user folder (not present by that moment) called Administrator appears in the "Documents and Settings" folder, containing basic logon info, such as desktop theme, shared shortcuts etc. That's what I was aiming to avoid, as well as to skip input of info from my part, since it's supposed to be "unattended" :-)

Any way, I appreciate your devotion and your quick replies very much.

Talk to you soon in case of...

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Sp0iLedBrAt, I looked at my installed nLited ISO (VMware Server) and I do not have an Administrator folder under Documents and Settings. I think this folder gets created on first login. My install is totally unattended after I specify the install disk. Enjoy, John.

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Sp0iLedBrAt, I'm not sure what you mean by you don't want to activate the Administrator account. I think it is always activated. I specify an Administrator PW and also an account for me with administrator privileges. I set this account to autologon. I get no stops and when the installation is complete, my personal account is logged on. I suggest you try the same. The time zone problem I don't have an idea yet. I see in your Last Session the control "CustomLocales" in your unattended section. I am not familiar with this. Please post a screen shot of your Regional tab of the unattended page. Please make sure to always start with a fresh copy of your CD files/folders, do all your work in one nLite session and integrate only one SP. Enjoy, John.

Hello again after some period. Johnhc, I tried to apply your advices, and luckily, I managed to get some things you asked for, but some other things went wrong this time :blink: Let's go one at a time:

1. I did manage to avoid the regional settings setup screen, although I don't know what I did different from last time; I'm sending a screenshot, as you required, of the nLite process - Regional tab. Last_Session.iniS are attached.

2. I added a password and autologon for the Administrator to avoid the screen during XP setup, but unfortunately, I got it again; I've got a screenshot of that, and I was using Hide Pages. Furthermore, after the installation was over, I experienced autologon under the Administrator account, and NOT my personal.

3. THis is the strangest, the $OEM$ folder did not copy to C:\ during XP setup; I'm also sending the .cmd file in hope of confirmation from your vast experience.

That's it. Thank you and I hope I'm not giving you long sleepless nights :rolleyes:

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Sp0iLedBrAt, I could only take a quick look, but your Last Session.ini shows AutoLogon = Administrator. I need to go, but I will look more closely later. Have fun, John.

EDIT:OK, I am back. You did not specify a password for the Administrator account and you made it the account to autologon. I think that takes care of #2. Specify a password for it and make your account the autologon account. As to the $OEM$ folder. It does not get copied to the install HDD. Please see this article on how to use the $OEM$ folder. What I think you should do is place your files in a folder and place the folder in the root of your source folder. In the RunOnce area of Unattended, place:

TimeOut /T 40
CMD /R %Source%COM.bat

Then your COM.bat entries should look like this (as many as you want):

Rem Directx
%Source%YourFolderNameHere\Directx\DXSETUP.exe /SILENT
REM Reboot
shutdown -r -f -t 90

Place the .bat in the root of your source folder also. If you have more trouble with your Administrator account, please post a screen shot of Owner and Network ID tab of the Unattended page. Hope this helps. Enjoy, John.

Edited by johnhc
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Thanks for your prompt reply.

The matter of fact is that I DID specify a password, namely "qaqa", just for test purposes, and was amazed not to see it in the Last_Session.ini. I also clicked the "Reveal/Show just here" box to check it was true. When the setup screen showed up, I entered the same password again, but since it's autologon I guess., I'm not asked to input it in VirtualPC.

Thanks a lot for the cmd lines, and I must tell you that I've seen unattended CD's where %OEM% is copied onto C:\. That's why I put %systemdrive% instead of %source% in the batch file. Also, in my first install on VirtualPC, the $OEM$ folder copied onto the system with over 4GB of software setup.

I guess strange things DO happen to everybody, not just OTHER people. I'm considering giving up. :wacko:

Thanks again.

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Sp0iLedBrAt, please don't give up. It just takes a while to learn the ropes. Please post a screen shot as requested before and of the Users tab. Look in your _U.ini and you'll see that the "qaqa" PW is applied to your personal account, not the Administrator's (no PW). If you look at the link on using $OEM$, you will see you can have files copied to the Windows and other folders, but the $OEM$ is not copied, at least in XP. I am not familiar with any other OSs. Enjoy, John.

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I just might have it all figured out :-)

I have succeeded in creating a fully unattended setup (although I was there all the time observing hahaha). The timezone isn't causing problems anymore, and I resolved the Administrator issue; it seems it was a matter of clicking: you choose the Administrator on the left in the list of users, but NOT on the right where you enable auto-logon for users; you choose "None" there, and you enter the password. I think I will now play with the .cmd file (saw that /qb /f doesn't work for windows messenger 5.1).

BTW johnhc, it seems I am not careful with details, as I just copied your proposed code where the batch file was named "COM.bat", when it was actually called "COM.cmd" and was dazzled when nothing happened hehehe.

What is the purpose of the line "TimeOut /T 40"? It wasn't recognized by Cmd prompt (screenshot "batch file.jpg"), or maybe the order was wrong (screenshot "runonce.jpg")?

You guys have been really helpful and you have my sincere thanks :BOW:

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Sp0iLedBrAt, I am glad you are making good progress! I have no idea why your TimeOut command is not found. It works fine for me (on XP x64), so maybe it is a XP thing. You could open a Command Prompt and try it. I tried it and the /T seems to have no effect. Kurt_Aust says it is to let the disk activity settle down (see the link I provided). You should have a TIMEOUT.EX_ file in your I386 folder. I am not sure it is really needed but I have left it in. Great work! Enjoy, John.

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Then your COM.bat entries should look like this (as many as you want):
Rem Directx
%Source%YourFolderNameHere\Directx\DXSETUP.exe /SILENT
REM Reboot
shutdown -r -f -t 90

I don't know if I should start a new topic for this, but I just wanted to ask if it was OK if the code looked like this (looking through the forum shows a lot of different ways to do it, making me a bit confused on what to use):

start /wait %Source%YourFolderNameHere\Directx\DXSETUP.exe /SILENT

As you can guess, I'm trying to avoid multiple installations at the same time, which causes errors.

Thank you in advance.

BTW johnhc, I don't have timeout.exe on my system or the XP CD, but I downloaded an NT4 version (I barely found it) and am looking through it at the moment.

Regards,

Sp0iLedBrAt

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