XP SP3 Unattanded - start.cmd timing.

[ziaxboss]

Hi I have made an XP_SP3 bootable disk using various methods including some from the recommendations on this site.

I created an OEM Dell XP_SP3 bootable which works fine. I am creating several of these install disks to suite various models and I was missing an OEM driver which was not available, so I created a start.cmd batch file to execute the setup.exe for the required driver (network for Dell Dimension 8300).

The install goes fine, however in course of the final stages IE6 is loaded. This is clumsey because the start.cmd does not wait until it is loaded before it executes its instructions.

This does not affect the instsall because there is a 1 minute delay for restart following installation od the driver, which provides enough time for IE6 to also finish installing.

My question is simple: Can I control the start.cmd to commence after installation of IE6 (so that the install is controlled and looks professional) Or is there a way of installing the IE6 automatically after the restart following succesfully reboot upon execution of the start.cmd batch.

Compliments to the chef of the "unattended Guide" recipe!

Regards

[Yzöwl]

I think you may need to explain yourself a little better.

We have no idea what the content of your start.cmd is, or what you are installing, (Is it the Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Driver). IE6 is already part of XP so does not need to be installed.

Are you telling us that a driver installation is opening your Web browser which as a result begins the IE6 first run/configuration steps. If so what is the driver etc. without this information we will be unable to find out if it is possible to supress this behaviour.

[ziaxboss]

The Start.cmd is simply a routine instigated in the winnt.sif ([GuiRunOnce]) to go to the Install/network folder and execute the setup.exe for the NIC driver. This driver seems not to be available in OEM format and won't install if included in the OEMdrivers path in the winnt.sif.

The IE6 installs at the end of the XP installation routine. This happens whether or not the start.cmd is in the winnt.sif.

The IE6 install is not an issue; it is the timing of the IE6 or the start.cmd routine that is a problem. As I said before it actually does not make any difference to the end result because the start.cmd allows 1 minute before is reboots the machine, which is enough time for the XP install to finish installing the IE6.

see below for start.cmd contents.

*******************************************************************

CLS

@echo off

TITLE Windows XP SP3 - Unattended Installation

ECHO.

ECHO Over the next few minutes you will see automated installations

ECHO of various sofware and driver applications, windows updates, and registry

ECHO updates. Your computer will restart automatically

ECHO once the whole process has finished!

ECHO

ECHO Please enjoy your pcbusiness.ca computer system.

ECHO.

ECHO Installing Network Drivers

ECHO Please wait...

start /wait %systemdrive%\install\network\setup.exe /qn

ECHO.

ECHO Restarting the PC in 1 minute...

shutdown.exe -r -f -t 60 -c "Windows XP will now restart in 1 minute, this provides sufficient time for the updates to finish and for the shell to fully load before it\'s ready to restart!"

ECHO.

ECHO Deleting Temp Installation Files...

RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\Drivers

RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\install

EXIT

****************************************************************************

As you can see there is no reference to IE6.

Below is some info form the INF file for the driver, I don't if that helps.

; e100b325.INF

; $Revision: 11 $

;

; Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapters

; PnP install script for Windows XP

;

; Version 7.0.26.0

Regards

[Yzöwl]

Have you read this?

[ziaxboss]

I am not sure what I am looking at.

I don't have a problem with the NIC driver. This installs when the [GuiRunOnce] line executes the start.cmd

in the winnt.sif.

The IE6 installs at the end of the XP installation routine, probably because it is part of the overall XP install.

The issue is whether there is a way to have the start.cmd execute when the IE6 has finished because as my configuration stands, the NIC driver is installed while IE6 is also installing or if you like while the last part of XP installs.

[Guest]

When the files that make up IE6 are copied over to their final destination, I don't know. Maybe the setup routine follows layout.inf?

At no point during setup do we see IE6 "installing". Are you referring to what happens after the final reboot - setting up address book, etc? See pic below...

If so, those are just settings for the user profile being added to the registry and creating the files/folders in Documents and Settings.

Edited May 13, 2009 by -X-

[Rich_Weiss]

How about beginning your start.cmd batch file with program called sleep.exe, which is included for free in the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools, and can be downloaded at;

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en

Place the sleep.exe program in a location that is accessible to your start.cmd batch file, then simply add the sleep.exe command to your start.cmd batch file, and it will pause your start.cmd for X number of seconds, and then continue processing, allowing sufficient time for your ie6 to finish configuring.

Syntax is Sleep.exe X

Where X is time-to-sleep-in-seconds

[Martin H]

If e.g. using RunOnceEx and wanting to add a tweak or run an app which needs explorer.exe to be fully loaded, then we need to make a workaround...

To workaround this, then you can make your RunOnceEx.cmd to call start.cmd from 'HKCU\...\RunOnce' which will start after explorer.exe has been fully loaded - if however, another key has been used before that, like e.g. 'HKLM\...\RunOnceEx'(= the key used in the RunOnceEx install method), since if only using 'HKCU\...\RunOnce' without any preceding keys run, then 'HKCU\...\RunOnce' is run before explorer.exe has been fully loaded(dispite popular belief...).

Do something like this at the bottom of your RunOnceEx.cmd:

reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce /v command0 /d <PathTo>\start.cmd /f

Then also in the beginning of start.cmd, it's a good idea to make a break just in case(the break alone will not work, and all the above is mandatory!). The break can be initiated by abusing the ping command like e.g

ping -n 10 localhost >nul

Change -n 10 to how many secs you want the break to be...

Edited May 13, 2009 by Martin H