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Apply regtweaks (also HKCU) and install apps for ALL users


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I already tried his method by running this cmd file after RT 7lite loads the image (this way I don't have to register as an OEM and download 2GB OPKTools):.....

Well as maxXPsoft states you have DISM already, but, you need WAIK (or OPK) for imagex and also require the documentation/help files. I do not believe you have to register for anything to get WAIK. If you want a truly fantastic install, stable, solid, fast and all done without any real workarounds in a fully supported fashion use Group Policy in audit mode. If you are in IT or something and have a server, you can include a standard set of GP objects with your deployment. While this is a lot of work initially, the end result of using GP is phenominal; and much easier to maintain.

If doing all this on your personal desktop then a combination of editing GP in audit and reg file merging yields the same great results and of course requires a similar initial effort. No bandaids here; one is working from the inside out. :)

Anyways, each to their own, but, if your at all serious about deployment, or just good solid customization you will have to use WAIK sooner or later. Oh, and by the by, I do all my own; I don't use RT7Lite, or anything else for that matter. Right off the bat, you would have to know what the author is naming his mounted wim hives....mine are as delineated ealier in the thread. You would then have to name the branch paths in your reg files to match his nomenclature....pretty hard to see when there is no pause in the execution. :)

Edited by RickSteele
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.......O WAIT! I have even imported my regtweaks file in RTSevenLite! wich also applies the tweak to the wim source! Still they are not being applied. So either RT7lite is buggy or this method is also not working.

You have to understand that whenever you mount the wim hives each of the 3 separate hives must have 3 separate unique names. This is the root of your problem in this command. You cannot just load the hives without giving them a temporary name; herein is the problem, you do not know what RT7Lite is naming the hives when loading them, so, your command will do nothing. Plus, you have to watch for conflict For instance, as an example, if setup sees two conflicting GP objects it will load the last one read providing one is not user vs machine (user vs user or machine vs machine; machine=HKLM will override user=HKCU. If the first, say, machine object read contains x number of entries for many different modifications while the second machine entry contains only a few, you will loose all of the first and gain only the second. The two have to be combined into one entry before merging. Carrying this over to RT7Lite, if you allow RT7 to do anything in the registry, then, merge your files correctly, in a worst case scenario you will loose all of the modifications-at least part for sure. Your much better off using one method or the other-RT7 or yourself.

One other thing, if you install to VM and go into audit mode following 'tendo64's video, you can just customize the basic OS without installing any apps. Install SP1 (and any prerequisites first), all the runtimes (and any prerequisites first), DirectX, remove any features, apply your GP preferences, stop any services, apply any HCR and HKLM reg customizations etc. sysprep and capture the result as a reference wim. Now you have an up-to-date OS upon which you can add your apps, HKCU tweaks etc. that will not go obselete any time soon.

In a nutshell, you are not going to get what you want without first putting in the constructive time-RT7Lite is not, in my opinion, constructive. You can do a much better job of it yourself. :)

Edited by RickSteele
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  • 2 weeks later...

AddonKopierer

http://win-lite.de/wbb/board195-windows-7/board196-win7-tools-zur-image-bearbeitung/3585-addonkopierer-v0-4-0-0-0-4-0-7-beta/

Its a german addon integrator for Win7 that is roughly translated in English but does EXACTLY what you require.

I too am very much in your shoes in that I was deeply embedded in the methods of tailoring an unattended XP installation source, and as we all know, the movent lost a TON of steam since vista and still takes a lot of digging to get to the same functionality for Win7 UA installs.

Perhaps I'm lazy and just am in a permanent state of TL;DR - but to hell with mounting WIMs in and every darn time just add an app! BAH!

This little critter inserts addons to your install source in a separate addon folder, which you can then easily replace switchless installers with the latest ones (use the same exe name). My question is how do you do this process manually? I probably waited years for a utility like this...

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Loading Admin will only apply HKCU to him only.

You have to load a user to apply User tweaks. OK :yes: That is why it is called HKEY_CURRENT_USER

You cannot apply HKCU except

1. mounting image and applying to defaults.dat. I found some I wanted would not apply doing that so went back to #2

2. use a reg file during Firstlogoncommands and these are applied before desktop loads

3. Run a script for each user which he said he was going to do

I am sure there are a couple more way's with policies but even those don't get all I want and other such but #2 is easiest for me.

Edited by maxXPsoft
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  • 2 weeks later...

@maxXPsoft

the Firstlogoncommands is for all the users and the future users or only for the current user who you have done the unattended installation.

Yes that is why I said #2 works best for me. Have been doing this since first Vista beta.

The FirstLogonCommands setting specifies commands to run the first time a user logs on to the computer. These commands run only once.

Edited by maxXPsoft
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That was Exactly my point . Why would you use an account with lower privileges when you can use the 'Hidden Admin' with the highest Privileges?

Not everybody going to run as built in Administrator and the majority should not.

try to merge this reg file. Administrator account can't even merge this without setting permissions. Do you feel less powerful now? :whistle:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"=dword:a9400100
; Default is a0900100

TrustedInstaller has full permissions on that but Administrators group which Administrator belongs to does not

with UAC off I can do anything the Administrator can do.

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I am installing regtweaks during setup on my unattended usb key. Most of my information for doing this came from the FireGier guide for vista.

To summarize,

You will need two copies of your unattended file, these two files only need to differ by one setting. AutoUnattend.xml will have this line, second file (UnattendedOOBE.xml for remainder of this discussion) does not have this setting. I usually setup autounattend.xml and as a last step before copying to usb key create the UnattendedOOBE.xml from the autounattend.xml


<settings pass="oobeSystem">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment">
<Reseal>
<Mode>Audit</Mode>
</Reseal>
</component>
</settings>

This will cause setup to boot into sysprep mode.

You need to put a command to run during auditUser that will , generalize, capture the image, reboot the system back into OOBE and have it use UnattendedOOBE.xml config instead of autounattend.xml. This needs to be the very last command executed (as the system reboots afterwards).


<settings pass="auditUser">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment">
<RunSynchronous>
<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
<Order>500</Order>
<Description>Reboot into OOBE With Unattend lacking reseal</Description>
<Path>C:\Windows\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /quiet /oobe /reboot /generalize /unattend:%DVDRoot%\UnattendedOOBE.xml</Path>
</RunSynchronousCommand>
</RunSynchronous>
</component>
</settings>

During sysprep mode, system will be running as administrative user, to make those settings apply to the default user profile you need to put a setting into specialize pass


<settings pass="specialize">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup">
<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
</component>
</settings>

To get the %DVDRoot% I just search the drive letters looking for the UnattendedOOBE.xml file in the root directory: (I run this command both in auditUser and specialize passes but i'm not sure whether that's really necessary)


<RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
<Order>497</Order>
<Path>cmd /c "FOR %i IN (C D E F G H I J K L N M O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) DO IF EXIST %i:\UnattendedOOBE.xml SETX DVDRoot %i: -m"</Path>
<Description>Set Path For DVD</Description>
</RunSynchronousCommand>

Other things to note:

  • After making changes to the wim (e.g after mount / unmount commit) files, you need to open it up in WSIM and let it rebuild the indexes or whatever, it feels a lot like black-magic but this has fixed several of my problems with rebooting the system using UnattendedOOBE.xml
  • Registry tweaks are applied through .reg files during auditUser pass running command: REGEDIT /s C:\MyRegistryTweaks.reg
  • Installing apps during auditUser means those apps are available to any account in the system...

Hopefully i captured all the relevant steps here, you can refer to the firegeier guide if you run into any issues though.

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OP didn't want to do Audit Mode or I would have mentioned that CopyProfile

Important:

The built-in administrator account profile is deleted and recreated when you perform a clean Windows installation, or run the Sysprep tool. The CopyProfile setting is processed before the built-in administrator account is deleted, so any customizations that you make should appear in new user account profiles, including the new built-in administrator account profile.

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Now 2 weeks later I would like to replace Firefox in my uA_Win7 setupdvd with the newest Firefox 4 final. I would have to capture a new image right?

I want to be able to just replace the FF4 beta installer with the FF4 final installer. Done, finished, nothing extras. Not even modify the batch file or xml that executes the installers or whatever since all I have to do is make sure the setup filename is still the same.

This is the way I could do it for winXP and I'm looking for a similar method for Win7. Without having to create a personalized image to capture everytime I want to update my Win7 setup DVD.

I got the impression he believed audit mode was a manual process as is suggested by most of the tutorials on tech republic. Using copy profile as described, audit mode is applied inline during installation and is completely unattended. You can throw your apps on your dvd / usb stick and install your apps directly from there without changing the unattended process at all.

It is the equivalent of the old windows XP procedure.

Edited by SmokingRope
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