Hang at final boot

[pdtx]

My nLite .iso seems to install just fine until it gets to the final boot. Then it hangs on a screen showing Windows XP on a black background with the message Please wait... If I turn off the Acer Aspire laptop and then turn it back on It boots into the new installation with no problem. The only thing that seems not to have been installed are the RunOnce stuff. All the drivers are present and all the options I selected in nLite seem to be there. I would like to have an .iso that completes the install without hanging. Any ideas on what my problem could be?

LAST SESSION.INI

[Sp0iLedBrAt]

The session file looks OK on first glance. I've removed much more than you and got it working. You could redo the driver backup with DriverMax and not include Microsoft drivers, only the machine-specific ones. They are the ones nLite needs for your PC, as the others are already on the XP CD. If you know that your SATA drivers integrated fine, then you'll be fine. This time, create an ISO with Mkisofs and test it in a virtual machine to make sure all goes well. Also, do not rename the updates and hotfixes, as the order is not relevant; nLite will not replace a newer file version with an older one. If you don't have Windows Media Player 11 integrated, then use the forum search and find a post by -X- on which Windows Media updates to integrate. Report back.

Cheers

[Guest]

It's your WMP updates. They cant be directly integrated with nLite. It hangs at OOBE because it tries to play a sound and WMP is broken.

See this thread the he mentioned ( ) and grab the WMP add-ons from my site...

http://xdot.tk/updates.html

[GrofLuigi]

CleanBiosInfo (is it "remove OEM old bios information"?) can lead to this, especially if it is a non-standard CD. And I see it's non-standard (probably OEM) because it removes a directory SW_VER that is not present on standard CDs. So OOBE (Windows Activation) will hang. (edit: I'm not 100% sure about this, because I have forgotten the description, but I never remove it myself because I THINK I have been burnt by this).

Maybe even the setup calls something in the SW_VER directory, so it hangs whan removed.

Also, in my opinion, this is a wrong way of installing drivers (everything in one go, extracted from a previous installation/machine, so you inherit the flaws and older versions that installation/machine had). Only few drivers are necessary (to boot, only one - SATA controller). Basically, what Sp0iLedBrAt said.

Also, hardware removal seems a little odd for my taste. Are you sure you will never connect another printer, scanner, camera etc. to this computer? If you want to go hardcore, I can tell you (after comparison with my ini) that you will never have CPU Transmeta Crusoe, ALI IDE Controller, Toshiba PCI IDE Controller etc. (OK, those may not be present in your OEM CD).

Hardware removal can lead to many tears few months later.

Other notes:

- I don't know what DelDrivers is. Sounds dangerous.

- We don't know the contents of your tweaks.reg. And why is it called twice?

- Are you sure partition D: is defined at install time?

GL

Edited April 28, 2011 by GrofLuigi

[Sp0iLedBrAt]

- We don't know the contents of your tweaks.reg. And why is it called twice?

True. I saw that too, and don't remember how I forgot to mention it.

Cheers

[submix8c]

I believe (google'd) DelDrivers is just a "signal" in an INF for removing Driver Files Listed. Integrating ALL Drivers should be fine unless REMOVING (DUH!) then ADDING BACK (don't know what the effect would be...). "Tweaks.reg" called twice sounds like maybe this isn't a clean nLite run? "SW_VER" is (usually) a superfluous folder (look at the contents - example is .CVA files that are text) that simply goes hand-in-hand with the OEM CD#1 (the Restore To Factory CD). I have a couple of sets, specifically for HP/CPQ tucked away in case relatives "blow up" their PC, right off the Recovery Partition or supplied separately ( I don't trust them anymore ) - the CD you refer to is CD#2. "CleanBiosInfo" (won't swear to this) appears to be to a signal to "strip" OEM Branding files (would have to test this) and are SOMETIMES within that "extra folder" (maybe even a pre-existing $OEM$ folder?). As -X- said about certain "direct integrations" - ABSOLUTELY true (MUST use "Add-On" or "roll-your-own")!

[pdtx]

-X- solved the problem. I downloaded your batch file and filled a folder with updates which I then used in nLite. Setup finished with a little Windows music. Another reason to not like WMP.

On this last install I also used all the drivers extracted with DriverMax including the Microsoft default drivers. Everything was fine in Device Manager.

Deleting the SW_VER folder just saves a few bytes on the .iso.

My registry tweaks file was listed twice because I noticed that when I merged the file manually I had to do it twice for some of the tweaks to take. What difference should it make if I merge it a hundred times - its just writing the same lines into the registry.

Why should I want to include hardware options I will never use? This is an Acer laptop computer. What hardware could I add that wouldn't come with any drivers that may be required?

Thanks to all of you for looking at my problem. My .iso works now and I am happy.