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need some help....


jdgordon

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gday all,

well ive decided studying is a waste of time so instead i have started writing a program that will start the XP (or 2003, and maybe even 2000) install from inside winPE (or bartPE...), basically its a frontend to edit the winnt.sif answer file (like boreds (i tihnk it was bored who made it?) cept im doing it in win32 c and not .NET so it stays small and easy to run in PE..

so before i do too much work on it, has some1 beat me to it? no? good :)

ok the second thing is can some1 explain how to get XP to install to a designated hard disk and fix it up so its actually bootable?

reading a bit on the subject i know that once i have the answer file i just run winnt32.exe with the commands like setupmgr.exe makes in the bat file... but it has to have the hard disk first right?

also, sorta unrelated. ive got partition magic 8 going on my bartPE cd but when i try to format a partition it gives an error #702 ?????

thanx

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Sounds good. :) I think you should familiarise yourself with the winnt32.exe commands first though. Here's what I use:

"C:\XPCD\i386\winnt32.exe" /syspart:E: /tempdrive:E: /unattend:C:\XPCD\i386\winnt.sif /s:C:\XPCD\i386

This would install Windows X to the E drive. Leave that to run, and it will install unattended from that point on.

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So ok here is what I get; You want to write a program that launches winnt32.exe from WinPE, now will this be a shell i.e. will it replace the CDM.exe /K in setupreg.hiv , if so Cubie was working on somethng like this, if it is to be used inside WinPE, like a seperate program to launch an install you will have to make it very customizable, do to the layout of everyones CD/DVD's surely vary a little, ex. mine is in XPPRO folder at the root of the drive. This I am assuming can be accomplished by relying on the user to input a correct batch file. I am in no way knocking your idea I think it is great, just giving my worthless $.02

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its gonna be a seperate program so u could run it from wherever..

im doing it so i can goto different computers and do the install fully automated but u can do different options on different comps without reburning the xp cd with different winnt.sif files

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I have configured WinPE to install Windows using a combination of HTA's and VBscripts. This setup takes the initial input from a user, (Computername, domain/workgroup, Admin Password, etc), and runs Diskpart and or formats the C drive, writes several scripts, copies the I386 folder locally, then runs setup.

I have a couple different versions of my WinPE OS load.

1) for work, will load OS, then launch a patches script, then launch our Standard Application script which will install all of the normal desktop apps that are used here, i.e. Office, WinZip, Acrobat Reader, Virus Scan, etc.

2) for home, will Load OS, then launch a couple patches (I.e. RPC patch).

The Work version stores all needed files on the network, while the home version has everything on the CD.

If there is any interest I can post my code here, but might be easier to post a zip file of the scripts. Not sure of the rules on the forum for that.

Mike

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Here are some files that I use when setting up a server. I need to continue workin on this to re-add support for Windows XP/2000.

I had to strip a lot out to get it posted but it really only files that can be downloaded.

1) Unzip file and place the Custom folder in the root of PE.

2) Take the OC.bat and Startnet.cmd and either replace your copies or combine them. OC.bat contains code that will prevent a reboot loop, while startnet.cmd contains an updated Path.

3) The server i386 folders. Place them inside the appropriate folder in the custom\server folder. I.e. Windows 2000 Server Standard would go in the W2KS folder and look like root\Custom\Server\W2kS\i386\

4) The patch file for MS03-039 (rename it to just the Q#) and place it in the respective folder in \custom\supportfiles\MS03-039\Media\Win2003\Q123456.exe

5) Build PE boot CD

6) Should be good to go.

If you have any questions please let me know. I will work on getting my OS version up here also. This will be built on the Server version.

Mike

PERoot.zip

PERoot.zip

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well... its always good when i have tests to study for, it means i have lots of time to program :) ( the exe is only 44kb)

anyway, if any1 is interested this is what i have so far... atm it only deals with the data and unattended aand guiunattended sections in the winnt.sif file and it SHOULD install windows when u click ok and then "Do it!"..

so.... if any1 has a pe disk handy and a virtual pc and a few min spare could they please test the installer with their winnt.sif file? i need to know if i got the command to exe winnt32.exe correct and i dont really want to risk my xp install if it does work :rolleyes:.

so. to test it... click "install windows" then save the winnt.sif file somewhere (but dont use this file as it wont be finfished..., then click no, then click the 2 buttons with the "..." and point the ifrst to the winnt.sif file u want to use, and the second to winnt32.exe, and lastly type the driveletter into the droplist (havnt done the code for that yet) then click do it

also, if any1 has suggestions... and would any1 like to contribute a background and an icon?

thanx

btw... if there is a winnt.sif file in the same folder as the exe it will load the defaults from that file. also DONT CLICK "DO IT!" ON YOUR MAIN WINDOWS, if it works it will screwup windows (i think)

PEXP_installer.exe

PEXP_installer.exe

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:) How does path work in WinPE? are they relative or absolute since they are on CD? can one address the path by using ..\ on (CD)?

I will try your stuff out this weekend and see if it works out for me. I l0v3 your .hta and that is just what I have been looking for.. :rolleyes: time to get busy!

Catch ya on tha flipside...

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:)  How does path work in WinPE? are they relative or absolute since they are on CD?

The way that I found to use PATH in PE was to use %systemdrive% as the CD is setup as the sys drive when booting to PE.

I have made some minor updates to the files (re-added OS support) and am testing them. I hope to post them today, if not it may be a couple weeks out as I am not working next week (in training).

Good luck. I will try to check in next week.

Mike

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@jdgordon

Can you make your program more versatile by allowing to alter all the values for each section

for example for [unattended] section, add

DriverSigningPolicy=

FileSystem=

I would like the ability to set the maximum of options and run your program under WinPE

I have found an other program winnt.sif creator that can do the work but unfortunately, needs .net framework.

So can't be run from WinPE.

Regards

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