cdshell launch

[[BM]Crusher]

i've worked out how to use cdshell and have made a few multi-boot windows cd's and utility cd's....

a silly idea just occured to me and i dunno if it's possible so i thought i'd find out

from cdshell, can it be made to run a batch file before it loads the xp boot image?

i'd love a multi-boot cd that when you choose what operating sys you want to install, first it loads my custom batch file which creates a custom unattend file, then saves that custom unattend file to a ramdisk or somewhere and tells the xp boot image to use it... err, does that make any sense?

or should i forget about the xp boot image? just make cdshell boot a dos prompt and autorun the unattend generator then run winnt.exe? that would work maybe?

also, i've heard people mention that to run xp setup from dos, you need a fat32 partition or something? surely not!?!

[big_gie]

You can't run batch files from cdshell as it is not DOS and dont have a command interpreter like dos... Their is some limited things you can do with cdshell because of this.

Why would you like to create automaticly the answer file? why not create it and put it on the cd? Do you want multiple answer files? If so, look at this guide.

Or if you really want to run a batch file that will create an answer file and launch winnt.exe or winnt32.exe you could follow this guide (by me ) to pass parameters to memdisk so the variable(s) will be avaible under dos, accessible to a batch file.

good luck

[[BM]Crusher]

i've got a batch file that will generate the whole unattend file plus some other files..

it asks for name, organisation, admin password, computer name, workgroup, and gives options for removing lots of components one by one, plus it makes the user account and autologon files with username/password...

I use it to make the unattend files when I am burning an unattend CD specific to a user/computer for them to keep (usually a modified version of their original OEM CD) ... I just thought it would be neat to have one disk I can use myself on other peoples computers that generates the unattend file per installation, rather than using my own personal copy and running sysprep after it's finished...

truth be known i probably won't even find a good use for it i was just interested to see if i could use my batch file on a bootable CD

I will have a look at your guide