Windows Installer Helper Utility

[WARTHOG]

Hello,

First of all: this seems to be a really nice program! Good job.

But is it possible that someone could write a small "How to" guide? The site of Benjamin gives only information about command line options (= easy to understand), but I can't find information about how to use this program.

I've watched version 1.6 and 2.0 beta, but for example: I don't know where to put this program on my CD, or when I disable "Add Administrator rights to new user" does de new user gets limited rights??

Greetz,

WARTHOG

[midiboy]

I've watched version 1.6 and 2.0 beta, but for example: I don't know where to put this program on my CD, or when I disable "Add Administrator rights to new user" does de new user gets limited rights??

Hey Warthog,

mhh, it doesn´t matter where you put the program. You could either copy it to the system32 to have it on your system without adding the path to it or you could, as I do it, put it on your Windows Installation CD into any subfolder and call it from your runonceex.cmd in case you use this to install Windows unattended. How to call your software from an unattended CD is described here

Add Administrator rights does what it says ... it gives the user you just added administrator rights, meaning add it to the Administrator group instead of adding it to the Users group. You do the same thing when adding users in System control panel.

Bye,

Alex

[WARTHOG]

Midiboy,

Thanks a lot for your information! I really appriciate that.

Maybe I read the things wrong, but on a WinXP machine you have three types of accounts: Administrator (that's the account when logging in after unattend install)the "computermangager" (sorry for de bad translation, I use the dutch version ) and the limited user.

So as I understand, this program makes an account called Administrator (or "computermanager")??

Greetz,

WARTHOG

(P.S. ****, my Englisch sucks..)

[midiboy]

Hi Warthog,

I think you are mixing up groups and usernames. See, on every system you have a user called Administrator and a group called Administrators. You also have a group called Users and some other groups (which a normal user would rarely use ).

Now, you are not giving rights to specific users but to groups. At least that is the way to do it properly. So if you want a user to have all rights you put this user in the Administrators group. If you want him to have limited rights you put him into the Users group.

At least that is the basic use. Don´t mix up the Administrator account (user) and Administrators group. You could, I guess ( did´n´t try this ) put the Administrator into the users group and take him out of the Administrators group and then have an "Administrator" without any rights ! It is just a name. You could also rename Administror to something like "Looser" ....

Understood ?

So what "Give Administrative Rights" means is, put that user to the Administrators group !

Bye,

Alex

[WARTHOG]

Thnx Midiboy,

Your explanation makes it all clear for me!

I know the existence of Admin groups and user groups, but I didn't know that new accounts were placed into one of the groups... But thnx a lot!

Greetz,

WARTHOG

[BenjaminKalytta]

Update: There was a bug in User Creation Interface which is fixed now in beta 6.

Benjamin

[WARTHOG]

I've another question about thsi progam (again )

Is it right that I can change the ownername, the computername and the Administrator password with this program?

(for unattended install you have to make the file winnt.sif were you must save the ownername, the computername and the Administrator password. But when you use the CD to install Windows XP on several computers, you can't use the same the ownername, the computername and the Administrator password. So is it possible with this program to change this information? Hmm, I hope I am clear enough..)

Greetz,

WARTHOG

[BenjaminKalytta]

@WARTHOG:

Yes you are right this is possible with WIHU.

To change administrator name please use /admin=name or /adminpwd=password to set the administrator password.

owner name can be chanbged via UI or with /owner=name also computer name can be changed via UI or with /computer=name.

@all:

I'll not post here when new Version of WIHU released in future. This will just create much traffic here. Just look for new version at my web page in future.

I'll release version 2 now ... xml things will be may be added in future version.

Benjamin

[Alanoll]

Wow. I must have caught you're website between updates Open it up, I see 1.6, refresh I see 2.0.

Nice to see. Just when I find a use for it (remember what I said ) I need the ability to find a unique file and version in the system or registry, and WIHU does that. But I do have one request, for.... File.x.y or Key.x.y, could you make a NOT variable. like... File.0.1!4.0.1.9 or something. As when it equates to strings, what happens is it's 4.0.1.10, theyre not equal, so does WIHU automatically think that the file in the system is newer? With the not, we (I) could be able to pull a string value from the registry for the primary harddrive, to distinguish between my many systems, but it won't work with strings (theory, haven't tested).

[midiboy]

Hey Benjamin,

thank you very much for your work ! I am using Wihu extensively now !

I do have come across a small problem though. I don´t know if it is a bug or if I do not use your feature correctly but there seems to be a problem:

On your website, you state:

Wihu will expand %NewUserName% and %NewUserPassword% with the username/password that was specified before.

So I have added the following to install.ini:

Personal=D:\%NewUserName%

My Video=D:\%NewUserName%\Eigene Videos

My Music=D:\%NewUserName%\Eigene Musik

My Pictures=D:\%NewUserName%\Eigene Bilder

Favorites=D:\%NewUserName%\Favoriten

But as you can see in the screenshot below, the added user now has a folder named %NewUserName%. I thought Wihu will replace this variable with the name of the newly created user ....

But maybe I am misunderstanding things here ....

Also .... if I use the new /SKIPSOFTWARE switch ( thank you by the way ! ) will those environment variables in install.ini still be used ?

Thanks,

Alex

[midiboy]

Hey again,

I did not see any change using the /SkipSoftware switch. The Software installation dialog still appears .... mhh ...

Bye,

Alex

[BenjaminKalytta]

@midiboy:

Sorry, this was indeed a bug. Please download it again... is fixed now.

if I use the new /SKIPSOFTWARE switch ( thank you by the way ! ) will those environment variables in install.ini still be used?

Yes it will.

@Alanoll:

WIHU can do string and number comparison. How it works:

For key.x.y:

WIHU determines if the data given after ? character is a string or a number.

Accepted numeric characters are only 0-9 or (hex character in the way 0x0..9a..f).

It will then read out the value from specified registry key and compare this against this with given value. If the found number is greater, WIHU will treat the installable software as older and will unselect this software in WIHU software selection control ... and also add a "Warn" icon before it.

If WIHU determines a string (this also applys to File.x.y) WIHU will do a string greater/less compare. It will not just only compare against equalness.

What does this mean:

A file with version 1.2.3.4 is older than 2.3.4.5. This will corretly be evaluated by WIHU. This of course also applys to a registry key which may not only contain numbers. In this case WIHU do an alphabetical comparison. ABCD would be smaller than BCDE and so on.

Is there a need for NOT comparison? Couldn't this be done with greater/less comparison?

Benjamin

[Mr_Happy]

I just downloaded the most recent version, but I still get the "add software" dialog... Correct me if I'm wrong, but the parameter is \SkipSoftware isn't it??

[midiboy]

Hey Benjamin,

thanks, all works fine now !

In case you get bored .... a few very minor suggestions:

1. Would be nice if "Eigene Dateien" (Personals) would be on top of the Shellfolder list.

2. Would also be nice if one could change shellfolders not only for the first user but all the others that are created with Wihu too.

As always ... thanks !

Alex

[BenjaminKalytta]

@Mr_Happy:

No, please use /SkipSoftware

@midiboy:

1. Would be nice if "Eigene Dateien" (Personals) would be on top of the Shellfolder list.

Would make things harder ... don't know if I should change this. You know, if one bug is fixed, there are 2 new ones;) (in this case this isn't a bug but it make no big difference)

2. Would also be nice if one could change shellfolders not only for the first user but all the others that are created with Wihu too.

Generally this is possible, but is this really necessary? Another reason not to add this, is the problem with Windows 2000. It wouldn't support it right now and indeed it wont work at the moment, because to change shell folders, you have to logon each of this new user with "LogonUser" API. This is problematic on Windows 2000 in sense it requires SE_TCB_NAME privilege (Act As Part Of The Operating System) which is disabled by default in Windows 2000. To enable this privilege you have to restart the system which is problematic after unattended installation.

Benjamin