Various Problems Using XPCREATE

[crashking]

I am no stranger to batch files and I have tinkered a bit with windows installations, even made oem pre installs back in the day. For some reason I cannot get xpcreate to work. I have been workin on making a cd for 4 days now and I am about to set my pc aflame and dance around as it burns.

OK OK on to the problem......

First off I understood that on the first try of xpcreate it was supposed to download some of the fixes should you tell it to...Hooray I thought

Not so I have done away and re-installed many times....all I get is empty folders.

I can look past that just going to take some time(some = massive amounts).

I even tried using the command line and the url in the xpcreate.ini to download the files manually(using the downloader) to no avail

I thought hey stupid RTFM so I read help file after help file only to become more lost...the essential hotfixes as listed on ...well I think it is greenmachines site, has several folders I do not have, I added them, I found a posting on this site that lists the files a gentleman used. I downloaded them and spent a few hours on microsofts site, I have about half of them.

My next bout of confusion comes from the cmdlines.txt and the winnt.sif, I have a friend who has created something like this before and he did not even use a cmdlines.txt. I can figure out the winnt.sif I think I just don't want to undo or redo something xpcreate does. I have no idea what to put into cmdlines.txt

I tried to use files that I had already extracted to my drive(a cd dump of the files and an extracted boot.bin) but even after editing my xpcreate.ini it does not see them.

now for the info

basically what I am trying to do is make a win2k cd with the sp and hf slipstreamed while adding in drivers for my onboard raid( i would like to get drivers for my nic etc as well but I really just need the raid)

I currently have all of the updates done on win2k I thought maybe I could get them from my hdd but that also failed.

any help is appreciated......at this point just a point in the correct general direction would be nice

[frankiboy_01]

Let me try to get some light into your darkness of frustration:

1) Download XPCREATE and install it into an empty folder on your HDD

2) Start XPCREATE.CMD

(This will create all needed folders [empty!] - nothing more.)

3) Place your Windows original CD in your CD-ROM drive.

4) Start XPCREATE.CMD again.

(NOW the real process will start and copy your CD content, get the hotfix list, download the hotfixes, installs them, creates the ISO and burns it.)

So that are the major steps to perform.

For any detailed changes (especially considering the XPCREATE.INI) see GM's homepage. But the program should work with the defaults.

Furthermore you said, that you wanted to create a Win 2K CD, so I checked the XPCTHLST.TXT (Hotfix list) on the server.

IT IS EMPTY.

So with this empty file XPCREATE is unable to find any hotfixes. One of the Admins is possibly reworking the list - so re-check later

@ Greenmachine: Do you know the hotfix list for Win2K Pro ENU to be empty?

You also said, that you downloaded the required hotfixes from MS. So put them in the right folders (again refer to GM's website), set DLAUTO=NO in XPCREATE.INI and give it another try. (With this setting you disable the automatic hotfix downloading.)

Hope this helped a little...

[GreenMachine]

Welcome, crashking, to MSFN!

I think frankiboy_01 has given you enough to get you started. Many of your questions are really not XPCREATE related, and perhaps you should first try to better understand the Unattended Concept (http://unattended.msfn.org)

As for the hotfix lists, they are empty for the moment, as I am between versions. You will have to manually place the correct hotfixes in the corresponding directories ...

[crashking]

OK cool so I am not crazy....ok maybe I am but anyway. played with the thing a bit got it to work now just one more problem......extracted the boot image from my cd(win2k) and used it for xpcreate....everything was cool untill (menacing music here) it tried to burn the cd. I thought hey no problem I will just use nero to burn it but no can do because evidently the boot image did not get into the iso and I cannot add it to the cd with nero and still burn an image. Any suggestions

[GreenMachine]

I would need to see the log files to understand why the boot image did not get added. Post them, and I will try to look at them tomorrow (no time today).