Can I use an XP Pro upgrade CD?

[busb]

Hello

I'm about to attempt my 1st unattended install of XP Pro on my home PC. The reason for doing so is to move the Document & Settings folder, the Program Files & Program Files\Common Files off the boot partition to drive D. This seems easy enough, especially when using setupmgr.exe to create a winnt.sif file.

Is this possible using a slipstreamed XP Pro SP2 CD created from my original Upgrade copy? Will it merely ask me to insert qualifying media? I'm unfamiliar with this process which seems more about doing an unattended installation rather than my desire to move system folders.

I only have less than a day left before reactivation is required (I did a repair install after upgrading my motherboard, although I tested ACPI power management & m/b drivers by doing a fresh attended install to another partition (which didn't prompt for any qualifying media as it happens). This copy is virgin more or less & will at least allow access to all partitions for 28 more days. I'm trying to avoid activating my current repaired install because it's about to be ditched & I will also be adding new h/w incrementally such as new disc drives.

Some help here will be much appreciated!

Regards, Paul

[prathapml]

Yes, you can do whatever is possible with retail CDs using upgrade copies as well.

The settings put in the winnt.sif will indeed be used even with an upgrade CD. Just remember to boot-up from the CD, and do a clean-install (formatting C:\ drive). Yes, you'd be asked for your qualifying media - after that, its all the same.

Just to be sure, here are the settings which would be important in your case (incidentally, setupmgr doesn't deal with these settings, has to be done manually by yourself):

[Data]
    AutoPartition=0
    MsDosInitiated="0"
    UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
    UnattendMode=whatever-you-choose
    Repartition=No
    FileSystem=*
    ProgramFilesDir="D:\My Program Files"
    CommonProgramFilesDir="D:\My Program Files\My Common Files"

[GuiUnattended]
    ProfilesDir="D:\Documents and Settings\"

Those are to be in the winnt.sif. You can add more values to the winnt.sif, the above is just an illustration of what is especially needed to you (of course, you might already know the above).

Hoping this helps...

[busb]

Thanks for your tips!

I've tried twice without success - both failed at line 12:

;SetupMgrTag

[Data]

AutoPartition=0

MsDosInitiated="0"

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[unattended]

UnattendMode=ProvideDefault

OemPreinstall=No

TargetPath=\WINDOWS

ProgramFilesDir="D:\Program Files"

CommonProgramFilesDir=""D:\Program Files\Common Files"

[GuiUnattended]

EncryptedAdminPassword=NO

OEMSkipRegional=0

ProfilesDir="D:\Documents and Settings\"

[userData]

ProductKey=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

FullName="My Name"

OrgName=""

[RegionalSettings]

LanguageGroup=1

[identification]

JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Networking]

InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

[Components]

msmsgs=off

msnexplr=off

I'm not familiar withe the syntax to know which IS line 12, but guessing that we ignore the header, subheadings & spaces, it appears to point to the product code that works fine used manually.

A further question if I may. Do I need to create these folders on the D drive in advance of installing?

[prathapml]

There's no need to create the folders on D: drive. Setup will look after all that, so no worry on that count.

And no, we don't ignore the comment lines, header or section names.... So, the line 12 turns out to be the commonprogramfiles line. (just open winnt.sif in notepad, enable status bar from view menu, and it shows there the line number)

And what's making it error out? The extra quote in the value. (I think)

""D:\Program Files\Common Files"

(I mean, there is 2 of the "quote" symbol at the point that I have highlighted in red).

Hoping this solves the erroring out. Do post back on how it goes.

But there's no need for specifying it (or is there need for it? do correct me if this is wrong). I'd think since your "ProgramFiles" folder has already been specified as "D:\Program Files", your CommonProgramFilesDir *WILL* be "D:\Program Files\Common Files" even if you don't specify it in winnt.sif.

[busb]

prathapml

Success at last!! I've been researching how to achieve this for about 18 months & a clean install due to a new motherboard was the incentive to do it. I can't put into words just how grateful I feel for your help with this

I'm now in the postition where I can at least return a small snippet of information: the Program Files\Common Files folder must be specified or it will default to a 2nd Program Files folder on the OS partition. My 1st attempt with a new winnt.sif omitted that line with the extra quote then was rewritten to include it with the correct syntax for the 2nd successful install.

I inialally also tried to include monitor settings which didn't work - no matter, stuff like that can easily be done after installing. Other settings such as time zone were cut & pasted from the unattended.txt file generated by setupmgr.exe were incorrect & I suspect this version is a bit buggy (2180).

The 1st task after disabling System Restore was to install X-Setup Pro & change my account profile settings by moving most of stuff like Cookies, Favorites, Desktop, Application Data, SendTo (Shell folders) to a 3rd partition. I left the Local Settings system folder alone because it contains a small bit of the registry hive there.

If I trash the OS, my account or want to completely uninstall any application, I simply restore an image of drives C & D as a pair & hopefully rarely have to restore E where my data, settings & docs will be located but imaged from Task Scheduler on a weekly basis during the night (Drive Image 5 will reboot into Dos, image then reboot back into Windows then return to Standby mode). Some settings such as the date structure for IE History are actually stored in the registry & not in the History folder itself, so I can also schedule a batch file once a week to save these keys (Extensible Cache) in case I need to restore C&D. This way my system doesn't need much doing to it after complete restoration which takes less than 30mins. This setup also leaves my OS partition in a fairly read-only state where fragmentation will be minimal.

When I can afford a 2nd SATA h/d, I will remove my 1 remaining loud IDE disc & boot off the SATA array then connect both DVD & CDRW both as masters with 2 slave channels spare. Then I can buy a new XP3200+, 2x512MB PC3200 RAM, etc.....!

Once again, you helped me greatly with this project!

Regards

[MHz]

@busb

Congrats

@prathapml

Wisdom is good. You have done well here.

[prathapml]

@busb

1. This build of XPSP2 (build 2180) is NOT buggy. It is the final release version of SP2, been perfect all through, for me.

2. Your monitor settings (the [Display] block's values) will be ignored if the correct driver for your video card is not found during windows setup - if windows doesn't have the needed driver within its driver library, you can integrate the driver that you install after windows setup - so that it gets done during setup itself. That way, you save time on installing drivers, and also your monitor resolution, etc. will come up correctly as per what you specified.

2. The regional settings and time-zone do work - try checking up on the position of the [Regional Settings] block in winnt.sif. Some of the threads here had got their problems (of winnt.sif values being ignored) solved when they changed the position of the relevant section. So maybe a try could be given to that?

This is the order in which I have mine:

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]
[Unattended]
[GuiUnattended]
[UserData]
[Display]
[TapiLocation]
[RegionalSettings]
[Branding]
[URL]
[Identification]
[Networking]
[Components]
[SetupParams]
[Shell]
[GuiRunOnce]

It seems that (for example) having the [Components] block before the Identification block would leave [components] unprocessed.

[busb]

Thanks for your further information.

Regards