Profilesdir in winnt.sif not working

[digitalfrost]

I have trouble with the ProfilesDir option in winnt.sif with my XP SP2 Setup. When I try to login i get a error message that the profile could not be loaded and the folders in C:\ are f***ed up and my startmenu is empty. Here are the relevant parts of my winnt.sif, see the screenshots below for details.

Login error

Explorer

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

[Unattended]
	Unattendmode = FullUnattended
	OemSkipEula = Yes
	OemPreinstall = Yes
	WaitForReboot = No
	TargetPath = "\system"
	Filesystem = LeaveAlone
	Repartition = NO
	DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
	NonDriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
	Hibernation = No

[SystemFileProtection]
	SFCQuota = 0

[GuiUnattended]
	ProfilesDir="\users"
	TimeZone = "110"
	AdminPassword = *
	AutoLogon = Yes
	OemSkipWelcome=1
	OemSkipRegional=1

[Incroyable HULK]

This one is frequently asked! PLEASE ALANOLL make sure it is explained in the guide!

You have to partition and format the drive BEFORE your Unattended Installation. Setup only format the destination drive of Windows (default C:\WINDOWS)

And no, you cannot do this automatically with WINNT.SIF

Acronis Disk Director Suite 9 (Partition Expert) is the tool to have for that job!

[digitalfrost]

Windows setup is partitioning and formatting the drive during setup. As you can see I have no drive letters in front of "\users" because I want the folder to be on the same partition as the windows folder (and as you can see in the screenshot it is rightfully created there), thus I think your answer doesn't help me.

Edit: I just tested my setup with absolute paths, that means ich changed "\users" to "C:\users" and that works fine. However I don't want the users directory to reside always on C:\, some people install their windows onto D:\ or wherever and I want to have the users directory always on the same partition as windows. Maybe I found a solution for this problem: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...&hl=profilesdir

Testing now.

[Incroyable HULK]

Sorry I've read your post too fast!

I am not sure that you can specify a new name for Documents and Settings. I think it is intended for the location... I've never tested with other names.

[Unattended]
    ProgramFilesDir="D:\Program Files"
    CommonProgramFilesDir="D:\Program Files\Common Files"

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

Maybe someone could confirm...

EDIT: Maybe it can work with the FULL path "C:\users"

[Incroyable HULK]

Ok! great ... we where editing our post at the same time

Nice thing to know that you can use:

[GuiUnattended]
   ProfilesDir="%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\"

BUT only for ProfilesDir... probably because the User Account creation is done at the first GUI logon

[neuro42]

Users has to go into the documents and settings folder

(IE X:\$OEM$\$Docs)

Then you also have to have the proper user registry key and command line program to point to it

I think.

[digitalfrost]

I got it working : Screenshot

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

[Unattended]
Unattendmode = FullUnattended
OemSkipEula = Yes
OemPreinstall = Yes
WaitForReboot = No
TargetPath = "\system"
ProgramFilesDir="\apps"
CommonProgramFilesDir="\apps\common"
Filesystem = LeaveAlone
Repartition = NO
DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
NonDriverSigningPolicy = Ignore
Hibernation = No

[SystemFileProtection]
SFCQuota = 0

[GuiUnattended]
ProfilesDir="%systemdrive%\users"
TimeZone = "110"
AdminPassword = *
AutoLogon = Yes
OemSkipWelcome=1
OemSkipRegional=1

Well the solution was more or less in that other thread i linked . For ProfilesDir you _must_ use %systemdrive% while for ProgramFilesDir you must not.

Bill is moving a mysterious way...(stuff like this rarely ever happens with linux, but lets not discuss this here ^^)

Thanks for your help, though I found the solution more or less myself I wouldn't have found it without this (redunant) thread.

Now if there would only be a way to get \SYSTEM to lowercase...

[thracx]

I believe that you must specify a drive letter for ProfilesDir, where as for ProgramFilesDir or CommonProgramFilesDir, you don't need to. Or at least that has been in my experience of getting a custom ProfilesDir to work! It confused me during a few test installs. I have included the relivant portion of my WinNT.sif file that has worked on numerious WinXP-Pro-SP2 installs:

[Unattended]
    TargetPath=\WinXP
    ProgramFilesDir="\WinProgramsInstalled"
    CommonProgramFilesDir="\WinProgramsInstalled\~CommonFiles"
   ...

[GuiUnattended]
    ProfilesDir="%SystemDrive%\WinUsers"
   ...