When and where to apply my RegTweaks

[Ctwizzy]

Ok I have looked and found 2 solutions to this.

I am using WPI so here are the 2 solutions I found.

One was by Astalavista.

He said to put the following in the $OEM$ directory my tweaks.reg file and a cmdlines.txt file that has

[COMMANDS]
"REGEDIT /S tweaks.reg"

He then says that this will just automatically pick it up. While I dont doubt asta as he is vert knowledgable, I wonder how this works???

The other idea was to run the reg file directly in WPI as an app and make it be selectable.

Which is the better way, and is there a better way yet or more proficient way?

[Dahi]

Use cmdlines.txt and tweaks.reg for registry settings that you want applied to all your unattended installs.

Use WPI to allow you to select which optional tweaks you want applied.

[oioldman]

Could always take a look here

Http://unattended.msfn.org

and you'll notice it explains all very well on when and how regtweaks.reg is applied and what it does

[Mike_Wilson]

The way Astalavista says is a good way to do it.

Im guessing from your post you dont seem to understand how it works.

When placing the file in the $OEM$ folder this is the default place which wont be placed on your drive but the root of the unattended which the Winnt.sif picks up.

SO

When you put the following commands in your Winnt.sif

[COMMANDS]
"REGEDIT /S tweaks.reg"

The Winnt.sif looks at your $OEM$ folder and will execute the file silently when setup is finished with the /S switch.

Another way would be to put the tweaks file in $OEM$/$1 which will be copying the file to your drive ie. C:\ and then executing this with command below, but this requires a cleanup cmd or something to delete it afterwards.

[COMMANDS]
"REGEDIT /S %systemdrive%\tweaks.reg"

Simple but effective.

[Ctwizzy]

Thanks Mike, that helped. I was just confused as this is a cmdlines.txt and I didnt understand how it would use the textfile.

So your saying to take that entry out of the cmdlines.txt and put it in my winnt right?

[Yzöwl]

No, Mike has accidentally said winnt.sif instead of cmdlines.txt, just leave it as it is in cmdlines.txt.

Rest assured that the file regardless of its .txt extension will work...It's Special

[Ctwizzy]

Ah ok, so leaving them in $OEM$ is good. When does it apply them though? Before or after?

As I also want to apply file associations and doing that before would be pointless. Maybe ill just install the app and then have a reg file follow with file associations (using WPI).

[Yzöwl]

They will be applied at the T13 /T12 stage of the install i.e. 13-12 minutes left, and don't worry about the associations being applied before you add the app, the entries aren't checked against anything, so they will still apply.

The only thing now is that you should probably only apply the reg settings which are not application specific using cmdlines.txt, just in case you choose not to install it at WPI. In these cases you would be better off adding them as additional items in your WPI install.

[Ctwizzy]

OK thanks.

What else can I put in cmdlines.txt?

[Mike_Wilson]

ah sry bout that, I was rushing to reply before I went out. Thanks to Yzöwl for correcting me

Also for your current question try reading here,

http://unattended.msfn.org/global/cmdlines.htm

[Ctwizzy]

Tested this out, some of the tweaks were applied, a lot were not.

Ive seen a lot of posts abut people complaining that not all tweaks are being applied. Should I change how I do this??

[oioldman]

No, the method is fine.

If your applying some to do with apps, then your better applying in the runonceex before and atfer an application install.

If they are general ones applying to XP, then check they are correct. Two ways to do this are;

use something like virtualpc

or use regshot to do a before, make change, grab file of changes and see if it is different to what you were applying.

[Ctwizzy]

On second look I dont think any of my tweaks were applied. The only one I could see was that there was no screensaver set at startup, when there usually is.

this is what I have in $OEM$

a cmdlines.txt file which reads

[COMMANDS]
"REGEDIT /S tweaks.reg"

and tweaks.reg is in the same dir

am I doing something wrong?

[Yzöwl]

It may be a good idea at this stage to post your tweaks.reg so that we can verify its structure etc.

[Ctwizzy]

Here is the reg file.

tweaks.reg